#Roland

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The Roland D-50 is a synthesizer produced by Roland and released in April of 1987. Its features include digital sample-based subtractive synthesis, on-board effects, a joystick for data manipulation, and an analog synthesis-styled layout design.

The external Roland PG-1000 (1987) programmer could also be attached to the D-50 for more complex manipulation of its sounds. It was also produced in a rack-mount variant design, the D-550, with almost 450 user-adjustable parameters

The D-50 has been used by musicians including Prince, Sting, Michael Jackson and Enya. The D-50 has also been used by Jean-Michel Jarre, Tangerine Dream and the Pet Shop Boys in various years, since the synthesizer came out in 1987.

The D-50 was the first affordable synthesizer to combine sample playback with subtractive synthesis. The engineers at Roland determined that the most difficult component of an instrument's sound to simulate realistically is the attack. To better emulate realistic sounds, the D-50 included 47 attack samples in ROM.

The synthesizer played back an attack sample which was dove-tailed with more conventional subtractive synthesis to create the sustain of the sound. This dual-use method was required in 1987 since RAM was so expensive. Roland did, however, incorporate a number of texture samples that could be mixed into the synthesized sustain part of a patch. These sustain samples gave many D-50 patches a lush and airy quality.

The Roland D-50 was awarded a TEC Award for outstanding technical achievement in musical technology in 1988