Roland D50 patches on Xw?

[amaverick]

The roland D-50 had two great patches I would love to have. Staccato Heaven and Fantasia. Almost all keyboards since the  D -50 have a version of these patches. Does the XW-P1 have anything similar ?

 

If not, I would appreciate any suggestions on starting sounds to create hex layers to recreate these. Fantasia was a twinkly bell and synth pad type sound. Not to sure about staccatto heaven. 

 

I'm going to try to create a hex layer to create a Fantasia style sound.I'm going to have to brush off my owners manual first.

 

 

[AlenK]

Late reply but I'm reasonably sure the P1 can emulate them. There are PCM waves with similar names that _might_ help: "Heaven-A" (0497), "Heaven-B" (0498), "GM Fantasy-1" (0575) and "GM Fantasy-2" (0576).  I'm not in front of the synth now so I can't audition them to see how close they might be or if they might be useful as a component in a Hex Layer.

 

[uPDATE: Based on listening I believe that "GM Fantasy-1" and "GM Fantasy-2" are already combined in the PCM Melody tone "GM Fantasy" (P2-8 under VARIOUS) and it's not unusable as an imitation in a pinch. The "Heaven-A" and "Heaven-B"  waves OTOH are not what I assumed from their names and I don't think will be much help building a clone of "Staccato Heaven".]

 

For anyone not familiar with these now-iconic sounds here is Staccato Heaven on the D-50:

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland%20D-50/Audio/Factory%20preset%20demos/61%20Staccato%20Heaven.mp3

And here is Fantasia on the D-50:

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland%20D-50/Audio/Factory%20preset%20demos/11%20Fantasia.mp3

 

Other D-50 sounds I personally like:

Soundtrack:

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland%20D-50/Audio/Factory%20preset%20demos/37%20Soundtrack.mp3

Spacious Sweep, my all-time favorite:

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland%20D-50/Audio/Factory%20preset%20demos/47%20Spacious%20Sweep.mp3

 

PS. If you view on an iPad using Safari you won't see the audio player links above because iOS doesn't support Flash. Here are the bare links.

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland D-50/Audio/Factory preset demos/61 Staccato Heaven.mp3

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland D-50/Audio/Factory preset demos/11 Fantasia.mp3

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland D-50/Audio/Factory preset demos/37 Soundtrack.mp3

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland D-50/Audio/Factory preset demos/47 Spacious Sweep.mp3

 

For Fantasia there is a free Soundfont sampled from the D-50 that might be useful to G1 owners (but of course not for P1 owners) after some sort of conversion: http://soundfonts.homemusician.net/synth_lead_soundfonts/198-d50_fantabell.html

 

Here is a D-50 editor VST. The UI screen-grabs happen to show some of the parameters for the Fantasia patch: http://www.vst-control.de/D50v.html

 

I couldn't find any detailed analysis of a patch other than "Soundtrack," which is analyzed on this page where you can hear all of the other D-50 factory presets: http://www.synthmania.com/d-50.htm

 

PS. I don't know how close you got to Fantasia with your "Fantasia XW" patch. I haven't had time to try out everything you and Double P are uploading (you guys sure are prolific!). But don't feel too bad if you don't nail either sound exactly. Even Roland can't do it with a Jupiter 80! The last time they had any success was in the VSynth-XT, which included a full-on emulation with all the original PCM waveforms.

[Display Name]

The patches listed above are some of the best known D-50 patches. So well known that they have made their way into the General MIDI soundset. You should be able find the "SoundTrack" tone in the GM tones somewhere. 

[AlenK]

amaverick wasn't lookng for that one but you're right, Soundtrack is indeed there (P3-7 under VARIOUS) . But it sounds NOTHING like it should. It gave me a laugh the first time I heard it. Frankly, none of the GM versions of Soundtrack I have heard hold a candle to the original D-50 patch. But the P1's version is the worst I have heard yet. Hex Layers will have to come to the rescue if anyone wants to recreate that one with more fidelity.

[Display Name]

amaverick wasn't lookng for that one but you're right, Soundtrack is indeed there (P3-7 under VARIOUS) . But it sounds NOTHING like it should. It gave me a laugh the first time I heard it. Frankly, none of the GM versions of Soundtrack I have heard hold a candle to the original D-50 patch. But the P1's version is the worst I have heard yet. Hex Layers will have to come to the rescue if anyone wants to recreate that one with more fidelity.

 

 

Yes the hexlayer is what you need. The original sound used 4 tones set a 5th apart. Mike did a great version on the PX-5S preset "Ice Castles" - surpasses the original D-50 sound. I use it in the "One Giant Leap" video I made.. sound starts at around 3min.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiG6Fldn0V0

[amaverick]

I was doing my Fantasia from memory. After hearing the sound clip above, I can tell my memory is wayyyyyy off. Back to the Hex Layer drawing board

 

I cant remember ,but did the d 50 have some way of mimiking FM synthesis. I find it tough to get a good bell sound on my XW-P1

[Display Name]

I was doing my Fantasia from memory. After hearing the sound clip above, I can tell my memory is wayyyyyy off. Back to the Hex Layer drawing board

 

I cant remember ,but did the d 50 have some way of mimiking FM synthesis. I find it tough to get a good bell sound on my XW-P1

 

The D-50 used very short samples for the attack portion of the sound and used Liner Arithmetic  Synthesis for the rest of the sound.. This was a breakthrough.. also it had built in effects which made it a DX-7 killer. 

http://www.vintagesynth.com/roland/d50.php

[AlenK]

One thing available as part of the linear arithmetic stuff is ring modulation. It allows two partials, which are either PCM samples with volume envelopes applied or traditional analog-style oscillator-filter-amplifier chains, to be multiplied together. Another option is to sum (add) one of the partials with the ring modulator output, which technically results in amplitude modulation. Either method can give you great clangorous bell sounds. I have a patch on the D-10 that sounds like a tower full of bells being played by Quasimodo. Great stuff.

It's not well appreciated that with the D-50 Roland implemented virtual-analog synthesis years before Clavia came out with the Nord Lead (five years to be exact). Some people will claim that the D-50, and the lesser D-series synths that came after (D-5/10/20/110), don't use a "real" virtual filter, as if that somehow has any meaning. Or they will object to the lack of controls, saying that a "real" virtual analog synth has to have scads of knobs or sliders. Attach a PG-1000 to the D-50 and now you have more sliders than most any synthesizer, certainly more than any poor Nord Lead model. Deal with it, Clavia.