Roland D-20 v D-50 pt 2: Comparing sounds, sound demo

[@Jefuslives]

I did all my composing back in the day on the D-20, and used D-50 for performance. Great synths!

[@patsonmusic]

Nice! During which years did you use them and did you also make recordings with them?

[@Jefuslives]

Performed between 1987 and 1994, and then did session work until around 2000.

[@dwsel]

It sounds that D-20 has lesser number of operators and no delay. Does it have ringmod?

[@patsonmusic]

It does not have operators in a DX way, but it have oscillators. As with the D-50 the D-20 sound is made of 1 to 4 parts and you can choose if you want to use oscillator waves only and/or samples for creating attacks mainly. D-20 has ringmod and other effects built-in, very digital though, so I would prefer using external effects.

[@oupahens9219]

The D50 has upper 2 oscillators and lower 2 oscillators, that has been streamlined in the D20 to 4 oscillators per voice. But in the D20 U can stack voices on the same midi channel. So U can create then a mono sound with up to 32 oscillators, which is mind-blowing. For that extra fat bassline. The D20 has more "algorithms" than the D50 to combine virtual analog saw and pwm with samples and ring modulation.

[@patsonmusic]

@@oupahens9219 Thanks for these insights! I have to admit, I actually did not think about stacking several sounds to the same midi channel and using them for mono bass. I think as a user you should really make your own sounds on the D-20 because the first impression a little bit disappointing, when just playing presets. Many Roland synths have this problem with not so great factory presets. However, the D-50 has great presets and that is probably the reason why there were so much (over) used on albums in the end of 80s

[@doordedeur]

The saw wave of the D-10/20 is also a pulse wave, but modulated.

[@oupahens9219]

@@doordedeur but these waves can only be altered with "velocity", which is a total bummer. Who the heck wants to do that with velocity. MV1, aftertouch, LFO are the tools to control PWM, like in the D50. D10 made a sacrifice to maybe accommodate the then Multies on the same chip.