If Roland made a D50 vst emulation, would you purchase it?

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If Roland made a D50 vst emulation, would you purchase it?

Yes, as long as it was reasonably priced.
164
45%
Maybe, I would consider purchasing it.
65
18%
No, I don't have any interest in such a product.
98
27%
Fish
39
11%
 
Total votes: 366

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What's the CPU use like with this?

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Ingonator wrote:
AlesisVi61 wrote:I actually have two soft-synth versions of the D-50 and I never played it or knowingly heard it from any artist on the radio,at the time...as I've been totally unfamiliar with it...ever since it came out back in '87.
Actually...I could not care a less,about the D-50...but bought it anyway. :D Why you may ask?Well...I bought both UVI's Digital Synsations 2 and Synth Anthology and the D-50 just happened to be thrown in with many other synths.
Now that I've played it,it's interesting to me,especially since the version in Digital Synsations 2,is a beefed up version of the original.It's actually a combination of the original synth and it's modular counterpart and not only was it sampled to perfection,there is also new content in it.
I bought the Digital Synsations 2 for the Ensonique Fizmo and the Kawai K5000....but the D-50 is unique and very useful.
I bought the Synthology 2,because it has Alesis and Akai synths(among many others)...so that said,I voted Yes,that I would buy the D-50 if it were reasonably priced...because inadvertently,it was! :lol:
The new Roland D-50 emulation is the first proper emulation that emulates the full synth engine with all parameters.

UVI Digital Synsations like the other UVI "emulations" is a sample library with a nice scripted GUI added.

There are also several nice Kontakt libraries with a nice scripted GUI but at the end those are still sample libraries.

FWIW i got UVI Falcon but that is a full featured synth with tons of features.

With a sample you could hardly emulate the PWM of the D-50 as included with the new Roland D-50 emulation. With samples could could just capture PWM at fixed settings.

Creating D-50 patches from scratch including all original parameters (and there are quite a lot) should be only possible with the official D-50 plugin too.
This also includes all original PCM ROM samples of the D-50 being available which was forbidden by Roland to be included with products by other developers.
Thank you for all of the info,as it's interesting...but I won't lose any sleep over the fact that UVI's emulation of the D-50,isn't as tweakable as the original keyboard(or an accurate recreation from Roland)...as I am just not that interested in the D-50(obviously.)
As it is...I have plenty of much more interesting soft-synths with amazing tweakability,such as Reason 9.5,Serum,Arturia,Vacuum Pro,Hybrid 3,Loom,TubeOhm's PurePone 10 and eventually...more in the works,such as Reaktor 5,Prism,Monark(once I figure out why none of it is showing up in my DAW's.)

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aMUSEd wrote:What's the CPU use like with this?
CPU use is really low. With the "Staccato Heaven" preset the CPU load shown in Live 9.7.2 64-bit is at a maximum of around 4% (with up to 8 voices) using an Intel i5-3350P Quad Core CPU in Windows 10 64-bit.

With the D-50 plugin there also does not seem to be a "blurry" GUI if you increase the size.
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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AlesisVi61 wrote:
Ingonator wrote:
AlesisVi61 wrote:I actually have two soft-synth versions of the D-50 and I never played it or knowingly heard it from any artist on the radio,at the time...as I've been totally unfamiliar with it...ever since it came out back in '87.
Actually...I could not care a less,about the D-50...but bought it anyway. :D Why you may ask?Well...I bought both UVI's Digital Synsations 2 and Synth Anthology and the D-50 just happened to be thrown in with many other synths.
Now that I've played it,it's interesting to me,especially since the version in Digital Synsations 2,is a beefed up version of the original.It's actually a combination of the original synth and it's modular counterpart and not only was it sampled to perfection,there is also new content in it.
I bought the Digital Synsations 2 for the Ensonique Fizmo and the Kawai K5000....but the D-50 is unique and very useful.
I bought the Synthology 2,because it has Alesis and Akai synths(among many others)...so that said,I voted Yes,that I would buy the D-50 if it were reasonably priced...because inadvertently,it was! :lol:
The new Roland D-50 emulation is the first proper emulation that emulates the full synth engine with all parameters.

UVI Digital Synsations like the other UVI "emulations" is a sample library with a nice scripted GUI added.

There are also several nice Kontakt libraries with a nice scripted GUI but at the end those are still sample libraries.

FWIW i got UVI Falcon but that is a full featured synth with tons of features.

With a sample you could hardly emulate the PWM of the D-50 as included with the new Roland D-50 emulation. With samples could could just capture PWM at fixed settings.

Creating D-50 patches from scratch including all original parameters (and there are quite a lot) should be only possible with the official D-50 plugin too.
This also includes all original PCM ROM samples of the D-50 being available which was forbidden by Roland to be included with products by other developers.
Thank you for all of the info,as it's interesting...but I won't lose any sleep over the fact that UVI's emulation of the D-50,isn't as tweakable as the original keyboard(or an accurate recreation from Roland)...as I am just not that interested in the D-50(obviously.)
As it is...I have plenty of much more interesting soft-synths with amazing tweakability,such as Reason 9.5,Serum,Arturia,Vacuum Pro,Hybrid 3,Loom,TubeOhm's PurePone 10 and eventually...more in the works,such as Reaktor 5,Prism,Monark(once I figure out why none of it is showing up in my DAW's.)
Those are the more modern synths, but this is an emulation of a older synth with its own tweek-ability. If you aren't interested in the D-50, then why comment at all?

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aMUSEd wrote:What's the CPU use like with this?
Very light.

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Ingonator wrote:With the D-50 plugin there also does not seem to be a "blurry" GUI if you increase the size.
I checked the assets - the native full size of the graphics is the max "200%" setting, so they got that right (at last) - scaling down for the smaller sizes, rather than scaling up for the larger sizes.

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beely wrote:
Ingonator wrote:With the D-50 plugin there also does not seem to be a "blurry" GUI if you increase the size.
I checked the assets - the native full size of the graphics is the max "200%" setting, so they got that right (at last) - scaling down for the smaller sizes, rather than scaling up for the larger sizes.
That's how everyone are doing it these days (U-he and Klanghelm comes to my mind)

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Examigan wrote: Those are the more modern synths, but this is an emulation of a older synth with its own tweek-ability. If you aren't interested in the D-50, then why comment at all?
Um, check the thread title mate, it's inviting people WITH and WITHOUT interest to comment on a D50 plugin.

BTW: Here's an interesting thread from a few years ago on the D50 PWM

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=324195

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kmonkey wrote: That's how everyone are doing it these days (U-he and Klanghelm comes to my mind)
Sure. Except *all* Roland's previous plugins, so it's notable they got it right this time, hence the comment.

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Those are the more modern synths, but this is an emulation of a older synth with its own tweek-ability. If you aren't interested in the D-50, then why comment at all?
I didn't say I was entirely disinterested(but that in the past,I had no interest.)Currently...since the D-50 was included in the software bundles I had bought recently,I decided to make the most out of my purchase and at least play around a bit with them & I do like some of the sounds & have found some use for them..is all.
Why did I comment in this thread to begin with?Well...I was taking a break from my frustration with my installation problem with my newly acquired Komplete 11 Select and when I saw this thread title,I was a bit curious about it,since I have a couple of software programs with the D-50 in it.

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Ingonator wrote:With a sample you could hardly emulate the PWM of the D-50 as included with the new Roland D-50 emulation. With samples could could just capture PWM at fixed settings.
Maybe some enterprising chap could produce a 8TB sample library of every possible combination of every parameter... add some phase-aligned morphing across one very large matrix and you're rolling... Finding the loop points could take some time though...
You need to limit that rez, bro.

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kbaccki wrote:
Ingonator wrote:With a sample you could hardly emulate the PWM of the D-50 as included with the new Roland D-50 emulation. With samples could could just capture PWM at fixed settings.
Maybe some enterprising chap could produce a 8TB sample library of every possible combination of every parameter... add some phase-aligned morphing across one very large matrix and you're rolling... Finding the loop points could take some time though...
LOL!

Of course, the PWM only applies to the synth's VA oscillators. It's not hard to do. Again, this isn't rocket science. If what one means is that the average person cannot easily emulate the D50 with existing software in a direct way, ok, that's true. However, if what you mean is that a developer, even one with only moderate skills, or an advanced user could not get close enough that it doesn't matter, then it simply isn't true, assuming, of course, that one has access to the original samples.

This gets even easier if one just wants a D50 like instrument that replicates PWM and the use of short samples and a late 80s Roland like digital chorus and reverb.

In other words the PWM, chorus, and reverb are not that special technically and neither is the rather simple sampling engine.

As I said, a broad sampling approach is not the way to emulate the D50 if one wants to. The only thing that's held this back is the IP restrictions and Roland's aggressiveness. I'm not even judging there really, it's their shit, whatever. Let's not pretend, however, that there's much magic going on in the D50. It's a pretty simple instrument by todays DSP standards.

Check the thread that I posted for people replicating the PWM with other synths.

If you want to recreate old D50 sounds, the Roland product is the way to get there, no doubt. A lot of purists will jump on it for that reason. Let's see how everyone feels after the shiny wears off though.

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ghettosynth wrote:Let's not pretend, however, that there's much magic going on in the D50. It's a pretty simple instrument by todays DSP standards.
[...]
AFAIK there is already a synth using emulation of the D-50 architecture. In case someone forgot - it's TubeOhm Vintage
Of course it's not quite the same, because 32b SE and different sample content, but still.
There was also another one IIRC, from different manufacturer, also using SE or similar framework.

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beely wrote: I checked the assets - the native full size of the graphics is the max "200%" setting, so they got that right (at last) - scaling down for the smaller sizes, rather than scaling up for the larger sizes.
WHAT? That's the only change that's needed to solve the blurry problem? AND STILL THEY DIDN'T? :dog:
Fernando (FMR)

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ghettosynth wrote:[

In other words the PWM, chorus, and reverb are not that special technically and neither is the rather simple sampling engine.

As I said, a broad sampling approach is not the way to emulate the D50 if one wants to. The only thing that's held this back is the IP restrictions and Roland's aggressiveness. I'm not even judging there really, it's their shit, whatever. Let's not pretend, however, that there's much magic going on in the D50. It's a pretty simple instrument by todays DSP standards.
As i tried to point out earlier it's not about certain features like e.g. the PCM samples, PWM, Chorus, Reverb etc. but it's the sum of the part which makes a synth sound great or not. Of course also sound design skills do matter to get great sounds from a more or less "simple" syynth. If the D-50 is simple or not is another question and if the amount of features really matters too.

Countless musicians had used a D-50 and also a Minimoog to create music and the amount of features is not what is always the most important thing.

The fact that Roland does not want that anyone uses their D-50 PCM samples is another story but we have to accept this (and at least for using a copy of the raw PCM samples i might even understand it). The D-50 plugin they just have created themselves seems to be graet even if there are still problems like e.g. missing Sysex import or the subscription model (which both might be solved in the future or at least one of them).

As a sound designer it seems to be more simple to get interesting sounds from a synth with tons of features and if the resulting sounds are also really great is another story but a really good sound designer IMO should be also able to get great sounds from a synth with limited features.
This might require a more deep knowledge of the synth engine that you could not get after having just used it for a more or less short time.
With very complex sounds you get from a synth with a complex synth engine the question for me is always if a sound is also usable in a track or if a sound just sounds graet on it's own.
Personally when doing sound design i try to do soudns that are really usable and are not just done as a kind of demonstration of what a synth might be capable of. If a sound serves both purposes (usable and sowning the features) it's even better.
Also with a complex synth i sometimes only use a part of the available features. I do not feel to be forced to use most or even all available features if it is not necessary for the sound i currently want to do.
For example with wavetable synth i sometimes only use a single waveform in a wavetable if i do think that wavetable scanning does simply not fit to a sopecific sound/patch. In other patches wavetable scanning might be an important part of the sound i want to have.


Recently somehow people at least here at KVR seem to want that all synths will have a more or less similar feature set. If a more limited synth that still sounds great is published the first thing many people do (often before tehy actually played with the synth themselves) is asking for tons of additional features before they actually tried to use the features already included.
In my opinion it is impossible to build a single synth that will cover everything that is possible. Such big synth will always lack in specific features compared to more limited synth that does a specific feature and/or sound much better in comparison.

For example UVI Falcon with it's modular apprioach has tons of options but specific modules still lack cetain features or lack in the reulting sound. For example the analog filters incuded do not seem to be at the same level as the best analog modeled filters available at the moment.
As a substitution for e.g. The Legend it will simply fail IMO even if Falcon has tons of additional features. Same is also true for most of the other "big" synths that include tons of features.
Synthmaster 2.8 with the new modeled filters might get better in that respect but still i do not see it as a proper Minimoog substutution.
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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