Roland D-50 Waverom. Anyone care to donate wav samples?

[Lotuzia]

Hi,

Just chiming in to add my humble two cents :

Facts : D50 samples/waveforms are copyrighted. Though the DCO oscillators are another part of the LA synthesis, most of the "famous" patches of the D50 (like Pizzagogo aso) rely mostly on PCMs.

Resynthesis and sampling : Sampling, like transmission of the waveroms, wich could result in making commercial material out of it, is clearly prohibited by Roland.

Resynthesis is another problem we came through when betatesting Morphine, with uses an additive resynthesis engine. I have here to say that there were different thoughts about this in the team. Some did think it wasn't a problem to use commercial sampling libraries and resynthetise it, while others, including me, didn't feel confortable with the idea of stealing other companies material, wich certainly did put a lot of work to build the libraries.

So that in the end my personal feel is that its mainly a problem of individual ethics. I only made some presets wich didn't make use of existing sampling commercial libraries. But this was an invidual choice. I did make some instruments using patches I had designed for other (pure synths) Vstis however.

Else : I still have a D-50 and for some (probably nostalgic or bad )reasons am a fan of some ot its patches like the Arco Strings . Whenever possible, I always try to recreate this kind of patches when designing some collections for a Vsti (Like I did some Arco D-5Oesque Strings in Rpcx Blue and Sytrus for example)

So that Imo there's no need to steal the waveforms from the D-50 to achieve famous patches recreations.

Just my two cents here though.

LtZ

[Xenos]

Well...............

After thinking over this over a good night's rest, I think I really shot from the hip with the original post. It was an idea out of the blue and didn't give much thought before posting. I don't want to take any chances of pissing off the folks at Roland, so I'm just not gonna go there. For anyone who got their hopes up, my apologies, but after some consideration, I would not feel comfortable accepting any sound clips . I gotta play safe lol.

[john808kid]

I have started to recreate the classic D-50 Soundtrack patch in my XV-5080 (well, it's not perfect yet, just got busy with other things) and it's actually quite hard to do. Soundtrack only uses VA waves (no samples) and the 5080 does have some samples of the D-50 waves in it's ROM, but the 5080 has no PWM (it's not a VA, it's a rompler). Even so, I've got pretty close to the character of that patch, but it's still quite far away in the details...

You mean this sound?

http://www.synthmania.com/Roland%20D-50 ... dtrack.mp3

Absolutely love this patch!!!!

If there is a sound bank for Zebra with the D50 as inspiration, then please please please include this patch

[contrary]

jeeze ,
just the inkling of the sheisters not being pleased and we all duck fer cover ... who was that wise roman who said killemall ??????? It,s a old piece of circuitboards and lead pcb's at that , so why can't we have a modern replacement '

P.S.

I have seen "D-50ish" In patch names before , .... just make it and call it something else , you think they have an army of people looking to screw with little folk (er.. like the RIAA! )


Program on brother

[beej]

That's the one. It's a classic patch, and heavily overused... but I like it...

When I get a second, I'll try to do a Zebra version of it, it should be plenty capable...

[kevvvvv]

john808kid

You mean this sound?

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

Absolutely love this patch!!!!

What a beaut

Thanks for the little treat

[1-2-Many]

. . .
I would not be using any samples of the D-50 in any commercial work. Is this still overstepping my bounds? If so, then I'll have to scrap the idea.

No, it is not. Carry on.

The issue some folk are having with using the D-50 PCM wavs is a non-issue if you consider that they're really nothing special by today's standards and just Don't Use Them.

If I were to tackle this idea I would do a comparative listen to the original wavrom and come up with better samples for each one, somewhat like you've planned. This would take a lot of time and effort to do it right, plus some good taste/ear with the choices you make, but I think the end result would be something much better in terms of the wavs.

Beside using the D-50 wavs, I think some people are also having issues with copying the whole package (architecture and such) to achieve the 'sound' of a D-50. This infringes nothing, as there is no proprietary synthesis approach within the D-50. Just be careful how you discuss it - i.e. don't use their buzzword 'LA Synthesis', which is basically just stacking a one shot sample onto the beginning of a sound (ala Ensoniq ESQ-80, Korg M1, or Yamaha SY-99). Nor should you refer to it with/as any Roland name or product (Call it the Xenos Z-50). Besides that, this 'emulation' approach has been done many times over in VSTi land.

So...Carry on

[Xenos]

Man, I'm suprised at the amount of encouragement here. I've been thinking about this sort of stuff all day today. Personally, I love the sound of the the D, JV and XP synths. My programming chops really took off after buying an XP-30 some years back and figuring out how the presets in it were programmed. I know my XP-30 inside and out and absolutely treasure it (even bought the Vintage Synth and World expensions for it). The thought process of programming in those synths is practically hard-wired into my head nowadays, so the influence can't help but show when programming similarly capable synths. Eric Persing and his work with roland synths is my greatest influence and I look up to the guy. My goal is to possibly do sound work for Roland someday, just like he did.
With all that said, here is the deal: I'm chicken shit intimidated by the thought of myself or anyone else getting on the bad side of Roland's lawyers. My hobby has become a business, so I have to play the game like a good businessman (minus the part of pissing off the paying customers, though lol).
After careful consideration, I have come up with an even BETTER idea, but for another project at a later time . Sometime within the next couple of months, I will be in contact with Roland's legal department to see if I can obtain permission to carry out some ideas I have and to know EXACTLY what I can and cannot do, straight from the horse's mouth. I don't wish to use the actual samples, but merely emulate them via various combinations of synthesis types, effectively creating "bigger, badder" versions completely from scratch. If I get the OK from them to do what I want to do, I will go ahead and just buy a D-50 outright so I have it handy for reference to compare and contrast my work with. Always wanted one anyways.
I have noticed that some folks have gotten into trouble even just emulating their stuff via pure synthesis without contacting them first (303, 808, 909 emulations, Junox2 (I think), etc). Their lawyers don't mess around. I might not like the way things are, but I certainly have a healthy degree of respect for those who have the power to make life uncomfortable for those of us who dare misbehave .

[cyanogen]

Speaking of clever programming, that reminds me of the time I was digging around the presets of my XP-30. I was surprised to find out that the Glass Clouds pad was created with a bass sample (double bass, I think), and not a saw wave. I never would've guessed just from listening.

Please let us know what happens with Roland. I'm curious to see how your project turns out.

[kavia]

Sampling, like transmission of the waveroms, wich could result in making commercial material out of it, is clearly prohibited by Roland.

How so?

That could only be done by an agreement.

When i went shopping for a D50, i payed the synth, and the invoice proves i'm the legal owner of that synth unit.

I did not have to sign anything where i had to agree with such rule(s).

Legally i could even reverse engineer the software because i did not have to sign an agreement that prohibits that.

Of course i would have to take care not to break any patents.

But audio waves cannot be patented. Only techniques.

Conclusion: If there is no explicit purchase agreement that you had to sign, you're free to do with the synth's audio what you want. It's your synth!

All imho.

[Xenos]

Speaking of clever programming, that reminds me of the time I was digging around the presets of my XP-30. I was surprised to find out that the Glass Clouds pad was created with a bass sample (double bass, I think), and not a saw wave. I never would've guessed just from listening.

Please let us know what happens with Roland. I'm curious to see how your project turns out.

Amen, brother . The programming in that synth really tought me to keep a very open mind. This concept was put to heavy use in the creation of Wusikstation's Tesseract expansion. Some of the wildest sounds in there were created from the most mundane and silliest of sources (i.e., belching into the mic, recording various kitchen items, my cat's various vocalizations, etc, then altering the results and saving them for use as waveroms to integrate into a patch).

[beej]

But audio waves cannot be patented. Only techniques.

PCM samples are covered by the recorded works copyrights, which Roland (actually, much of the samples in many Roland instruments are actually Spectrasonics owned, and under license to Roland) owns.

In any case, buying the synth lets you use those recordings in your own works - it does not give you the rights of ownership of the recordings. You would be forbidden, for example, for taking the waveforms and uploading them to the net, or using them in other commercial products and so on.

[kavia]

Mmm, indeed, sounds like lawyers can make a point of it.

I would have to investigate this deeper, but won't spend the time.

[kavia]

Still, i think it's a strange situation.

Copyrighting a waveform??

So if i write a little program that makes all possible combinations for a 256 point 16 bit waveform table, then i own the copyrights on all waveforms? (except the ones already taken)

Sounds too easy.

Isn't it so that there is a minimum length for audio/music before you can call copyright on it?

Also another thought:

IF Roland indeeds owns copyrights on the D50 waveforms, then when/where did Roland give me the permission to use it in my own works?

I did not know anything about that, and so by just playing my synth i may have been doing an illegal act all the time

And IF they would have copyrights on those waveforms, isn't it their responsability to put a notice in the manual, or on the synth itself, so to inform the user of the synth that he must take care what he does with it?

[beej]

It's a sound recording. Just like a copy of "Thriller" is a sound recording.

Doesn't matter whether it's one second, or one hour, it's still the copyright of the owner.

This has been talked about at length here - if you really want more information, do a bit of searching...