best roland D-50 VST alternative

[fmr]

Wavestation..M1..they both have filters now and does sound quite 80's ish with samples ranging from cheesy to great..

is this not available as a VST to buy anymore?

seems like it was but can't find it now...

edit found it i think.

what is electribe wave?

https://www.korg.com/us/products/softwa ... ollection/

[Examigan]

Wavestation..M1..they both have filters now and does sound quite 80's ish with samples ranging from cheesy to great..

I have both, love those! I just wish the displays were larger.

[Elektronisch]

Did not played with D-50 that much, but by the sounds it provides:

Korg M1
Xpand 2

Maybe worth to check those?

[rod_zero]

The d50 boutique cost almost the same as one year of subscription to their cloud.

[AdvancedFollower]

Wasn't Ana 1 somewhat similar? It also had the separate attack oscillator and normal oscillators...

Yeah, it does S+S (Sample+Synthesis). It depends on whether you want to slavishly re-create the D-50 or you're just interested in playing around with S+S. Ana 2 has 3 wavetable oscillators (including traditional analog waveforms) as well as 3 sample oscillators that can play back custom 1-shot or looped samples.

[dellboy]

Its been a long time since I played a D50, but Expand2 would surely get you pretty close to the D50 sound. Much easier to program too, just select out of the four sounds available and go. Expand2 is a very underrated synth with a massive potential sound-set just a twiddle away.

[Teksonik]

Add another recommendation for XPand!2. Of course it doesn't have the D-50 specific samples so you won't be able to do some D-50 patches like Native Dance (thank god) but most of the moving evolving pad sound are quite possible. Not 1:1 but D-50 style patches are quite possible.

XPand has four Layers and that's where the magic happens. That's how you build up those D-50 style sounds. Load up strings on one layer, choir on another, some Shaku or Bottle Blow, some bells in the background and boom you're there.

I've spent a lot of time with Xpand because it reminds me so much of the rack mount synths I still own but are gathering dust.

The great thing is XPand can sometimes be found on sale for as little as a dollar but the best price I could find this morning was $9.99 at Reverb.com.

There was also a thread here where people were giving away XPand 2 licenses so maybe there is still one up for grabs.

[whyterabbyt]

Sound On Sound review of Blue II made this observation:

]Not so visibly obvious is the considerably expanded waveform menu. All the original Analogue, Additive and Spectral waves are there, joined by 315 sampled waves (if I counted correctly) split up into nine groups: Samples A & B, Tuned Percussion, Percussive A, B & C, Samples ST (stereo/stacked) A & B, and Samples ST Big. This takes Blue 2 into territory rather reminiscent of the Roland D50; in fact the bottle blows, bells, glass and metallic hits are highly suggestive of that venerable synth. There is one major difference: this is not the memory-challenged 1980s, so unlike the very short PCM samples of the D50, these have proper length. Percussives decay naturally, many waves are either stereo, multisampled, velocity switching or all of these, and sustained samples (including some very decent stereo choir and string sounds) have commendably inconspicuous loops of a reasonable length. It's like the dream D50 that Roland never built, so now Blue 2 can add Deluxe LA synthesis into the cross-fusion melting pot.

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/rob-papen-blue-2

(Of course you get similarly-80s FM and PM with that.)

[AdvancedFollower]

The great thing is XPand can sometimes be found on sale for as little as a dollar but the best price I could find this morning was $9.99 at Reverb.com.

There was also a thread here where people were giving away XPand 2 licenses so maybe there is still one up for grabs.

It has been on sale for $1 on a few occasions, and it was even given away for free together with Vacuum Pro and Hybrid 3 a few months ago. All three plug-ins are great, especially for that "price". Some might have a spare license laying around.

[yul]

XPand 2 has good samples yes buteach layer is not easily modulated (ex, pitch enveloppe, LFO etc..) like the Korg or Roland so you cannot get the same result exactly.

[Teksonik]

XPand 2 has good samples yes buteach layer is not easily modulated (ex, pitch enveloppe, LFO etc..) like the Korg or Roland so you cannot get the same result exactly.

No one said Xpand!2 could get exactly the same "results" as Korg or Roland. I simply said it will do D-50 Style sounds.

Of course it would be nice to have other options for each layer but I doubt there will be any major updates to XPand......

[fluffy_little_something]

Xpand2 is mature the way it is. Sure, synth-like editing is limited, but there is lots of content and with those 4 layers and few, but useful parameters one can easily build unique sounds.
If I got that right, it uses several types of synthesis, not just samples.

Just combined a few more or less random layers:

https://app.box.com/s/i1n3rm0hyv1k04oea2z6ixwes5fqt84q

[bmrzycki]

If you're looking for 1:1 reproduction of D-50 your only options are Ebay, Roland Cloud, or the Roland Boutique D-05.

However, if you're looking for software that captures much of that spirit and vibe I'd recommend Omnisphere. Eric Persing was the chief sound designer for the original D-50 and he still has a love it (so much so he did a Roland advertisement video for the D-05). His love of melding samples + dsp synthesis is all over the sounds in there and some are very reminiscent of the famous D-50 patches. 2.5 added sample loading so you can add any sound you want to a layer too. I honestly consider it the spiritual successor to the D-50 in many respects.

[layzer]

yeah, M1 without the cloud BS... for sure.

RavityS and Purity offer good 90's rompler sounds
with a tiny footprint as well

[Examigan]

yeah, M1 without the cloud BS... for sure.

RavityS and Purity offer good 90's rompler sounds
with a tiny footprint as well

+1
Purity is 64-bit now too, so that’s a bonus. It’s Windows only, but that’s ok by me.