Hi there, I have an opportunity to buy a Roland D-10, and i know nothing about it, i play the sax and guitar, and want a keyboard to use for creating backing tracks, and to experiment with a few different sounds, i have been using a Korg X5, and it suites me fine, but if the roland is any better i may purchasse that, any ideas will be appreciated

The D-10 won't provide as good sound quality as the X5. This is simply because the Korg X5 is a much newer model and has much higher quality samples & effects. The D10 isn't really even a sample based synth like the X5. It has waveform partials which were used for the attack phase,loop phase & drums and used those in combination with the onboard synth engine. Compared to the X5 the D10 sounds muddier & noisier. This wasn't a fault at the time as all early digital waves synths (including the Korg M1) exhibit the same types of problems, it was the state of the technology at that time.

It was a great keyboard when it came out, but I tend to think that buying one now would only really be a consideration if the price was low enough ie. $250 or less, otherwise I'd look around for a more modern Roland keyboard such as a JV30 or JV80 which probably won't cost much more but will sound better than the D10.

Hi,
I have a different opinion from Nigel, and nice experiences with D10. If you know, how to do own tones and drums, sometimes the D10 give you better sounds than some any new model. I use D10 for five years and I am statisfied with this. It is able to provide cool sonds for blues, folk, rock, and jazz too.

regards,

Les

mididudes@hotmail.com

Help. I have a d-10 I'd like to connect to my pc (pentium II-233, midi cable, sound blaster sound card...). What software should I use to so my pc can communicate with my d-10. Do I connect my midi cable to the midi
port on the sound card. What software should
I use if I want to play a midi file. Where's
the best site to download midi files. Thanks

Hi Noel,
have you got an installed midi device driver in your PC? So if not,you have to install one, which is supported by your soundcard. A frequent reason of faliure is the wrong connection.
The correct connection at D10: connect the midi out plug to midi in of d10 and midi in plug to midi out of d10. To play midi files I use Cubase, I recommend you this software.

regards,

Les

Having played both D10 and JV80 go for the JV80. Except from the drumtrack-sequencer there is almost NOTHING that a D10 can do which a JV80 cannot do, the exception is the ringmodulation. Basicly the two synths share the same concept "sampleplaying" but the samples on the JV80 is WAY better.
The sounds on the JV80 besides the synthpads are so much better. The JV-pdas are a little to "nice & clean" to my taste.