Roland D50 Microtrack No. 1

As part of my One Synthesizer Sound Every Day project I am producing a series of microtracks inspired by the textures of factory presets or custom patches, found or discovered within a variety of electronic instruments. Today I’m presenting the first of these microtracks that I produced using my Roland D-50. I have had this synth since it was new. Yes, the one with the custom, spray painted, yellow stripes on it. Back then I had to have my father co-sign a loan for me to afford it. Although it was impossible to sample with it, the D-50 had a huge variety of sounds possible at the time using the built in 8-bit PCM sample library combined with Linear Arithmatic Synthesis or LAS.

I lost interest in the D-50 to analog, sampling, and modeling instruments for almost a decade, rarely bringing it out to use as a controller, or for an FX patch here and there. After seeing Roy Ayers keyboard player using one recently, I’m rediscovering the instrument as well as enjoying the nostalgia of hearing it again. One thing I don’t miss about it is how time consuming it is to program your own patches. Without the PG-1000 (BTW: I’m looking for one of these) it is a very tedious process, although it does have a joystick to modify selected values.

Fortunately the wealth of presets available for the D-50 still makes it a desirable instrument. To create this track I used the “Clock Factory” preset to produce a percussive loop. I can’t claim this composition as my own, since I’m simply playing a key and using aftertouch to alter the pitch, but it’s fun to appreciate the evolving patches that the Roland engineers managed to come up with.

Clock Factory

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About John CS Keston

John CS Keston is an award winning transdisciplinary artist reimagining how music, video art, and computer science intersect. His work both questions and embraces his backgrounds in music technology, software development, and improvisation leading him toward unconventional compositions that convey a spirit of discovery and exploration through the use of graphic scores, chance and generative techniques, analog and digital synthesis, experimental sound design, signal processing, and acoustic piano. Performers are empowered to use their phonomnesis, or sonic imaginations, while contributing to his collaborative work. Originally from the United Kingdom, John currently resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota where he is a professor of Digital Media Arts at the University of St Thomas. He founded the sound design resource, AudioCookbook.org, where you will find articles and documentation about his projects and research. John has spoken, performed, or exhibited original work at New Interfaces for Musical Expression (NIME 2022), the International Computer Music Conference (ICMC 2022), the International Digital Media Arts Conference (iDMAa 2022), International Sound in Science Technology and the Arts (ISSTA 2017-2019), Northern Spark (2011-2017), the Weisman Art Museum, the Montreal Jazz Festival, the Walker Art Center, the Minnesota Institute of Art, the Eyeo Festival, INST-INT, Echofluxx (Prague), and Moogfest. He produced and performed in the piece Instant Cinema: Teleportation Platform X, a featured project at Northern Spark 2013. He composed and performed the music for In Habit: Life in Patterns (2012) and Words to Dead Lips (2011) in collaboration with the dance company Aniccha Arts. In 2017 he was commissioned by the Walker Art Center to compose music for former Merce Cunningham dancers during the Common Time performance series. His music appears in The Jeffrey Dahmer Files (2012) and he composed the music for the short Familiar Pavement (2015). He has appeared on more than a dozen albums including two solo albums on UnearthedMusic.com.

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