![]() If you're looking to develop your D50 still further, go and buy yourself a librarian/editor with your hundred quid. It may be what you are looking for but personally, I'd strongly recommend its predecessor. That's not to say that there aren't good, usable voices - there's a wide selection of strings, brasses, percussion, and the inevitable sound effects amongst many others. ![]() At one point I wondered if I might have heard one too many D50 patches, so I reloaded some original factory sounds alongside my own patches and some from Volume I - the D50 still has magic PA's Volume II hasn't. Nowhere on my first listen to the PA Volume II ROM did I find a sound that was in the same league as 'Glass Voices' or 'Vollenweider Harp' from Volume I. Also in this class of quality sounds are the organs, harps, and pads of a well-programmed D50. Obvious examples are the bass of a Minimoog, the strings of the Prophet 5 or the Jupiter 8 and the brass of an Odyssey. Most synthesisers can produce an almost endless variety of sounds, but it takes an exceptional patch to grab the attention of the listener for the sheer quality of its sound. Instantly recognisable sounds and, now that we're all used to PCM samples, integral reverbs and choruses and so on, not very inspiring ones. Here are 128 examples of a Roland D50 sounding exactly like a Roland D50. It's not that this library of voices is bad per se, it's just, well, nondescript. Maybe I was expecting too much, but I hoped that another feast of classic as well as innovative sounds was coming my way. I was delighted with Volume I - I still use at least a dozen of those sounds in every gig, every session. Then came the second, and greater, disappointment: the sounds themselves. It took a few days to replace the ROM and to give the distributors credit, the new one worked perfectly. I would like to think that it was a batch problem which has now been resolved but, to reiterate a comment I made in the Volume I review, if you leave the terminals of ROMs exposed you're asking for this sort of problem. I made a few discreet enquiries at two well-known London music stores and they admitted to similar problems. I tried again - it was definitely a faulty device. "Faulty ROM" or some similar message appeared. Having placed the ROM into my D50 I then switched on in anticipation and. I might have accepted that this was, after all, a review copy, but. The insert included was a piece of photocopied paper, totally lacking the durability of the card that was used in Volume I (reviewed MT, May '88). I was pleased to see that PA Decoder's D50 ROM Volume II came in a very neat and sturdy plastic case but, unfortunately, that was the end of the good news. Upload an audio preview and/or patch preset file for this patch
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