Roland D-550 play modes - is this an error?

[cromdubh]

My D-550 apparently lacks the ability to play in a real legato mode where held notes will retrigger after other notes are played, like if you're holding C4 and hit D4, then C4 should retrigger when D4 is released. I don't know if this is normal, but it's the only synth I own that *can't* do this, so it seems a bit hard to believe it can't do this rather basic thing. Believe it or not, I'm having an incredibly hard time getting a straight answer (or any answer at all) on whether this is normal or not. I also don't know if I'm missing a setting or something. It's also weird to me that out of hundreds of patches I've auditioned from both factory library and elsewhere I've only found *one* patch that uses one of the solo modes, so I'm wondering if this just was never really intended to specialize as a lead synth, so maybe it does actually lack this ability. I have tried all the play modes ending in -S (like Dual-S, Whole-S, etc) and none of them will produce a retrigger note as described above. If I hold C4, hit D4, when I release D4, it's just no note after that. Can someone at least confirm to me if this is normal?

[madtheory]

I don't think this is a legato issue, it's a note priority issue. So it's high note priority, but you want low note priority? Or last note priority?

[cromdubh]

Right now it only plays the last key pressed. Any held notes are 'cancelled' once a new key is pressed. It's impossible, in other words, to do a trill where you hold one note and hit another note (above or below, doesn't matter) and have that original note sound once those other key presses are released. This is completely different from every other synth I own and according to now two people it isn't how it should be behaving. So far no one's actually been able to tell me if there is an additional setting for this. I've scoured the manual so if there is one, I'm missing it. But I'm starting to think this is a problem with the unit, but that's an awfully strange and specific problem for an otherwise flawlessly working unit.

[desmond]

It depends how the key handling mechanism is implemented, and it's different on different machines.

What you need to do (ideally) is keep a memory of all the keys pressed, and in what order, so that when you release a key, the note legato's back to the previous held note - and you need to do this for all held notes (ie you could be holding ten notes, and as you release each note, the voice goes to the previous note all the way back to the first played note.)

On a 61-note polyphonic keyboard, to do this properly, you'd need to store all 61-notes in a buffer - and actually, as it's a MIDI device, you need to store all the notes in the MIDI range.

Not all keyboards will handle this "correctly". They may implement a buffer of a certain number of notes, have a last/lowest/highest priority scheme, or just not bother at all. My guess is that from what you experience, the D-50 implements this pretty naively.

I checked with the plugin version in mono mode, and it reverts to the *lowest* key pressed. So if you hold C1, then play and hold D1, then play an hold E1, when you release E1 you'd expect the voice to revert to the D1, but instead it reverts to the C1 - the lowest held note.

And if you go E1, D1, C1, when you release C1, it goes to D1 (the next lowest held note).

You can do trills with this though, on the plugin version. I don't have the hardware to check.

This things are often just quirks of a given instrument's design and implementation. I never really liked Moog's low-note priority either, but you learn that those things are part of what the instrument is, and embrace them...

[cromdubh]

Yeah I finally found some literature on the D-50, kind of a third-party manual that goes more into detail about the play modes. It specifically says that the solo modes are last-note priority. Which is what I want and technically what mine is currently doing, but the held notes are not reactivated. In other words, it wouldn't matter if it were low-note priority, high-note priority, or last-note priority on my machine, the held notes simply disappear into whatever buffer it has. I've had one or two people now tell me that it *should* be keeping these held notes, but mine just doesn't, and I don't really know what to do about that. It's almost like the buffer you describe that remembers key presses doesn't exist on my machine or it definitely isn't working correctly. If I did "E1, D1, C1, when you release C1" as you describe, it would just play E1, D1, C1 and stop entirely when you release C1.

I came across some stuff where people were complaining about the software versions of several of Roland's products with regard to note priority (I guess for a while they were all low-note priority, even if the hardware was last-note priority) but some people claimed that they had fixed this in updates. I don't know about that since I don't have any of that stuff. As a hardware owner I have to figure out if there's any way to fix this because it's really annoying trying to play it as a lead instrument currently. I did figure out that it's got version 1.01 of the firmware and don't know if it would be worth trying to upgrade it to 1.02 to see if that irons out some sort of system bug or if the firmware doesn't really affect things like voice control issues. Again, playing polyphonically you'd never know anything was wrong with it. I can play large chords and eventually if I play too many notes it will steal ones I pressed earlier, so in those cases it seems like the buffer is working right. But then go into solo mode and it just isn't working correctly. Very puzzling.

[desmond]

I came across some stuff where people were complaining about the software versions of several of Roland's products with regard to note priority (I guess for a while they were all low-note priority, even if the hardware was last-note priority) but some people claimed that they had fixed this in updates.

I think this was more for the old Roland monosynths, and they were low-note priority like the hardware, but people didn't like it and wanted other options like the more popular last-note priority - from my recollections at least, but you might be talking about different discussions of course.

As a hardware owner I have to figure out if there's any way to fix this because it's really annoying trying to play it as a lead instrument currently. I did figure out that it's got version 1.01 of the firmware and don't know if it would be worth trying to upgrade it to 1.02 to see if that irons out some sort of system bug or if the firmware doesn't really affect things like voice control issues.

It would be helpful if someone else who had the hardware could confirm how it behaves. Have you tried using a different keyboard to play the D50 via MIDI to see whether the behaviour is the same? (which might help rule out keybed issues, for instance.)

[cromdubh]

So far I've had two people tell me it should be behaving as I expect (where the held note reactivates after other notes are released). Honestly surprised at how few people are responding on that particular point, though, considering the number of people who use this synth. I have to admit I'm still a little skeptical though, because it seems like such a weird problem if my unit really is misbehaving in that particular fashion. On the other hand, I find it equally weird that Roland would design a synth that behaves differently than pretty much every other one of that type.

I haven't tried a different key bed but I have tried this key bed through all my other synths using the same interface (and even tried it without going through an interface, plugged directly into the D-550). It works as I'd expect it to with the TG77, VZ-10M, EX-8000, K5000R, and of course all my software synths. So I don't think it's the key bed, but in the interest of being exhaustive, when I get home I'll try it with another one of my key beds just to be sure. I also checked with a MIDI monitor to make sure no stray weird MIDI information is being sent along with the notes and there is not. It's literally just note on / off being sent.

EDIT: Confirmed it's definitely not the keyboard. Tried with three different boards with same result.