The
Roland XP-50 is a
music workstation
A music workstation is an electronic musical instrument providing the facilities of:
*a sound module,
*a music sequencer and
*(usually) a musical keyboard.
It enables a musician to compose electronic music using just one piece of equipment.
Origi ...
that combines the
synthesizer engine of Roland's
JV-1080 sound module with the sequencing capabilities of their MRC-Pro
sequencer and a 61-note
keyboard
Keyboard may refer to:
Text input
* Keyboard, part of a typewriter
* Computer keyboard
** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping
** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware
Music
* Musi ...
. First released in 1995, the XP-50 and the Roland XP-10 were the first two Roland XP-series products, later joined by the
XP-80 and XP-30.
Sound Engine
The XP-50's sound engine utilizes a custom 32-bit
RISC chip to accommodate its sound generation and effects processing. There are 640 patches and 128 performances on board. The XP-50's internal memory includes 512 waveforms, which can be expanded with up to four user-installable SR-JV80 expansion boards. Presets include a
General MIDI
General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committe ...
soundset, and a wide selection of sounds, including ambient and techno sounds representative of the time of the XP-50's release.
The
sample + synthesissound engine's structure consists of "tones," each with a waveform, amplifier, filter, three envelope generators, and a pair of LFOs. Up to four "tones" can be combined in one of ten different "structures" or configurations to create a "patch." For
multitimbral
Monotimbral (from the root prefix ''mono'' meaning one, and ''timbre'' meaning a specific tone of a sound independent of its pitch) is usually used in reference to electronic synthesizers which can produce a single timbre at a given pitch when pre ...
use, "patches" are slotted into "parts" to comprise a "Performance."
Some of the more desirable features of the XP-50's sound engine are frequency cross-modulation, tone delay variations, MIDI clock sync, high/low/band pass and peaking resonant
filter
Filter, filtering or filters may refer to:
Science and technology
Computing
* Filter (higher-order function), in functional programming
* Filter (software), a computer program to process a data stream
* Filter (video), a software component tha ...
options, and synchronizable
LFOs.
The XP-50 has 4 expansion slots which take any of the SR-JV series of boards.
Effects
The XP-50 has three independent effects processors:
reverb
Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abs ...
,
chorus, and a multi-effects processor with 40 editable effects algorithms.
Sequencer
The built-in 16-track sequencer is derived from the Roland MC-series hardware sequencers, and can import sequences saved on those machines. The XP-50 sequencer also accepts
standard MIDI files. The sequencer can store up to 60,000 notes and 100 patterns.
Eschewing the PCM & Data Card slots that Roland had been using since the JD-800 in 1991, the XP-50 includes a 3.5 inch
floppy disk drive for data import or export.
[Gordon Reid]
"The History Of Roland Part 4: 1992-1997"
Sound On Sound, Feb 2005
References
Further reading
*
External links
{{Roland
X
Musical instruments invented in the 1980s
Polyphonic synthesizers
Digital synthesizers
Music workstations