Contents

Roland S-50

Sampler Keyboard

Roland S-50
Roland S-50
Manufacturer	Roland Corporation
Dates	1986 - 1987
Price	£2195 UK $2695 US
Technical specifications
Polyphony	16
Timbrality	4 parts
LFO	Yes
Synthesis type	Samples
Filter	Low-pass, hi-pass digital filters
Aftertouch expression	Yes
Velocity expression	Yes
Storage memory	RAM (512K)[1]
Effects	no
Input/output
Keyboard	61 keys weighted
Left-hand control	pitch-bend and modulation wheels, volume, record level, controller / bend range sliders.

The Roland S-50 is a 61-key 12-bit sampler keyboard produced by the Roland Corporation in 1986. It featured a 3.5-inch DSDD floppy disk drive and had external CRT monitor support to facilitate editing of samples. It could hold up to 32 samples. A rack-mounted version was also available, which featured expanded memory.^[2]

Sample rate[edit]

15 to 30 kHz variable sampling rates at a 12-bit resolution, (28.8 seconds and 14.4 seconds respectively) The samples can also be saved to disk (3.5-inch DSDD floppy disk drive).^[3]

S-550[edit]

A rack-mountable version was released in 1987,^[4] which also had twice the sample memory (1.5 Mb) and time-variant filters. A less feature-rich version of the S-550 was also available as the S-330. Both can support the DT-100 Digitizer Tablet and an external computer monitor for visual manipulation of the samples on screen.

References[edit]

Further reading[edit]

• "Roland S-50 Sampling Keyboard". Sound On Sound. December 1986. pp. 18–22. ISSN 0951-6816. OCLC 925234032.
• "Roland S50 Sampling Keyboard". Music Technology. Vol. 1, no. 2. December 1986. p. 42. ISSN 0957-6606. OCLC 24835173.

External links[edit]

• Roland S-50
• Roland S-50 Sampling Keyboard
• S-50 / S-550 / S-330 / W-30 / S-760 Homepage - Samples, DIY's and Reference Materials - A Website Dedicated To The Original Roland Samplers - http://llamamusic.com/s50s550/s-50_s-550.html

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