Notes

I started these web pages back in the dark ages of 2003. At first they were only on my computer and strictly a Roland homage page, and at some point they migrated to geocities but as you know it wasn't for long (fall of 2009). When I decided I was going to buy my own internet space (because a project I was in was giving up thiers), it was a unique opportunity to put this back up. So around 2013 or so rufnoiz.com went up with a couple of side things one of which are these Roland pages. I update the pages occasionally and will as long as this site exists. But times have changed, so I almost feel I have to explain a few things. The first thing is I probably haven't looked at the first header since I started this. I think I started with 'features' but they are more plain statistics. When I do a big update this may change. Number of keys, pretty basic statistic. The year a keyboard was made was quite important to me, because a keyboard came out in 1983 that changed everything after it! When the Yamaha DX-7 came out all analogue keyboards were suddenly old news! If you didn't have a decent (for the time) piano sound on your synth, it really wasn't cutting the mustard. So while an Alpha Juno is a pretty great analogue it was already outdated before it was released. Lucky for us Rolands sampling technology was almost there, and the first romplers rolled out in 1988 (u-110). Well you may not think that was so great now, but at the time it kept Roland in the market, as it had a new competitor with the Korg M-1! If you know a bit about the 80's keyboard timeline it will inform you as to what the keyboards were competing with. Original list price, well as time goes on this is looking like a not very credible statistic. For one reason, it is hard to get an original price for some of the lesser detailed equipment. But even when I did get a price, there was no guarantee that it was in US dollars, or that it was a global price. If you can find the same scans of some of the Roland catalogues on the internet that I found, they have the MSRP in yen. So I looked up the exchange for the year and compared them with the prices that I knew and they were generally way, way different. I imagine the prices here in Canada were alot more just because of the shipping. Polyphony and multitimberal I thought were very important, just because for all digital synths there really aren't many constraints on voices or instruments (although surprizingly for analogue modelling synths there still are many constraints). To produce afforable analogue (and some of the first digital) synths they generally had to cut down on the polyphony as each note would require it's own dedicated electronic circuit. And mutitimberal wasn't even a thought till romplers, although there were a few more expensive synths that couple play 2 sounds at once, the Jupiter 6 comes to mind. Tones and patches became complicated quite quickly. With the old synths the sound was the tone was the patch was what it was, but as synths became more complex so did thier architechture. The biggest problem here was that because of the differences in the way the synth actually made sound it was difficult to stick with clearcut lables. If you want total confusion on this subject, just read the D-110 manual! Type of Synthesis I inculded because I thought it might help, but I really wonder if anyone knows (or cares) about the difference between PCM synthesis and LA synthesis? Or does a DCO make an analogue Digital? Effects, Sequencer or Arpeggio, Drum Sets, and Outputs listing are relevant and fine the way they are. MIDI probably less important to most people now , but I have everything hooked up with MIDI! Backup is kinda important if you don't want to write down all of your patches with a pencil. And Options, I thought I would leave a place to hint at a few features that didn't fit easily into any catagory. But really there are many things that I could put in here that I haven't. Of course MY COMMENTS are the MOST inportant part of these documents. Along with my rating out of 5. So this section was supposed to be mostly about my particular keyboard. What I paid for it, how long I've had it, what shape it's in, which may be helpful things to a reader. What i thought would be great help was a comparable current price, which at the time was at the great site prepal.com. Unfortunately technology has failed me here, as the prepal site has not been updated well probably since 2013. Yes I may have been unwittingly the cause of it's demise. The status seemed like a cool thing at the time, you know, I'm gigging with it, it's in storage, I'm using it in the basement, or I sold it. Not so sure it is terribly relevant, but I will probably keep it anyway. I had hoped to have great links to several important relevant Internets, but for some it is just hard to keep up, I see the Organix upgrade has moved again (but wikipedia updated it's page)! For others it is difficult to find ANYTHING relevant! I sent a message to my Roland dealer that I was interested in a manual for my ep-11, he replied that they don't have a scan of that manual and sent me the schematics (I have gotten some pictures of the foldout since then, not that I needed it). Also there are a few places that I included a review of the keyboard for Harmony Central, these are not links (Thank goodness!) I just copy/pasted them in. If you go looking for them (and actually find one) most of the information will be gone. For some reason they changed the layout of thier review and now most of my comments are gone, as is my name, the review is now by anonymous. And finally some relevant pictures of my darlings. If I think of anything else you need to know I will try to post it. K 2018 .