The Roland

Roland Corporation

is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...

 XP-50 is a music workstation

Music workstation

A music workstation is an electronic musical instrument providing the facilities of:*a sound module,*a music sequencer and* a musical keyboard.It enables a musician to compose electronic music using just one piece of equipment.-History:...

 that combines the synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 engine of Roland's JV-1080

Roland JV-1080

The Roland JV-1080 is a Sample-based synthesizer/sound module in the form of a 2U rack design.-Features:...

 sound module with the sequencing capabilities of their MRC-Pro sequencer

Music sequencer

The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...

 and a 61-note keyboard

Musical keyboard

A musical keyboard is the set of adjacent depressible levers or keys on a musical instrument, particularly the piano. Keyboards typically contain keys for playing the twelve notes of the Western musical scale, with a combination of larger, longer keys and smaller, shorter keys that repeats at the...

. 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

Roland XP-80

The Roland XP-80 is a music workstation that combines an updated version of the JV-1080 synthesizer engine with the sequencer capabilities of the Roland MRC-Pro sequencer. The model was introduced in 1996 and is now discontinued.- Specifications :...

 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

General MIDI or GM is a standardized specification for music synthesizers that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association and the Japan MIDI Standards Committee and first published in 1991...

 soundest, and a wide selection of sounds, including ambient and techno sounds representative of the time of the XP-50's release.

The sample + synthesis

Sample-based synthesis

Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments instead of fundamental waveforms such as the saw waves...

sound 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

Timbrality

Monotimbral is usually used in reference to electronic synthesisers which can produce a single timbre at a given pitch upon pressing a single or multiple keys .An electronic musical instrument may be...

 use, "patches" are slotted into "parts" to comprise a "Performance."

Some of the more unique 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 (signal processing)

In signal processing, a filter is a device or process that removes from a signal some unwanted component or feature. Filtering is a class of signal processing, the defining feature of filters being the complete or partial suppression of some aspect of the signal...

 options, and syncronizable LFOs.

Effects

The XP-50 has three independent effects processors: reverb

Reverberation

Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...

, chorus

Chorus effect

In music, a chorus effect occurs when individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one...

, 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

Floppy disk

A floppy disk is a disk storage medium composed of a disk of thin and flexible magnetic storage medium, sealed in a rectangular plastic carrier lined with fabric that removes dust particles...

drive for data import or export.