Comment on Mark Gordon’s October review of the Roland TD-50KV2

[136920]

I wonder if I could, with respect, disagree with Mark Gordon’s review of the Roland TD50X? Well, not all of it: the digital pads are a major step forward in terms of playability. But as someone who has been playing a TD50X for the last three months, I think the module is an underwhelming disappointment.

Don’t get me wrong: I suspect if the TD50X was my first Roland kit, I’d be over the moon. However, given that over the last 20-some years I’ve owned a TD7, TD10, and TDW20, I think Roland have fallen far short of the sort of development we’ve seen in other electronic musical instruments. At a time when a typical keyboard workstation has thousands of sounds, 966 sounds in the flagship Roland drum module is, well, insulting.

The 50X module is “more of the same”, an evolution rather than a revolution. We have the ability to now use a sub-instrument. Long overdue. But wouldn’t it be great if we had some synthesis capability such as found in a Nord Drum? Or if we had some modulation or filtering control over user samples…controlling with velocity, for example, how open a filter is?

Or given that a corporation like Roland would have access to every drum multi-sample they’ve ever created, why can’t those sounds be ported to the TD50X format? If the sounds were user-selectable and the V-Edit format available for downloading, you could fill your TD50X with only the sounds you want, and get rid of the stuff you’ll never use. Wouldn’t that be killer?

As it is, though, Roland seem content to trickle-feed the market with just enough innovation to keep everyone competing…and not a jot more.

[ben howes]

Although I cannot comment on the review, I agree with the OP about the [lack of] development of electronic percussion. Obviously the whole thing is driven by the mass market opportunity, but it's not especially inspiring to be simply triggering samples and applying some DSP. Seems to be stuck in the 1990s.
I don't believe that more samples in the box is always better.

[Folderol]

Ever heard of DrumGizmo?
Its origin is Linux, but you can also get a VSTi version for Windows etc.
It's sample based, but tries to be intelligent about selecting samples from groups and how much expression to apply.
Details here:
https://www.drumgizmo.org/wiki/doku.php ... _drumgizmo