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W-30 At a Glance
	Released: 1989 \| Specifications User rating: 4.5/5 \| Read reviews (12) Roland News(754) Streaming Video (123)
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Rafael S J de Souza writes:

The Roland W30 was labelled as a Sampling Workstation, but this name goes nowhere near describing how versatile this fantastic keyboard was.

The W30 was 8 part multi-timbral and 16 note polyphonic. It had a 16 track linear sequencer and its sound and song data could be saved on its built in 3.5 inch floppy disc drive. It had MIDI in, out and thru sockets and had eight (yes EIGHT!) audio outputs plus one input for sampling.

Patches could be created using up to 2 sample waveforms per key and processed through the W30's Amp and Filter sections before being looped, cross faded, stacked or velocity switched.

I used a W30 as a dedicated sequencer throughout my flirtations with synthesisers and grew very attached to its friendly and intuitive user interface.

The emergence of more versatile software sequencers and more flexible samplers has dated the W30 and it doesn’t stand up to the machines of today, but it is still a very useful music production tool, enabling the quick assembly of songs during that all important creative period!

Comments About the Sounds:
Only 16 patches are loaded from the boot disk, which are not very good. But tone disks are available freely on the net. And I have some wonderful sounds, including ethnic sounds like the tambura which is the closest to the natural instrument I have heard in any instrument so far. Brass and strings disks are good too.

(Thanks to Rafael S J de Souza for this info.)
and Bert van Nes for the pic

Links for the Roland W-30

	More Synth Gear Best US prices on many current models
	plasmaweb ei Link to the Unofficial W30 Homepage.
	W-30 Unofficial Homepage (eim)
	w30 Users Site old users group site - newly reposted
	Roland w30 Club and mailing list attached to above site
	W30 system software v1.07
	W-30 Sounds,OS and Editors Moonguardian, the homepage of TiLion, with sounds, and lots of information about synthesizers.
	SMFW30 officiall homepage WIN/DOS Editor for Roland W30/S50/550/330 samplers
	Roland Patch Viewer Utility This utility let you see all patch and tones in a image disk of the Roland W-30

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