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Average rating:
3.8 out of 5
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This keyboard is simply outstanding.
Buyers if you're looking 4 a cheap keyboard(price range) and you love the sounds of Roland, this is the workstation to have. Forget about that bullshit talk about hard sequencing. Never experienced Roland in my life until now, and I recorded 10 tracks in 30 minutes.
I myself am a comtemporary gospel musician. My 2nd love is smooth jazz. Like other users commented, the manual sucks. Luckily my good friend owned one and was helpful to me in creating my patches.
Yes it does takes time and patience in editing, but it's worth the wait. I've created 15 masterpiece patches.
Overall good board for a Novice and even for a Pro. The manual sucks though
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I bought an XP-50 3-4 years ago to be an integration for Korg M1 sounds, and it worked very well. It has plenty of good sounds, for any usage: piano is ok (not great), good organs, nice electric pianos, good solo synths, good atmosphere effects. Although the quality is IMHO ok just for generic hobby users, this is still a well working keyboard. I had some problems with it on the electric parts, suffering humidity.
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The XP-50 was my first synth purchase back in 1998. I really didn't know much about keyboards or anything when I got it, but I liked how it sounded and choose it over an Alesis.
Several years (and more gear) later, I still use it as my controller and use it's sounds on the majority of my tracks. I mostly write ambient and trance, but the XP-50 has lots of sounds for a variety of styles.
I've added three expansion cards (Techno, Vintage, and SFX) and with the internal sounds I have plenty of good sounds to choose from.
The XP-50 has plenty of power for programming, but it uses non-standard terms and the menus can be confusing. It can be painful, but if you have time and some patience you can really make some beautiful sounds. The manual really sucks.
Lots of people complain about the sequencer, but I could care less. I use a computer for sequencing and rarely touch the built in one. It's nice to know that I could use it if I wanted to.
I wish the XP-50 had more outputs. One stereo output just doesn't cut it.
If it were ever stolen (and it almost was once), I'd buy a different keyboard (VA probably) and pick up a used JV-1080.
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You know opinions are like ***holes everyone's got em'. I had an XP-50 a few years back and yes it takes time to learn the sequencer but it really pays off. The 70 or 80 groove quantizes on it are worth the price of admission alone. Hey this is a 7 or 8 year old keyboard which you can now pay $550-$700 for used. The MPC is an incredible instrument but I was very dissapointed in the overall price/point layout for what you get. To each their own. For scratching out actual songs and ideas I found the XP-50) to be great. It is quite deep yet you just save all the settings of your sequence on a floppy. I had to defend this board. It catalyst alot of work for myself and paid for it triple fold and I had paid $1300 for in 1997.
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The xp 50's sequencer is so horrible the designers of it should be slapped. sequencer only good for ideas. Excels in having the worst user interface. No auto record. Matter of fact recording takes so long, you can forget your ideas. Any designer who designs an internal sequencer that can't save internal sounds automatically should be slapped. Learned how to use the performances but once 30 of those got used up had to learn a new method which required inserting 4 bars of silence. Bought a mpc. It has a more open and natural interface. But the 50 has some nice sounds especially when using expansions. It can go overboard on high frequency. It has a quirkiness I like. Whenever I'm doing a song that needs a lot of rhythm I try the 50 out first. Logical pitchbend and modulation also. Urge Roland to never change that on newer designs! Because I use an external sequencer, the xp50 becomes a real powerful synth workstation. Also great for ideas.
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