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Average rating:
3.8 out of 5
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This was my first keyboard, purchased way back in in those crazy '80's (1988 to be exact). Back then, when I was 16/17, it was great. I hooked it up to an MC-500, added an R-5, and I was in New Wave heaven. But then the PROteus/1 and the U-220 hit my rack. I hardly used the D-5 for 5 full years. Now I have started to bring some of the sounds into the songs. The leads are good, as are the first 16 patches in Bank "B". The natural sounds are not all that great, but they can be useful. Please don't compare this to the other D series keyboards. This one was made to be an entry level unit. If you want top quality with a D series, get the D-20 or D-50. Overall, great as my first keyboad, adequate now that it's 10+ years old standing next to a sampler.
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Bought my D-5 for �170, it has given me years of pleasure, had problems with Velocity sensing going down, Love the Strings and Bass sounds, Piano is .. Well leaves a little to be desired. Get a four track and a D-5 you will be suprised at what you can do. Oh I have both Manuals for this synth, if you need a copy mail me, I'm sure I could help you out !
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I needed an extra keyboard to go with my Roland XP-80... The D-5 fit the bill...I bought one from Guitar Center in Texas (used of course) on September 1st,1998... I use it along with a "NanoVerb"...I found that you can layer sounds and I especially like layering the organs... I paid $265 for it and I feel that it's worth every dime... For me, it make an excellent second keyboard for jammin' with a band... The organ sounds are great and the strings are nice also... The only regrets about the D-5 is that the polyphony is not big and the piano sounds are sad, sad, sad...
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Just got a used D-5 a couple days ago and overall I'm pretty happy with it. I wanted an inexpensive synth that was good at producing synth type tones, pads and ambience. The D-5 does. Just about all patches have a powerful low end with warmth and punch. ( I can only imagine what a bigger D-series synths might sound like!) The bass sounds are the best of the bunch, and the brass, synth, and weird noises are very good too. The drums are better than expected also. NOT good for general midi , acoustic sounds. Get a good GM module for that. No onboard effects either, so I patch mine thru an Alesis nanoverb for fairly good reverbs, etc.
I got mine used , without a manual , so if anyone knows where I can get one, I'd appreciate it. I'm not sure what some of the parameters are when programming sounds. (And I figure there's at least something in the manual that I haven't discovered yet.) I wish there was a filter or two to fiddle around with when programming. I've been trying to get the synth tones from some Rush tunes like Subdivisions and La Villa Strangiato, and I've come close, but not quite there. So if anybody's nailed Rush, Saga, Honeymoon Suite, NIN, Genesis, or any other cool rock band's synth tones for the D-5, send 'em my way!
To conclude, this is a pretty happnin' little synth that's a bunch of fun to tweak, that produces good synthy type tones and didn't cost me an arm and a leg.
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I bought my D5 10 Years ago and I use it more and more.
During the first few years, I had no effects to enrich the sound,and it sounded
very thin and plate. Since I bought a SX700 it gave my D5 the missing spark.
What I like in this synth is the "analogue" part which can produce excellent lead synth,
bass, strings and pads sounds.
Pipe Organ sounds are great with a big reverb, and electric organ sounds can be
really smashing when used with a saturated leslie effect.
If you're looking for realistic acoustic sounds, don't buy it (except for percussion sounds),
but if you like to program, and like analogue sounds, try to get one. You can even edit while playing the arpeggiator and make it sound like a TB303. Unisyn can edit D5 patches and sounds, but is, for this machine, really inferior to
steinberg synthworks for Atari which was exploiting hidden features like the
5th enveloppe point for TVA.
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