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I sold my D-70 a couple of years ago because it was the most bug- laden, hard to use piece of crap I have seen in recent memory. I refer to the D-70 as the "Jaguar of Synths" - it was expensive (originally), prone to breaking down, complicated, and made you want to smash it on occassion. Although the sounds were pretty good (expecially for 1990) and it had some nice controller features, the program interface was obviously designed by about 6 groups of people who never talked to each other. The screens were arranged in a very linear fashion, where you would get stuck 4 - 5 screens down when editing, and not be able to get out without backing out through the same 5 screens you just went through. My D-70 also crashed all the time, and I was unable to use the patch editor functions of my Midi-Quest software to edit patches (you could edit performances, but the D-70 would crash when you tried to edit patches. THIS WAS THE ONLY KEYBOARD OR MODULE OUT OF 10 IN MY SYSTEM THAT I HAD ANY PROBLEMS WITH THE EDITING SOFTWARE, SO I KNOW IT WASN'T A MIDI QUEST PROBLEM. The other really frustrating thing was that I bought the D-70 for it's controller functions, and planned on using the four zone buttons to toggle zones on and off. This procedure was described in the manual, and in a video tape (from Roland) that I bought, BUT IT NEVER WORKED ON MY SYNTH. I put the unit in the shop, had the software ROM chip updated and everything, and it still never would work. I would have to go into the performance zone screens and cut the zones on/off manually. About the only thing I liked about the D-70 was the lower/upper zone configurations, which let you program things like different sustain pedal functions on either side of a split. Most newer boards short of a K-2500 won't let you do this. The display was nice too, but I heard they eventually burn out, and replacements are $250!! (ouch!!!). The Midi-Quest people suggested that I get rid of the D-70, as it had been one of their bigger headaches. I thought they were blowing me off, until I talked to Roland about some of the software bugs and problems I was having, and the tech said, "well the D-70 was a synth that should have never been released, or they should have waited another year or two to work the problems out; they were under pressure to follow up the D-50 with something to beat the Korg M-1 and it just wasn't ready for prime time" I had bought the D-70 in 1993 as a closeout deal, for only $1250 (they had originally sold for around $2000 - $2200). Later on I found out why they were selling it so cheap. When even the company tech reps tell you it's a dog, it's time to throw in the towel. Anyway, I sold the D-70 two years ago and bought a JV-90, which I'm very happy with. As a case in point, I could not effectively program patches with the D-70 after owning it for two years. After buying the JV-90, I was programming patches within a month. The guy I sold it to is happy with it, but he only calls up preset sounds, doesn't edit, doesn't use it in a midi rig. He just calls up a piano, piano/string, or organ sound and plays it through a keyboard amp. If this is all you want to do with a D-70, I could recommend it, but as a controller, main keyboard in a midi system it will drive you nuts.
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