Roland D-20 Linear Arithmetic Workstation

The Roland D-20 was the second tranche of Roland D-Series synthesisers to be released in 1988.  Three synthesisers were released in this year.

• Roland D-20 - Linear Arithmetic Workstation

• Roland D-10 - Linear Arithmetic Synthesiser

• Roland D110 - Linear Arithmetic rack mount Synthesiser

The Roland D-10 and Roland D-20 were released together in 1988 and the Roland D-110 followed shortly after.  The D-20 continued in production until 1992, a year after the D-10 and D-110 had been discontinued.

The keyboard had the same key bed as the Roland D-50, a 61-key velocity sensitive key bed.  It uses the same Linear Arithmetic (LA) method of synthesis generation as the Roland D-50.  

In theory the two synthesisers have the same configurable parameters, but to perform this configuration requires extensive knowledge of multiple sub-menus and not all the parameters from the D-50 are available.  These include parameters relating to filters and effects.  The result of this difference is that the synthesiser file structure of the Roland D-50 and Roland D-20 are difference meaning you cannot load files created on one to the other.

The Roland D-20 was the workstation of the Roland D-Series.  It also included: 

• a rhythm generater 

• an 8 part sequencer

• a 3.5" floppy disk drive for saving tones and sequences

The inclusion of a 3.5" floppy drive on this synthesiser / workstation made it very useable.  A pack of 10 floppy disks in 1988 would have cost the musician £10-£15 where as a Roland RAM card was nearly £100.  The RAM card could back up and load the workstation almost instantly, but for about a minute for each load cycle the disks gave you far more flexibility and for the same cost 100 workstation setups.

As I mentioned above there was another keyboard released at the same time.  The Roland D-10 Synthesiser.  (And there is other pages on this website relating to this keyboard.). However in my opinion if you want a D-Series keyboard that is not the Roland D-50.  Get the Roland D-20.  I assure you it is as fun to play.