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Roland D-70 Super LA Synthesiser
76 Key Synthesiser
The Roland D-70 Super LA Synthesizer was launched in 1990 and billed as the next synthesiser in the D-Series range.
Many reported that the keyboard was rushed to market.
Some reported that the release of the Korg M1 Workstation and then subsequent Korg T-series Workstations lead to a decline in the sales of the Roland D-50 which was just a synthesiser and released in 1987. 1987 was the same year that Yamaha released the enhance Yamaha DX7, the Yamaha DX7II.
By the way the Roland D-50 wasn't just a synthesiser, it was an excellent digital synthesiser, but it did not have the other features that were present on the other manufacturers Workstations that musicians at the time were using to create their music.
I should also mention that Yamaha had released the Yamaha SY77 Workstation in 1989 the prior year to the Roland D-70's release and then the bigger more versatile Yamaha SY99 in the 1990 the same year that Roland released the D-70.
So why was the perception that this keyboard was rushed to market:
The first piece of evidence is actually on the main system board inside the synthesiser where it is marked up as the Roland U-50. Roland issued a series of romper synthesisers starting with the Roland U-110 in 1988 and then the Roland U-220 in 1989. Both these devices were 1U rack mount units that came with a series of stock PCM sounds and 15 PCM sound expansion cards issued by Roland. The Roland U-110 could load 4 of these cards into the instrument and the Roland U-220 could load 2 of these cards into the instrument. In addition to the rack mount instruments Roland also released the Roland U-20 which was a version of the U-220 with a 61-note key bed and could also use 2 of the PCM cards at the same time. Clearly the Roland D-70 was initially meant to be an upgrade to these instruments as it can also read 'some' of the 15 PCM cards, but not all of them. The other D-series synthesisers could read these PCM cards. The Roland D-70 could not read the PCM cards created for either the Roland D-50 or Roland D-20/D-10
The second piece of evidence is that the key bed that was installed in the Roland D-70 had more commonality with the design of the U-20 than it did with the Roland D-10/D-20 and Roland D-50.
The third piece of evidence is that the user manual for the Roland D-70 in many places made no sense at all. It looked like it had been hurriedly translated from the Japanese engineers notes without any refinement.
The fourth piece of evidence is that some of the early adopters of the synthesiser had to have the firmware updated shortly after launch. I have had musicians tell me that they had to return the keyboard to a Roland service centre for the release version of the firmware to be upgraded with the post release version of the firmware. At this time a firmware update required you to remove the ROM chip in the instrument and replace it with a new ROM chip with the new firmware installed. Now I am not sure what the release version and post release versions were. But if you are buying a Roland D-70 you should ensure it is at version v1.10 at a minimum. Anyway following the upgrade of the firmware the English version of the user manual had pages and pages of changes to correct it for changes to the keyboards functionality. It still was unreadable in sections though!
The fifth piece of evidence is that you are not able to edit the tones to the extend that you could on the Roland D-50 and a lesser extent on the Roland D-10/D-20. The Roland D-70 came with filters and 4 effects but changing the core parameters of the tones that made the patches and performances was very limited compared to the Roland D-50, the synth that this keyboard was positioned to replace. It was clear to the serious programmer that this was not the same Linear Algorithm (LA) synthesis that made the Roland D-50 so useable to those that had one.
The consequence of rushing this keyboard to market was it didn't sell particularly well, despite the Roland marketing machine being fully engaged at the point of launch.
It was not a workstation and both Korg and Yamaha had very good offerings in this space. The Korg M1 changed the landscape for professional musicians that wanted a reasonable cost alternative to use writing their music.
It continued with the theme that you can only back up data to an expensive RAM card which Roland sold you or using the SYSEX dump feature. There were some other companies that made either a direct competitor for this Roland RAM card or variations. However RAM was still expensive so none of these solutions were affordable and SYSEX while useable was a pain. The competition were issuing their workstations with 3.5" floppy disks that could be purchased in local stationers in the UK for about £2 per disk. Making a box of 10 disks cost about £20.
It had limited editing capabilities. There were some companies that did issue sound banks for the Roland D-70 for purchase but they were no where near as prolific as the Korg and Yamaha offerings or the previous Roland D-50 synthesiser.
It soon got a reputation for buggy operation. It is now known that the CPU installed in the Roland D-70 was underspecified for the operating system that was deployed and the functions of the keyboard. Again I have seen statements that said that when the keyboard was specified that the filters and effects were not part of the specification and added later. All, adding additional processing requirements not originally factored into the hardware specification. Typical problems that musicians experienced was the keyboard dropping notes and experience notes hanging, especially when all 4 parts and rhythm part were being driven by an external sequencer.
I have heard many words to describe the operating system of the Roland D-70. The best I have heard is 'Enigmatic'. I think that says it all.
All keyboards of this age will need an amount of maintenance work to keep them operational. However these issues appear to be the key to look for when buying one:
Fragile keyboard. I have said above that the key bed design was closer to the Roland U-20 than the D-series. This keyboard used a plastic ribbon to transmit the key touch information from the key bed to the controller interface. Depending on how the Roland D-70 has been used and stored this plastic component can become brittle and tear.
The key bed uses a rubber strip with carbon inserts to make contact with the key bed circuit to tell the keyboard controller which keys have been depressed and how hard. If this is not fitted correctly then dust and dirt can get in-between the rubber strip and circuit stopping contact.
As you are pressing a key onto a strip that is then pressing directly onto the circuit board, and depending on how abused the keyboard has been through its life, the key bed circuit board can develop micro fractures that interrupt the electrical contacts back to the keyboard controller. These may need to be bridged, or require a donor circuit board.
Red glue. This is a problem for many Roland products delivered to the market during this time period. The glue used to stick weights to the keys disintegrates over time, drops onto the internal circuitry. The glue is corrosive to the circuit tracks and can do a lot of damage.
All is not lost though as there are a few people in various forums that sell the plastic connector, rubber contacts and recently I have seen listings for a replacement circuit board.
So with everything I have written above, why did I acquire the Roland D-70?
When this synthesiser was released in 1990, I had just started my training contract / apprenticeship so didn't have much money to satisfy my desire for shiny new synthesisers. But a friend of mine, in fact the guy who got me into keyboards took me to Project Music to buy a Roland D-70. The result of that visit was the fact that both of us loved the keyboard. I just couldn't afford it and he only had enough money to buy one keyboard and was seduced by the Roland W-30 sampler, driven by the fact that you could buy the Roland Sample library disks to expand the sounds that were available to him and the sampling capability of the keyboard.
Roll forward to about 2010 and I saw one of these keyboard in very good condition advertised for sale near Birmingham, UK. I rang the seller up and drove the 2.5 hours up to see him the following Saturday morning. Played the keyboard and the deal was done. Keyboard and case in the boot (trunk) of the car. The keyboard was used lightly for a couple of years following acquisition by me, mainly due to the behaviour of my ex-partner, who made playing instruments difficult and it got put into storage.
When we separated in 2013, I recovered the keyboard, acquired more equipment and setup my studio (version 1 Studio A). The Roland D-70 became a central part of this new setup, because one of the things that Roland did get right with this keyboard was the multi-layer MIDI setup. By that statement I mean you can set the key bed up to play different patches in different zones of the key bed, assign each patch to a different MIDI channel and then choose which parts are played by the Roland D-70 and which parts are played by external instruments. The four faders and buttons can be assigned to switch the part on and off. This became my defacto MIDI controller and still gets used in this role right even now, even though I have newer controllers that could fill this role.
The other area that I think the Roland D-70 does well is Electric Piano and String sounds. Many musicians also sight the Bass sounds, but I tend not to use if for them.
In the last few years I have filmed videos that might help you with your Roland D-70 journey. Most recently in 2024/25 I undertook a more in-depth restoration to fix some issues with the keyboard.
