Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Roland RD1000 - is it an early "V" or just a curiosity?

It's a all time Classic .... $500 will seem like a bargain in 10 years time for this board.

Indeed.

Nice find. I was at that gig, which was a benefit at Earls Court for his Aids foundation thing. I remember Elton doing some weird running/dancing/skipping across the stage to a rousing version of Jumping Jack Flash and it reminded me that he is no Mick Jagger when it comes to his moves!

I remember not leaving enough time to get to the show and getting caught in traffic with my Dad and we sat stuck outside a row of terraced houses and a young Harry Hill came out of one of them, dressed as his TV persona. I said, "look Dad, it's Harry Hill" but he didn't know who he was. Funny what you remember....

Another performance with a little more circumspection at the same show...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjnKibxI2PA

Steve, is the 1000 fully electronic, or electro-mechanical?

It's electronic. Resynthesis of piano sounds rather than samples. (Sorry, I know the question wasn't addressed to me.)

From the RD's manual:

Roland has developed a new kind of digital synthesis technology - Structured Adaptive (SA) Sound Synthesis. SA Sound Synthesis employs a technique which neither approximates nor simulates acoustic sounds, but actually recreates these sounds. Note for note, nuance for nuance, harmonic characteristics and timbre variations are faithfully replicated across the entire range of the keyboard. Sounds respond to playing dynamics with extraordinary accuracy and warmth. SA Sound Synthesis far surpasses sampling technology in its ability to reproduce and articulate astoundingly realistic sounds.


It's an amazingly contemporary description from today's perspective and yet this is from a quarter of a century ago - Roland could almost use this rhetoric to describe the V-Piano.

It is my understanding that the SA technology was the brainchild of one particular man within Roland. He died and no one else understood the concept to quite the same degree. This is the reason the technology stagnated for a few years. Then I understand over ten years ago now Roland revisited the concept and the result is....the V-Piano.

vox- thanks for responding too.

sounds incredibly unique. did it catch on commercially?

Yes it did. It was featured in many of the Roland home pianos of that era as well as in stage and studio gear. I loved the EP sounds in my SA Roland HP from the 80s. Then it was dropped in favor of samples.