Jakob BC wrote:Yeah it's insane compared to the todays prices. It seems very solid and the keys are nice and definitley better than most synths of todays market. The dated presets (which were stongly used when it came out) and this alternative kind of synthesis must be the reason fot the reduced price or...?
Thats the price of technology,the D50 was £1445 in 87 according to the Keyfax Omnibus Book,yet a decade later The streetvalue was almost down to a third(£490),so I suppose the Price now is Justifiable to be Quite low,it is a sort of flagship synth of its time perhaps only being superceded by the Korg M1 because of the Sequencer Bolt on aspect and its 8 part Multi..
if the D50 was produced today,you'd still pay the same price within reason of its original 1987 tag,the only difference is you'd get more functions,more memory and probably up to 16 part Mulititibralism and a better interface,but on the same token you'd also probably have more of a Plastic casing rather than the Metal/Plastic combination.Look at the Price of the Original Nord Lead,(£1495)which was the same price,yet has relatively nothing in comparison to the D50 abilities or even FX for that matter,that to me is insane..today chips are cheaper and machines are produced far quicker and with less Longevity than the 80s monsters,the Nords are perhaps one of the few "All metal" machines nowadays.(well apart from the keys obviously)
the thing with the D50 is that over 200,000 units were sold in the synth form,which means that theres plenty of them within the secondhand market,which lowers the actual values of it,had the D50 only sold a few tens of thousands then you'd be looking at possibly double the price nowadays.there are very few Machines that sell in those types of Numbers nowadays,perhaps the Most Popular Synth of the 90s is the Triton Line which has sold in excess of 225,000 units in the Various Triton Models,given its heavyweight abilities against its brother the M1 ut has far more to offer but has yet to beat its Sales figures,this is down to software developments and the shift and advances in Computers,had the D50 been made today doubt it would have made any if only Little impact.
its a classic for sure but not in the way most people look at classic synths,the D50 has more of a classic following for the Name more than the Actual machine itself,Kind of Like the DX7,Everyone knows about the Name and will instantly be able to tell you a record or artist that used its sounds
as for the sound of the D50 ,I don't think a synth really sounds dated at all,its the styles of music which dictate the fashion rather than the Synth itself,the D50 whilst has your internal factory programs pretty much the standard pads and bells and whistles etc,but it is totally capable of producing sounds for trance and just about every other genre going,the reason it was popular was not because of its "In fashion" sound at the time,but because the presets were so bloody good,you can hear just about any song from the late 80s mid 90s that has a D50 presets on and thats because you didn't need to be a programmer to use it,if that was the case then the D50 would have all but been a Flop,its not the most pleasurable synth to Program,
its only because of the PG editor and nowadays the software editors that many people take on the Internal workings,thats why you find that many people say the JD800 was the D50 "done right"a Kind of D50 with the PG1000 editor type interface built in,although it wasn't as popular as the D50,but thats because it was too late after the popularity of the D50 had died down
The D50 is one of those synths that you either love or hate,personally I like its sound,and it has a certain digital charm that sounds Quite Warm in comparison to many of todays 48Khz variety,its certainly not dated in any way,the only thing that dates it is its programibility and it poor Midi implementation.
The D50 is the sort of synth that theres always going to be an abundance of them about,that perhaps maybe the reason I sold mine on,I'm sure I'll still be able to pick up another in the future if I so wish at a silly price,whilst its cult machine I'm more for hanging onto the less Popular synths that weren't huge sucesses,The sort of machine that not many really understand there hidden talents,but once rediscovered will become huge again,and at this time you can Pick them up for almost next to nothing.
