SD-50- the Sonic Cell's little step brother

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javaj_
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Joined: 20:49, 7 January 2008
Location: Calgary, AB, Canada
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SD-50- the Sonic Cell's little step brother

Post by javaj_ »

Whoa- at first I thought they upgraded the Sonic Cell to something very cool. But then, I read, and found that they didn't do that at all. Looks liek the Sonic Cell is still the best module to get (can't beleive they didn't do any expansion slots on the SD-50). Definately makes the SC a must buy for people in my opinion. I really thought they would come out with something new.
shadowfax
Posts: 23
Joined: 16:17, 4 July 2005

Re: SD-50- the Sonic Cell's little step brother

Post by shadowfax »

Despite the simmilarities with the Sonic Cell (external desing, audio and midi interface, mic/line/guitar input, and so on), it seems to me that the SD-50 and the SC are very different kind of products. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but perhaps Roland shouldn't be so ambiguous and clearly state that both products are very different in many important aspects (such as the synthesis engine).

The Sonic Cell is basically a Fantom X, with the same synthesis engine, the same rom sample data (at least most of), SRX expansion slots and so on. On the other hand, the SD-50 seems to be an updated version of the old Sound Canvas series and the SD-80 and SD-90. This means that the synthesis engine is much more limited, that you can edit existing presets, but not editing sounds from scratch (oscillator level), that you cannot expand it with new samples (expansion cards), etc. Although there's still very little info, I'm quite sure it's like that because the SD-50 is GS compatible (contrary to the XV, Fantom and Sonic Cell synths), and, at the end of the day, it's called "SD", just like the previous SD-20, 80 and 90 modules.

That said, I think that the SD-50 is still a very interesting product. In Europe it's advertised at around 330 euro, and this is a very good price for a 24-bit audio card, a midi interface, a pretty good sounding synth module and the cakewalk software.
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