Roland owner manual Overview of the RS-50, How the instrument is organized

Overview of the RS-50

How the instrument is organized

Basic structure

Broadly speaking, the RS-50 consists of a keyboard controller

section and a sound generator section.

fig.r01-01.e

Sound

Generator

Section

Play

Keyboard Controller Section (controllers

such as keyboard, pitch bend lever, etc.)

Keyboard controller section

This section consists of the keyboard, pitch bend/modulation lever, panel knobs and buttons, and D Beam controller. It also includes any pedals that may be connected to the rear panel. The performance information generated when you do things such as press/release a key, or depress the hold pedal is sent to the sound generator section and/or an external sound device.

Sound generator section

According to the performance data it receives from the Keyboard Controller section, this section generates and outputs sounds from the output jacks and headphone jack. Up to sixteen parts can each play different sounds (patches), with a simultaneous total of up to 64 notes. This section also includes three effects (reverb, chorus, multi- effects).

Classification of RS-50 sound types

When using the RS-50, you will notice that a variety of different categories come into play when working with sounds. What follows is a simple explanation of each sound category.

Tones

On the RS-50, the tones are the smallest unit of sound. However, it is not possible to play a tone by itself. The patch is the unit of sound that can be played, and the tones are the basic building blocks that make up the patch.

fig.r01-02.e

Patch

Patches

On the RS-50, the sounds you use for normal playing (e.g., from the keyboard) are called patches. A patch is analogous to an instrument held by a member of an orchestra. Each patch consists of two tones; an upper tone and lower tone. You can assign the two tones to their own region of the keyboard, or play them together to produce a richer sound (p. 44). Detailed settings can be made independently for each of the two tones (p. 46).

Rhythm sets

Rhythm sets are groups consisting of various percussion instrument sounds. Since percussion instruments generally do not play melodies, there is no need for a percussion instrument sound to be able to play a scale on the keyboard. It is, however, more important that as many percussion instruments as possible be available to you at the same time. Therefore, each key (note number) of a rhythm set will produce a different percussion instrument.

fig.r01-04.e

Rhythm Set

Note Number 98 (D7)

Note Number 97 (C#7)

Note Number 36 (C2)

Note Number 35 (B1)

Rhythm sets

Performance

A performance is a set of sounds containing patches for the sixteen parts used when you use the Rhythm Guide or when using the RS-50 with an external MIDI device.

Part

A part corresponds to a single musician in a band or orchestra. Since the RS-50 has sixteen parts, you can use sixteen different patches or rhythm sets to play as many as sixteen performances simultaneously.

Current part

The “current part” is the part that will sound when you play the keyboard.

The RS-50 has a total of sixteen parts. For details on how to switch the current part, refer to “Selecting a part” (p. 43).

Upper Tone

+

Lower Tone

40