Rompler that still nobody has equal its _____ to this date

example
M1 piano patch for dance tracks?

Roland XP30 - decent keybed, decent construction, internal power supply, good range of sounds and very slim and compact.

Hopefully this is in keeping with the aims of the OP in starting this thread

I m very exited about your answers.. thankyou guys

I think the Sweet Flute on the Yamaha Motif series (as well as S90 etc.) is pretty darn awesome, particularly the flutter effects that can be applied in different variations.

So Can somebody please then play Jlos "jenny from the Block" on them?

Not a rompler, but there are several signature Roland D-50 sounds that are often duplicated but not equalled.

thanx actually my question also wanted to includes keyboard like the D50 .

There are times I really miss my D-50. But, it was becoming more of a doorstop gathering dust.

Many sound on the Wavestation for sure, then there was this fairlight or was it synclavier flute from the 80s which everyone use, you know the one in sledgehammer....

Roland JV 1000 when fully loaded ( with questionable features... but that aside ) it retailed at Hollywood Guitar Center at over $5000
The way the bass and piano worked together was great. I tried the follow ups to it later on
and I swear to you, there was a subtle inferiority to the result esp the bass.
Already mentioned in another thread, my replacement for JV 1000 was the PC88
the best compromise with split ac bass, layered ac piano and strings.

Kurzweil K250, K1000, etc. pianos and lots of other things... so simple by today's standards but so right sometimes too.

The E-MU Proteus 2000 was a highly useful ROMpler as well.

As far as not having been surpassed... beauty is in the ear of the beholder.

I would like to go back in time and hear the 360 System keyboard. I was absolutely blown away when I first heard it but that was a hell of a longtime ago. I wonder how the sound set has held up...... probably not so good.

Kurz PC3/PC3x/Forte? for midi controller capability.

I guess if you consider the Mellotron the first mainstream "rompler" (though the sounds were recorded on tape rather than in ROM), you could say no one has topped that for what it is...

Roland piano FP4 and other model's scat singer patch.

(Not really useful, but great fun for all.)

CEB, I think the 360 Systems sounds awfully good today for such an old machine. Here's a demo

https://soundcloud.com/brian-kehew/360-systems-keyboard

Thanks

I remember seeing that ad in Contemporary Keyboard back in the day, but I never ever saw one in the flesh anywhere in So Cal. But clearly Brian has one.....that guy has one of everything.

Definitely this - couldn't really do without mine for all of the above.
I love it so much I bought a spare and the new one now has a complete new set of springs

It can't be beaten but ROMpler - thats stretching it (geddit? :-) )

Every keyboard has at least a few good to great sounds as well as a plethora of useless junk. But then of course one man's meat is another man's poison.

And sometimes even the junk can be a layered component to something much greater than the sum of its parts.

That was an Emulator (II or III, I can't remember) Shakuhachi sample.

..Joe

I'd argue it was a rompler - what with it's collection of rom based attack transients. In fact, what keyboard before the D-50 was using rom based samples?

I think the aforementioned 360 Systems keyboard was the first. But, yeah, not exactly the mainstream board that the D50 was!

I guess you could call it a rompler... perhaps a "hybrid" of sorts.

Actually the Ensoniq ESQ-1 which preceded the D-50 offered ROM-based samples. A quote from the Vintagesynth.com website:

What really sets the ESQ-1 apart from other similar synths is the voice architecture. Choose from analog, digital, or samples or any combo since there are three independent oscillators per voice! Once you start editing on the ESQ-1 you will come up with interesting and unique results. Using dynamic voice allocation it can seamlesly switch from 8-voices of analog to 8-voices of digital or sampled voices! This gives you a wide array of different sonic elements at your fingertips!

Ooh, ESQ, good one. Forgot about them.

I bought the original ESQ-1 when it first came out and spent hours programming it. Really fat analog sounds and the sequencer was easy to use as well. All metal construction too--built like a tank!

Perhaps it didn't have any "signature" sounds, but I had a lot of fun with it. It was the first keyboard I owned with a real sampled piano sound. Quite awful by today's standards but our band liked it.

What the ESQ-1 offered (like the Korg DW-8000 and Kawai K-3) are single-cycle PCM waveforms burned into ROM. Not full blown (but relatively short) sample transients - as in the D50.

So, you weren't going to get a Shakuhachi sample in any of those synths, but you COULD better emulate sounds such as Organ or Steel Drum, through the use of those specialized digital waveforms.

Good point.

That 360 systems piece with full instrument samples in ROM was ahead of its time. I think the next attempt at that approach was the early Kurzweils, and it finally had real mainstream success in the Korg M1.

Maybe that's why I've sold it 3 times, only to keep buying it again!