ROLAND RD-1000

code: KEY.210.RLD.016.INS

When the SAS system appeared, it was a revelation. With more than 30 keyboard 'zones' differentiated not just by pitch and brightness, but also by individual formant structures and string enharmonicities, it was far superior to any straightforward sample-replay system. For the first time, you could recreate acoustic and electronic pianos on a range of stage instruments, and — most realistically of all — on the range of domestically styled Roland Digital Pianos. Of these, the most celebrated was the RD1000 stage piano. Famously adopted by Elton John, this featured a superb 88-note weighted, wooden keyboard housed in a stylish case, accompanied by a stylish pedal unit, and supported by an even more stylish chrome and black stand (the KS11), all of which looked and sounded as good as anything since. It offered just eight voices, but you could tweak these with a three-band EQ, and add chorus and tremolo, storing the results in a further 56 memories, or to 64 memories in an M16C cartridge. The polyphony was stingy by today's standards — just 16 voices for the acoustic pianos, and 12 for the electric-piano emulations — but par for the course in 1986.