Perhaps some of you have noticed on the new official website: Edgar tries to sell his old Roland D70 synthesizer which worked for him more than a decade actively. The instrument hit the shops around 1990 and TD soon discovered its features: its sound (besides with the already-mentioned Korg Wavestation) characterised Rockoon heavily. Edgar later probably dropped the sound generator of this early digital instrument (successors had a lot more to offer), but the instrument could be found on-stage with him even in the latest performances: it functioned as a master keyboard for synth modules and software instruments because it is light, thin though has 76 keys, and has great touch for a player who deals string and pad instruments a lot (I even have a piece at my home setup - you hardly find a proper replacement on today's market).

But back to sound: the D70 can be classified as a second-generation digital synthesizer. After the first wave of the 80s actors of the digital instrument market worked out the first problems of the technology. In parallel, electronic storage became cheaper and cheaper and a new way has opened for digital synthesizers with a really reasonable amount (some megabytes) of acoustic (and electronic) samples incorporated. Roland's first entry of the age was D50, and the new sample playback method was called by the Japanese giant was called LA (Linear Arithmetic) synthesis which didn't covered anything but a sample playback system. D50 provided digital and analogue method at the same time but the more advanced D70 which followed it 1-2 years later featured full digital machinery with much better and more samples.

The D70 got a relatively good response but the company really wasn't successful because at the same time Korg released the M1 family which opened a new horizon in the synth world and defined the workstation class. M1 had a built-in sequencer (which D70 hadn't) so it was a stand-alone system: anybody can arrange a full song without using any additional instrument - a heaven for the amateur or semi-pro musician. In addition, M1 was full of really realistically-sampled acoustic instrument samples while D70 partly oriented in synth sounds; the rock fashion of the early 90s priorised the acoustic sounds higher than synthesized ones so it was also a general advantage on the side of M1.

Being a second-generation digital synth, creators of the D70 solved a lot of problem of the early digisynths - but, unfortunately, they generated a serious mistake. Just listen to the output of the D70 while no sound on it - and you will notice a clearly audible high-frequency digital noise which came from the bad shielding of the LCD display panel. If you are experienced in digital electronics you can easily switch off the display inside the instrument (a risky process for the beginner!), and the noise will disappear completely.

TD remained a synth band around 1990 (while incorporated Linda on sax and Zlatko on guitar), and preferred the D70 sound over the M1 - let's hear some characteristic samples from D70's preset sound set to prove it. The 12 string guitar has quickly became Edgar's favourite, you can find it many-many songs, just listen to it. Another well-known patch is SpaceDream, Quinoa has opened with this sound for example. This patch is also a very easy to assign... Prologue has numerous appearances also in the TD world, and the very simple electric guitar sound is known as the first sound of the encores in the 1992 tour.