The Roland SC-55 is a GS MIDI synthesizer

Synthesizer

A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...

 sound module

Sound module

A sound module is an electronic musical instrument without a human-playable interface such as a keyboard, for example. Sound modules have to be "played" using an externally connected device...

 released in 1991 by Roland

Roland Corporation

is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on April 18, 1972, with ¥33 million in capital. In 2005 Roland's headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. Today it has factories in Japan,...

. The SC-55 was the first sound module to incorporate the new General MIDI

General MIDI

General MIDI or GM is a standardized specification for music synthesizers that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the MIDI Manufacturers Association and the Japan MIDI Standards Committee and first published in 1991...

 standard.

The SC-55 used both PCM

Pulse-code modulation

Pulse-code modulation is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form for digital audio in computers and various Blu-ray, Compact Disc and DVD formats, as well as other uses such as digital telephone systems...

 and a cut-down version of the LA synthesis

Linear Arithmetic synthesis

Linear Arithmetic synthesis, or LA synthesis, is a term that was invented by the Roland Corporation when they released their ground-breaking D-50 synthesizer in 1987.- Overview :...

 engine, to support 24-voice polyphony with 16-part multitimbrality. It came preloaded with the Roland MT-32

Roland MT-32

The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. Along with its compatible modules, it established an early de-facto standard in computer music and was the first product in Roland's ミュージくん line of Desktop Music System packages...

's variation bank, but lacked the MT-32's re-programmability. Aimed at PC music enthusiasts, the SC-55 featured 317 instrument patches, including the GS

Roland GS

Roland GS, or just GS, sometimes expanded as General Standard or General Sound, is an extension of General MIDI specification. It requires that all GS-compatible equipment must meet a certain set of features and it documents interpretations of some MIDI commands and bytes sequences, thus defining...

 drum kits and additional controllers. The selection of effects includes reverb

Reverberation

Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...

 and chorus

Chorus effect

In music, a chorus effect occurs when individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one...

.

Alongside the SC-55, Roland released the SB-55 (Sound Brush), an inexpensive MIDI sequencer

Music sequencer

The music sequencer is a device or computer software to record, edit, play back the music, by handling note and performance information in several forms, typically :...

 module the same size as the Sound Canvas. Both the Sound Canvas and Sound Brush could be rackmounted alongside each other.

Other models with comparable tone generators include Roland CM-300, Roland CM-500 and Roland SC-155 sound modules. CM-300 and CM-500 models lack the LCD screen and extended controls of SC-55. Both models have external appearance nearly identical to Roland's earlier CM-32/64-series modules. SC-155 adds additional slider controls for master and channel level and panning. Additionally, CM-500 includes fully SysEx compatible LA tone generator similar to CM-32L's.

The SC-55mkII

A minor upgrade to the original SC-55, the Roland SC-55mkII has increased polyphony (28 voices), more patches, raising the total number to 354 instruments and extended, and improved audio-circuitry in the form of 18-bit audio (versus 16-bit in the original SC 55.)

The SC-55mkII added a serial port as an alternative interface to the MPU-401.

Roland SCC-1

Roland also released the Roland SCC-1, an 8-bit ISA

ISA

Isa is the name by which Jesus is known in the Muslim world.Isa may also refer to:* Isha Upanishad, Hindu religious text* Isa , 2004 album by Enslaved* Isa , common Arabic and Turkish male name...

 half-size card incarnation of the SC-55 sound module. The sound source is controlled by an on-board MIDI Processing Unit, a variant of the MPU-401

MPU-401

The MPU-401, where MPU stands for MIDI Processing Unit, was an important but now obsolete interface for connecting MIDI-equipped electronic music hardware to Personal Computers...

 unit. An updated version featuring the SC-55mkII sound set was also released, known as SCC-1A. When bundled with the Band-in-a-Box

Band-in-a-Box

Band-in-a-Box is a MIDI music arranger software package for Windows and Mac OS produced by PG Music Incorporated. It was first introduced in 1990 for the Atari ST. Since then, PG MUSIC has been a recipient of numerous awards....

 and BalladeGS software, it's called SCC-1B.

Roland later replaced the SCC-1 with a combination of their MPU-401AT MIDI interface card and SCB-55 Wave Blaster

Creative Wave Blaster

The Wave Blaster was an add-on MIDI-synthesizer for Creative Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE32, and AWE64 family of PC soundcards. It was a sample-based synthesis General MIDI compliant synthesizer...

-compatible daughterboard. Roland referred to this combination as the SCM-15AT.

CM-32P and MT-32 Emulation

Since the SC-55 and has no programmable memory, CM-32P and MT-32 emulation is done by providing the same sound arrangement as the preset sounds of actual devices. These variation banks are enabled by playing back special SysEx containing MIDI files, for example GS32.MID (included in the SCC-1 Utility Software), prior to loading a software title. These specially arranged tone tables contain the relevant GS sound mapped at either CM-32P or MT-32 program number. Pitch bend range is changed to 12 semitone

Semitone

A semitone, also called a half step or a half tone, is the smallest musical interval commonly used in Western tonal music, and it is considered the most dissonant when sounded harmonically....

 from GS default 2 semitones. Master tuning and modulation depth are not altered by the emulation. Pan directions are reversed from actual CM-32P or MT-32 devices. CM-32P or MT-32 specific MIDI SysEx messages are also ignored by the SC-55.

MT-32 Emulation Samples

The Roland SC-55's CM-32P and MT-32 emulation is based on using preset sounds of the actual devices without utilizing programmable memory or actual device synthesis techniques. This results as poor emulation with software titles relying on programmable, custom MT-32 sounds as demonstrated with the introduction from a computer game software by Sierra On-Line Space Quest III: The Pirates of Pestulon.
Software titles supporting the Roland MT-32 but not utilizing its memory are emulated with better results by the Roland SC-55 as demonstrated with the introduction song from Origin Systems

Origin Systems

Origin Systems, Inc. was a computer game developer based in Austin, Texas that was active from 1983 to 2004...

' Ultima VI

Ultima VI

Ultima VI: The False Prophet, released by Origin Systems in 1990, is the sixth part in the computer role-playing game series of Ultima. It was the last in the "Age of Enlightenment" trilogy....

: The False Prophet.

External links

• http://www.xs4all.nl/~hanwen/personal/synth/roland_supp_notes.html
• http://personal.inet.fi/peli/militarist/scc1-e.html