Roland synthesizers in the 90s have garnered an... interesting reputation over time.
Some people still love them for their classic tried and true sounds,
with a great variety of high quality instrument samples,
ranging from funky slap basses to expansive and warm pads,
while others deride them for their overusage and often cheesy sound.
Regardless of what you think of them, it's hard to deny that they were highly influential in the music making world,
with just one of their synthesizers alone, the JV-1080,
being used in more records than any other synthesizer in the WORLD.
It was a real powerhouse, and when combined with even just one SR-JV board,
it became significantly more powerful. These higher end synthesizers were costly
however, putting them well out of reach of many up-and-coming composers, so
besides saving up, what could you do if you wanted to get those classic Roland
sounds, but didn't have the cash to get the latest and greatest professional model?
You could pick up something like this. The Roland Sound Canvas series
aimed at less experienced composers and our collection of classic Roland sounds
from all sorts of sources, combined with an easy-to-use interface, superb MIDI
support, and a tiny form factor that made them great for people with limited space
such as the desktop music market that they were so often aimed at in bundle
packages. And for the time they were on the market, they were a great success
with people looking to get into composing, who didn't have the money or
space for one of those larger synths, and while they still maintain some level
of popularity now with retro computer gamers who enjoy them for their amazing
sound and classic DOS games, something that's rarely discussed nowadays is... well
actually using them in music! In today's video I want to go over the Sound Canvas
that I own and use on a near daily basis for music work: the SC-88 Pro!
While on the surface, it doesn't look too different from the earlier SC-55 and SC-88,
the story really couldn't be more different. With tons of new sounds on
offer taken primarily from Roland's JV and SR-JV products, and a powerful effects filter
that could beef up and enhance nearly any sound thrown at it, it was darn
impressive for the time, even with its hefty price tag of around 800 US dollars (roughly $1,280 in 2018) in 1996.
Admittedly, that price tag was still a respectable bit cheaper than the
monstrous $1,200 of the JV-1080 or, even worse, the $1,700 price tag of the JV-2080
released just a year later. With all that said, I've been using mine for about half
a year now, and in that time, have progressed a lot as a musician and have
found myself starting to branch out to other synths.
So, is it still worth picking one of these up, or should you you skip out on it altogether? Let's get right into it.
As the second to last major revision of the Sound Canvas line,
and perhaps the largest leap in quality from one unit to the next in the series,
the 88 Pro boasts a whole heap of features including 32 MIDI channels over
two MIDI ports, 1,117 instrument patches, 45 drum kits, 64 insertion effects,
8 types of Reverb, Chorus, and Delay effects, official support for General MIDI
and Roland GS, unofficial support for Yamaha XG, partial backwards compatibility with the SC-55
full backwards compatibility with the SC-88, and stereo 18-bit 32kHz audio output.
It's... a pretty impressive and vast list of features, and the unit only gets more
impressive from here once you start digging into it. In terms of appearance,
the 88 Pro is a beautiful piece of gear that strikes a great balance
between industrial and consumer aesthetics,
which I guess makes sense considering the market it was aiming for.
It's got this light and dark, metallic gray color scheme, highlighted by muted white and orange text that allows it to
appear soft enough to blend in with any environment, while still having enough to
stand out about it that it doesn't become dull to look at. Anyways, the front of the device
has pretty much all of your controls. You get your standard power button, a volume
knob which doubles as a tone test button for trying out sounds and verifying that
outputs work, a front MIDI in for convenience when hooking up a keyboard,
a 3.5mm stereo headphone jack for private listening, a 2.8x1in (71x25mm)
screen, and a variety of multifunction buttons to do editing, instrument
changing, and a whole bunch of other stuff.
All of the buttons have their basic and most important functions clearly labeled,
although there are a lot of additional things you'll want to dive into, that can be accessed only through button
combinations, so having a copy of the manual on hand, either printed or in PDF
form from Roland's website is really recommended.
Speaking of buttons, these buttons feel expectedly nice for a device carrying a near $1,000 price tag,
with a nice click to them whenever you press them in.
[sweet, sweet clicking sounds of some fantastic synthy buttons of clicky proportions]
There's also a small variety of them, which may not seem like anything important, but it makes it easy
to feel around the unit in the dark, as the variety makes it easy to tell where your
hand is currently once you've learned to positions. Another nice touch is that all
the buttons line up with the LCD screen. For example, on the right of the third
row of the screen is the amount of Chorus being applied to the instrument.
If you want to change the Chorus, and you just press the button on the
the right of the third row of the Edit panel.
In a shocking twist, turning the unit over to the back reveals... the back!
Which has a huge selection of... back things! TO PLAY WITH?!
Including three MIDI ports! MIDI in A, which is used to access the first 16
channels on the unit, MIDI in B, which is used for the last 16, and a MIDI out port
that doubles as a MIDI THRU if you set it up as such on the unit.
You can also ditch the MIDI ports entirely by using an RS-232C serial
connection, although this really isn't an option on modern computers to my knowledge.
Between that specific serial port standard being disregarded in favor
of USB, and they Roland Serial MIDI driver having received no updates since
Windows XP, you're basically out of luck, unless you're that one person running Windows XP (why?).
The best option, and the easiest one to get working on any computer, is to use some sort of MIDI cable.
for older computers running vintage operating systems like Windows 98, this is usually something like a
Game Port to MIDI and Controller breakout, but nowadays, I and most other people use
some sort of USB MIDI device. There's a number of these available for purchase
at any given time, but I recommend avoiding knockoff ones made by no-name
Chinese companies as these tend to have trouble supporting SysEx commands,
which is necessary to make the most out of...
Let's face it, ANY MIDI synth. My go-to for MIDI cables has always been the Roland
UM series. These all have great SysEx support, are class compliant, meaning
they'll work on any computer including Linux and Mac machines, and are very easy
to get a hold of both brand new and used at good prices. I've also heard good
things about MOTU (Mark of the Unicorn) and iConnectivity's MIDI adapters, which might be your best
option if you're looking to use both the MIDI A and B ports on the 88 Pro, as
Roland currently doesn't manufacture any 2-in 2-out MIDI interfaces, although
there are some older UM models such as UM-2 and UM-3 line of devices that
support two and three ports respectively, and to my understanding, they work just
as well as the other UM series devices.
For audio output, you get two sets of stereo RCA, which allow you to listen to the MIDI in A and MIDI in B separately,
and an RCA input to let you plug in another device. For the most part,
this input is pretty solid and doesn't cause any quality degradation, though my
particular unit has an annoying problem with dropping sound on the left side.
[awesome techno music that is subjected to very sad and unfortunate audio glitches D:]
[ahh... much better :D]
It's fixed by a simple tap in the knob most of the time, but it is annoying.
Regarding audio outputs, however I've had no problems with them at all, and I found
them to be of extremely good quality. They have barely any noise, and sound
absolutely amazing when hooked up even a half-decent audio interface or sound card.
And finally for powering on the device, you get a power cable that's... permanently attached to the unit.
Opening up the unit to take a look is easy to do; just take these two screws off the left and right sides, and the three on the back,
slide the top cover off, and then the seven holding the motherboard in place.
They're all pretty small, so it takes about 5 minutes tops to get in.
The circuitry is split into a few segments, connected by a series of cables.
The board in the top is the main board, and this contains the
16-bit H8/510 CPU, and the M3888-1M2 sub-CPU, sound ICs, sample ROM chips,
DRAM chips, and two SRAM chips for storing user data, powered by a CR2302 battery.
The board's held on the bottom are the analog board, which contains the
DACs and various bits need to provide the analog audio output, the power switch board,
and the power supply. The only thing you would really need to be doing
here unless the unit you bought was really abused, is replacing the battery
which I highly recommend doing as all the battery-powered Sound Canvas models
seem to be really prone to leakage. Besides that, there's no reason to really
peek around in here. Unlike professional Roland synths, the 88 Pro cannot be
expanded beyond what's initially included as there's no slots for SR-JV80
boards or otherwise. There also aren't really any mods out there for the device
that I'm aware of, with the only one I've seen being a mod by a Japanese user to
add optical audio output to the device using an Arduino, which is pretty awesome if a bit un-necessary.
That's enough about that however, let's talk about the meat of the unit!
The 88 Pro advertises 1,117 high quality instruments, many of which are
cut down versions of stock sounds from the JV-1080 and its first few expansion
boards such as the Orchestral and Vintage Synth boards.
That overall number is a bit of a half-truth though; while there are technically 1,117 selectable
instrument PATCHES, there's only around 700 SAMPLES, as some patches are duplicated
for backwards compatibility with the SC-55 and SC-88 maps, but more on those in a bit...
This same thing applies to the drum kits too, though to a lesser extent.
There's 42 patches, including three sound effects kits for a total of 45, but the actual
number without duplicates is a slightly less impressive 38 unique kits.
Seven hundred some-odd instruments and 38 drum kits is still a pretty wide
variety of sounds however, and there's enough here that anyone who's in
them making any type of music, will enjoy what's on offer, whether that be jazz
electronic, metal, classical, or anything in-between.
Because this IS a Roland GS device, and part of the roland GS standard is maintaining at least some
level of General MIDI backwards compatibility, the sounds are organized
in a way that allows them to stay compatible with the GM standard while still
offering composers easy access to the wide variety of sounds available.
So, here's how they're organized: you have 128 basic instruments referred to as
capital tones. These are the standard General MIDI sounds such as Piano 1
Charang, Square Wave, etc etc. They can all be accessed through a program change command
or by using the instrument buttons on the front panel. Once you found the type
of sound you want, you can select a variation of it by pressing instrument
left and right at the same time in scrolling, or by pressing EFX value left or right.
This makes instrument selection an absolute breeze, as everything is
logically sorted and easy to navigate if you know the General MIDI standard layout.
Now, unfortunately, unlike the JV 1080 and other high-end synthesizers,
you CANNOT create new sounds on this thing. You're limited to what's on board
although I don't see that as a big deal, as what's on board with this thing is
varied enough, and there's a ton of effects that can be applied to any sound to
radically change the sounds. You have your run-of-the-mill Reverb, Chorus, and
Delay effects, along with Cutoff and Resonance filters, Volume and Vibrato
envelopes and new to the Sound Canvas family for the first time, insertion effects!
Similar to what Yamaha had been offering for their MU line around the
same time the original SC-88 launched.
Additionally, similar to the MU series and its the performance mode, that offered beefed up patches using one to four instruments simultaneously,
the 88 Pro offers a collection of 128 patches that use a similar idea.
These patches use one to two instruments at the same time across
one to two channels, often paired of carefully tuned insertion effects to
create much richer sounds than is normally possible.
With all that said, I think it's time to show off the types of sounds on offer here.
I'm going to play some tunes that I've made, and some of my favorite music
from games and other composers, and that'll hopefully give you an idea of how it all mixes together!
Something that is always worth discussing with synths is sound editing, soooo...
let's talk about sound editing! Since the 88 Pro is aimed at more or
less being an easy-to-use, jack-of-all-trades, ROMpler with tons of sounds to suit every genre,
rather than an expandable, customizable, and complex synth,
there isn't a whole lot you can do here. The right of the front panel gives you
access to the settings you'll be changing the most: volume level, pan, Reverb, Chorus, and MIDI channel receive.
The first few are pretty self-explanatory, but the last is interesting as it allows you to get a
richer or more unique sound by stacking sounds on top of each other.
On the bottom of the front panel, you can edit the Vibrato envelope, Cutoff and
Resonance filters, the ADR (Attack/Decay/Release) envelope, and most importantly, the insertion effects!
The interface for all that is really, REALLY intuitive; you press select to
select what part of sound you want to edit, and press the buttons labeled for
each function, and for insertion effects you press EFX to get in the menu, and press the labelled buttons. It's easy peasy!
That's not all you can do though, there's a lot of things you can change by using button combinations.
For example, pressing ALL and then one of the right parameter buttons will let you make global changes
and pressing ALL and then SELECT will let you edit the global 2-band EQ.
There's a lot more than just that though, such as being able to change the volume
and panning level of individual drum sounds, and many more that are documented
in the manual so if there's anything you're curious about, it'd be best to
check that to confirm if it's there or not. One of the nice things about the 88 Pro,
is that any changes you make are saves until the device receives some
sort of MIDI reset, so even if you power it off, until you intentionally try to
reset the device, those settings will stay.
If you're not font of front panel editing, there are a couple of alternatives. The first is to do editing
through MIDI commands, which isn't too bad for basic things like Reverb and
Chorus as these are controlled through standard MIDI CCs, but insertion effects however?
You'll have to use SysEx for those, which can be frustrating to do without the help of a tool.
The second option is to use... well, a tool! Such as GS Advanced Editor.
This is what I use for any intense editing; it's simple, easy to use,
and gives you control over absolutely EVERYTHING, and when you're
done editing, you can export a standard MIDI file which can be imported into
your MIDI editor of choice. Unfortunately, getting a hold of an actual copy of GSAE
is a monumental challenge, as it was only ever bundled with Sound Canvas units,
or available directly for purchase from EdiRol (Roland's defunct desktop music division).
I asked Roland if they ever planned to make the software publically available again, and they said they had no plans,
so for now, your best option for getting it is either to buy a rare copy (some driver CDs such as the SC-D70s include it), or download it from the internet.
So, at this point, I've been pretty positive about the 88 Pro, but there are some things I want to
touch on that I think are worth noting. First off, the power supply here isn't universal.
Kinda. It uses a transformer, that has a few different pins that a
wire can be soldered to, and this will determine what type of power the 88 Pro will be able to accept.
If you live in Europe (or the UK), then this can be a problem,
as 88 Pros native to that region don't seem to be very common, although
thankfully, some eBay sellers in Japan or kind enough to change the voltage upon
ordering the item, and some others will sell units that are pre-modded to European voltages.
Another thing that could debateably be an issue, are the compatibility modes of the SC-88 Pro.
The SC-88 compatiblity is PERFECT by virtue of it and the 88 Pro sharing the same CPU and DAC,
while the SC-55 compatibility is... overall questionable, BUT it leans on good.
Some of the sounds AREN'T included on the storage chips, due to... I'm guessing limited space,
and will instead play their newer 88 or 88 Pro counterparts, even when the 55 map is selected.
This is where the questionable part of it comes into play, because it
results in music that sounds noticeably wrong compared to a real 55...
but only SOMETIMES! While a few games such as the original Descent, which has MIDI music
composed for, and on, the SC-55, do sound wrong, others sound spot on!
One such example is Sorcerian Forever.
[cheesy and awesome GS MIDI music made for the SC-55 plays]
While we're on the topic of compatibility, I think it's worth bringing up the Yamaha XG compatibility mode.
It's a feature of the SC-88 Pro and onward that I rarely see discussed, and it's... NOT without reason.
It's REALLY tacked on. The best way I can describe it, is that it's like listening to a
mediocre cover band tackle one of your favorite songs. I mean, the instruments
are all correct, but it's not really pleasant to listen to.
I've uploaded a few tracks onto my alternate channel, so you can make your
own judgement, but if you ask me the mode isn't anything worth using.
And... for that matter, neither is the Roland MT-32 mode that, once again returns from earlier Sound Canvas models!
As with those earlier models, sound customization and programming is out of the question,
which makes sense considering the MT-32 uses LA synthesis (Linear Arithmetic), unlike the Sound Canvas family,
so you're stuck with the stock 128 sounds.
They... don't sound very accurate to the original model though,
so even as an extra just for backwards compatibility, it's not worth using.
[the nostalgic and radical synthesized intro theme to The Secret of Monkey Island plays]
So here's my verdict on all that: while the SC-55 tones are good enough for most games,
anyone wanting perfect compatibility, or desiring to make SC-55 music, should seek one of those out instead.
That's not to say Roland did a bad job making the SC-55 compatibility mode; contrary to what a lot of people have
said and what I originally though, getting an SC-55 and comparing the two
has shown me it's not nearly as bad as people make it out to be... but it ain't perfect.
Now, if you want to listen to Yamaha XG tunes, then there's no debate,
you need to buy an XG synth instead. There's a whole WORLD of affordable ones
out there that'll do you one better than this thing ever could.
And, if you wanna listen to MT-32 music, then you should pick an MT-32 or look into emulation options,
as those are way better than the crappy offerings of the 88 Pro and, really the whole Sound Canvas family.
Still though, I love the rest of what's here, and if what I've said is convince you to purchase one or at least
made you think about it, there are some things to consider.
First off, if all you're after is the sound and effects, ya' don't mind some inaccuracies and
you're not dead set on owning a physical piece of hardware, Sound Canvas VA is an option worth considering.
Released in late 2015, Sound Canvas VA is a VST that seeks to replicate ALL of the major revisions of the
the Sound Canvas hardware, with the SC-55, SC-88 SC-88 Pro, and SC-8820 all being
represented in full here, giving you a pretty complete set of Sound Canvas sounds.
I didn't use it for too long for this video, but I will say at the least
that the user interface is good enough, if a bit unprofessional looking,
it's easy to get up and running with good compatibility with various popular DAWs,
and the compatibility of it compared to real hardware is mostly really good
Personally though, I much prefer the look, sound, and feel of the real hardware.
That said, there's always alternatives available. The 88 Pro didn't mark the end
of the Sound Canvas family; it ended up getting a few successors that all came
complete with a full set of SC-88 Pro sounds. Those being, the 8850, 8820 and SC-D70...
...unrelated to the Roland D70, which is... also barely related to the Roland D-series synths, and...
wow, that's an awful naming scheme.
Besides adding some new instruments onto the 88 Pro set, those models all come with some
new, neat, additional features, such as the 8850 adding a jog dial which allows you
to select instruments and change values, a much welcome addition, MIDI over USB on all of them,
eliminating the need for a USB MIDI adapter, USB power for the SC-8820 which is AWESOME,
and for the D70, audio over USB or Optical out, and an instrument input!
...seven years after Yamaha did it!
Of course, it's always worth considering alternatives from other brands that might be better suited
to what you want. The most obvious ones are the late-model Yamaha MUs; the 100s and the triple aughts.
I don't own any of the 100s, but I do have a 1000EX and it definitely has some merits over the 88 Pro and the 8850.
Unlike the Sound Canvas series, with the exception of D-70, which only work as ROMplers and nothing more,
the MU series offers features BEYOND that.
The MU80 and beyond have a single input for synths, guitars, and microphones that you can apply
effects to, the MU100 added a Yamaha PLG slot in addition to that, so you can add
new features like vocal effects (PLG100-VH) and an analog modeling synth (PLG150-AN), the MU128 gave
you THREE PLG slots and TWO inputs for stereo instruments, and the MU2000 and MU1000
added USB support, digital audio out, and a built-in USB MIDI interface on TOP of all of that.
Do these things make the MU series better?
Eh, that's up to you to decide. Personally, they're things I could live without,
but they are nice to have. The instrument inputs especially are super
handy for hooking up synths and guitars since I don't have a mixer or amp handy, but I'll
spare everyone of my extended thoughts on this until I can make a proper video about it.
I think the only thing that really matters in the end though, are the sounds,
and in that regard, I kind of prefer the 88 Pro.
Maybe it's just personal preference or maybe it's just nostalgia for games I grew up playing always using Roland sounds,
but there's just a nice and very pleasant tone to all the sounds on offer here.
While it does generally sound kind of outdated compared to modern-day VSTs and soft synths,
it never sounds dated in a bad way. It's the kind that makes me feel
nostalgic for an era of music that's gone by, but, when used in a way that
really takes advantage of all the editing features on offer, it can sound
surprisingly modern and is still totally usable today if you ask me.
It's just a piece of gear that makes me happy to use and play around, with so while you might
not be making a next big pop hit using just it, I can still wholeheartedly
recommend it for what it is: a fun, easy to use, and enjoyable slice of 90s synth history, that still has some value today.
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