Mastodawn

John Oestmann Music Feb 7

I. Garden of Merchants

https://makertube.net/w/xcgW7JJNsZmmMjKv1kG7Zi

I. Garden of Merchants

PeerTube

James | PixelRefresh.com Jan 16

Welcome to my MIDI family...

The Roland Sound Canvas SC-88 Pro. I'm surprised how many vocal samples it has. Very distinct instrumentations really enjoying it.

Sadly the SC-55 mode isn't 100%, so I'll certainly keep that around but for what it is, I'm really happy with it.

#retrogaming #soundcanvas #roland

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Gregly Aug 10, 2025

I looked up the display controller used by the SC-55’s display, and I suspected it follows the extremely common pinout and protocol used by most text LCDs of the era. I realized I have a display that will work, although the layout of the LCD elements is naturally totally wrong. So I wired it up, and it displays perfectly, confirming that the problem is indeed the SC-55’s display.

Unfortunately those are getting rarer and rarer to come by. There’s a small chance I can repair the existing display *if* I can identify the problem, find replacement ICs, and manage the very fiddly fine SMT desoldering/soldering that would be needed… but I may be better off just keeping an eye on eBay. #electronics #roland #soundcanvas #vintageelectronics #synth

Gregly Aug 10, 2025

Made progress on getting the broken Roland SoundCanvas SC-55mkII that I got for cheap on eBay to work! I was fairly sure a clock signal (or rather the absence of one) was the culprit, and after poking around the board tracing clock signals I found a spot where one abruptly stopped.

Turns out a 40MHz low-pass filter was missing entirely from the board! After bodging it with a wire (since it’s just a filter, so the worst that happens is noise causes occasional problems), the unit came up! 🎉 But the display has issues. Half of it is dead, and the first letter of the instrument name is garbled. This appears unrelated to the first problem, and suggests an issue with the display board itself; all lines going to the display look good.

Given that another filter on the board was already bodge-wired, and a 455MHz crystal (only needed for the remote) was cut out, *and* given this display problem, I think this may have been a parts unit for someone.

#electronics #roland #soundcanvas #vintageelectronics #synth

DOSBox Staging Dec 30, 2024

Today is a big day for DOS emulation, now we have 100% authentic Sound Canvas (Roland SC-55) emulation in Staging via Nuked SC-55 🥳 🎉 🍻 🎊

Grab the latest dev build from here:
https://www.dosbox-staging.org/releases/development-builds/

Then follow the installation instructions from the PR below:
Search "manual testing" and follow the steps under "usage" (this will be more streamlined in the final; the plugin (without the ROM files) will be included in the distribution package)

https://github.com/dosbox-staging/dosbox-staging/pull/4090

#DOSGaming #MS-DOS #Emulation #RetroGaming #LinuxGaming #MacGaming #FOSS #Roland #SoundCanvas #SC-55 #MIDI #GeneralMIDI

Development builds - DOSBox Staging

DOSBox Staging is a modern continuation of DOSBox with advanced features and current development practices.

James | PixelRefresh.com Sep 18, 2024

Game MIDI music in the early to mid 1990s, the Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 and Yamaha MU80 were fantastic offerings and now great for a retro gaming PC setup.

MIDI files are extremely small as they contain only instructions of what to play, it's the Roland & Yamaha modules that contain the audio samples of hundreds of instruments. It did mean your game music could sound very different depending on your sound card's built-in MIDI capabilities or dedicated hardware.

#soundcanvas #mu80 #sc55 #midi