First post, by sndwv
I have a real SC-50 for use with my main PC, but I recently built a portable retro game PC and was wondering if there are any projects or options out there to build a 'portable Sound Canvas', a small box that can connect via USB as an external MIDI device for instance.
I think MT-32 emulation is in a pretty good place, but I haven't really found a satisfactory solution for GS / GM (and specifically the SC-50 sound) yet. There isn't one single 'fire and forget' soundfont that fits the bill (unless there is one now?), and I've dabbled with Roland's Virtual Sound Canvas in Windows with varying degrees of success- when it works it's great, but there are many issues with it loading wrong presets or (not) resetting when it should- for me at least.
Is there something out there that does this? Pre-built custom hardware, or Raspberry Pi-based? Something that runs virtual instruments or Virtual Sound Canvas internally? I also noticed Serdaco sells add on cards and external devices with licensed Roland sounds, but not something that really fits the bill as far as I can see.
Edit: my idea to look for a hardware solution is that this portable PC runs both Windows and Batocera, and both OSes can handle external MIDI attached via UM-One or similar. But maybe I'm looking at this from the wrong perspective.