VOGONS


First post, by Spikey

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Hey folks,

For those who are interested, you may be curious (and surprised) to learn that Roland's latest "sound module", the Integra-7 from 2012, has a Roland SC-55 legacy map on board.

This is interesting for one main reason, and that is because it is not mentioned in the manual, or online in any way, shape or form. (I found it out by accident.) However it is extremely useful (in my view!). While, similar to the later Sound Canvases SC-55 maps, it seems to lack perfect accuracy (pretty understandable), it is very close and more than useful for gaming or General MIDI purposes.

To use it, you simply have the GM MIDI play as normal, and Bank Select MSB (CC 0) and LSB (CC 32) must both be present and set to values of 0.

Hopefully this is of use to somebody. 😀

Reply 2 of 6, by yawetaG

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Spikey wrote:
Hey folks, […]
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Hey folks,

For those who are interested, you may be curious (and surprised) to learn that Roland's latest "sound module", the Integra-7 from 2012, has a Roland SC-55 legacy map on board.

This is interesting for one main reason, and that is because it is not mentioned in the manual, or online in any way, shape or form. (I found it out by accident.) However it is extremely useful (in my view!). While, similar to the later Sound Canvases SC-55 maps, it seems to lack perfect accuracy (pretty understandable), it is very close and more than useful for gaming or General MIDI purposes.

To use it, you simply have the GM MIDI play as normal, and Bank Select MSB (CC 0) and LSB (CC 32) must both be present and set to values of 0.

Hopefully this is of use to somebody. 😀

Nice, however I suspect most people won't be buying a 1500 dollar 19" rackmount module for playing games or fooling around with General MIDI... 🤣

Reply 3 of 6, by QBiN

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Spikey wrote:

Hopefully this is of use to somebody. 😀

Spikey, do you perhaps have a recording you could share? I doubt many would be in the position to generate one themselves.

Reply 4 of 6, by Spikey

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Nice, however I suspect most people won't be buying a 1500 dollar 19" rackmount module for playing games or fooling around with General MIDI... 🤣

Pretty fair point! I'm sure there are those who would own one though. And Vogons is known to have users who have spent their fair share on retro gear!
(Now that I think about it, I spent the money- although not that much- to basically fool around with MIDI game music!)

Spikey, do you perhaps have a recording you could share? I doubt many would be in the position to generate one themselves.

Qbin, I don't, not of this feature anyway. I will try to come up with one. I wonder what track to use, something obvious like Sierra's Fanfare, or something else.
Good point also, I know of only one other forumgoer who has this device, and odds are against many others, although it's possible!

Maybe similar to the map available on the SC-88, or the SC-D70?

I haven't owned anything between a SC-55 mkII and a 8850/D70, so not sure about 88. But from a very basic recollection I would guess similar to the 8850/D70 map, with possibly some sonic enhancements from the superior fidelity of the I7 reverb and circuitry. But that is all fairly subjective.

Reply 5 of 6, by yawetaG

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Spikey wrote:

(Now that I think about it, I spent the money- although not that much- to basically fool around with MIDI game music!)

If you have room for a stage piano, the Kawai MP-7 has a hidden General MIDI bank (and can be used as a MIDI master keyboard):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jC5Z4EwhH4c

Reply 6 of 6, by DX7_EP

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Can you make a few recordings, by chance, of the mode?

I recall similar support was available in the SD-50 (according to a thread on the former QuestStudios) - which was not completely accurate versus an actual 55-line unit, but it used many similar samples to one and thus was somewhat accurate (similar to how the 88 and other SC modules handle the SC-55 map). It was also unlike the other SD-series modules (20, 80, 90) which use very different samples for their GS support.

CM-64, FB-01, SC-55ST, SC-8850, SD-20