MMaximus wrote:As you say, full wavetable synthesis wasn't common by 1991...
I'm not sure where this reasoning is coming from. By 1988, nearly every synth manufacturer was producing sample-based synthesis products (of varying price), giving way to a platform that spawned a decade of ROMplers based on those same technologies. Taking into account the mentioned U-110, Korg's M1, or even E-MU's Proteus (1989), 2 - 4MB of sample waveforms wasn't an uncommon amount, even then.
With the SC-55 though, and as relates to the original thread question, there seems to be some fairly heavy sample compression, so while some of the base sample waveforms can also found in other Roland products, both earlier (U-110/220, D-70, CM-32P, SN-U110-xx, etc.), and later (JD/JV/XV, SR-JV80-xx, SRX, etc.), there's a pretty noticeable loss of fidelity with their use in at least the earlier Sound Canvas line.
I have some old recordings comparing the PCM (CM-32P) part of the CM-64 with the Sound Canvas SC-55mkII, if they're of any interest.