First post, by Silent Supporter
Good day,
I'd been entertaining the idea of owning a Roland SC-55 for quite some time. I did some basic research and thought it would be a great piece of hardware to have.
I pulled the trigger and am now the owner of a Roland-SC 55 mkII. I'm proud to say it's in fairly good condition.
I knew the Japanese power supply presented a risk of disaster if I were to plug it in, so I especially hunted down a Roland one to act as a replacement.
So far so good. The device turned on, and if I plugged in headphones, I could listen to the demo tunes which offered a taste of things to come.
Of course I needed a means by which this device could communicate with my computer. Enter the Roland UM-ONE mk2. USB. What could be easier?
I plug in the device. My computer identifies it and it shows under the control panel. Coming from Windows 11, this of course needs to be mapped, since Microsoft gutted the functionality to change one's MIDI setup years ago.
I downloaded CoolSoft's MIDI mapper. I switched to the Roland UM-ONE mk2 and braced myself.
Of course, nothing happened. Which brings us to the present and this thread.
I made a rookie mistake. I operated under the naive assumption that the Roland UM-ONE would act as a magical bridge between my computer and being able to output MIDI music using the SC-55. I thought it would "just work" and was very wrong.
I have dug around quite a bit in this regard, but I am very uninformed when it comes to almost anything that leans towards sound and I've not had a lot of luck in the way of getting a simple explanation of what is needed to actually succeed in what I'm doing. That is to say, I'm out of my depth here and am just a layman now sitting with a fancy device that I don't have the wisdom or insight to actually enjoy.
It seems like RCA cables attached to the output ports on the SC-55 are necessary, but what should they connect to? I've read something about them having to connect and be treated as a mic input and am now completely lost.
My desired use case is to be able to actually listen to MIDI tracks using the device. I would also like to be able to play old video games and take advantage of it. Ideally, I would like to be able to directly record its output so I can play it back later.
I currently own an Asus Xonar D2X as my soundcard. I use this to output to a surround sound speaker system. Here's an image of its inputs:
I also own a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2. I use this as an input for a condenser microphone to record in high quality, and I use it to output to headphones. Here's an image of its inputs:
I alternate between these two devices to output sound depending on my mood (headphones vs speakers).
Could you please offer some insight as to how I can solve this problem? How can I use my "new" SC-55? Can I connect it successfully to anything I currently have? Can I achieve my ends with what I have?
I am willing to buy whatever components might be needed to solve my use case above and money is no object, but ideally I want to take advantage of the device on my modern system; I don't want to buy a special retro computer specifically for the purpose of using the SC-55.
Any help is appreciated and I thank you for reading all the way to this point.
