Amiga + Roland SC88 Pro

[commodorejohn]

I saw the PC/Mac serial connections and switches on the Yammy and assumed they would be no use to me on any Amiga gear ... but I will watch this trhead and maybe learn otherwise.

Looking at that NOTEMIDI page, it looks like it simply dumps MIDI data directly to the serial port at 38.4 Kbps, so I don't see why any computer couldn't use it with the appropriate RS-232 rejiggering adapters. The one item of concern would be if existing Amiga serial-MIDI software changes the port speed to 31 Kbps; you'd have to fix it to use 38.4 instead, unless the module end is flexible enough to accept both speeds.

I should see if this will work with the similar port on my Korg 05/RW...

If people think this stuff its obsolete or old,  then I think vintage Roland stuff must have a bit of a following like  the Amiga. This thing was hard to get

The Sound Canvas line has a huge following in vintage gaming, especially in Japan - a lot of X68000 titles (particularly from Konami) offer a Sound Canvas mode for their music in addition to the built-in Yamaha OPM FM chip.

I've never liked it myself, though (the discrete modules aren't as wretched as the Sound Canvas-derived soundfont that ships with modern Windows, but Lord, they aren't good,) but Roland has made some pretty good gear in the past. The MT-32 is pretty cut-down compared to the D-50, but by the standards of '80s video game music, it's incredible.

[commodorejohn]

I'll admit that it's probably very much a matter of opinion, but the  Sound Canvas soundset strikes me as a good example of Generic General  MIDI Sound Syndrome, wherein voices are designed not so much to be  interesting or good as to fill a slot and sit equally well  alongside any other instrument. Jack-of-all-trades and master of none,  if you will. And since the Sound Canvas modules were some of the first  GM modules, they kind of set the precedent for that line of thinking in  GM sound design (and it got much worse when Microsoft incorporated that  lo-fi Sound Canvas set into Windows.) And some of the sounds are just  bad - the distortion/overdrive guitar sounds are just  embarassing. (Even the cheesy-ass E-mu Proteus manages better  distortion presets than that.)

Admittedly, a lot of wavetable GM modules suffer from that  problem (though not all - that Korg 05/RW I mentioned has some real  character to its presets, even in the GM set.) But the Sound Canvas line  was one of the first, and I really find it to be overall pretty bland.

(Besides, I could never forgive what it did to the GM sound designer's  conception of a recorder. THAT IS NOT WHAT THEY SOUND LIKE, GAH.)

[commodorejohn]

Great to hear it's working I still need to give this a try with my Korg...