This post looks big and scary, but it's actually not that long. I'm just bad with lines. I swear.
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Roland SC-55 Sound CanvasWAVE ROM: 3MB (6MB uncompressed) - 2MB of new sounds, 1MB for MT-32 sounds
Released in early 1991. You're probably already familiar with the sound of this one, even if you've never heard of it before. The stock Windows MIDI and Apple QuickTime sounds are lower quality versions of sounds from this module. There's no real "synthesis" going on in these software versions, which is one of the reasons why they sound so bad.
This is probably the best selling sound module of all time, but ironically it's one of the least heard on recordings. If you think you're hearing one, you're most likely actually hearing some 80's Roland synth. None of the sounds from this module were recorded specifically for it. They all come from other Roland products, and most were recorded around the mid 80's. About 8MB of sounds had to fit into only 2MB of ROM, so of course there were a few... casualties in terms of sound quality. But overall it doesn't sound bad for the time.
A minor upgrade,
SC-55mkII was released in early 1993. It has a few new variations (based on samples that were already in ROM) and a less noisy, but slightly different sounding DAC. I recommend the old SC-55 to purists, but the SC-55mkII should be fine to those who play old computer games regularly. Both are very cheap.
No other Sound Canvas can play SC-55 MIDI files accurately.
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Roland SC-88 Super Sound CanvasWAVE ROM: 8MB (16MB uncompressed) - 5+ MB of new sounds
Released in early 1994. This module has improved reverb and chorus effects, a new global delay effect and a new synth engine. Needless to say, it cant play SC-55 MIDIs accurately, even on the "SC-55 MAP" mode. And to make things worse, they actually ran out of ROM space for the new sounds, so a few of the SC-55 sounds had to be replaced, the most infamous examples being the strings and choir aahs. This has been inherited by every Sound Canvas released after it.
Virtually all acoustic instruments have new samples on the "
SC-88 MAP". The samples come from the
JV-80, an early version of the most widely used pro module of the 90's (the JV-1080), and the first five of its expansion boards. Many of the sounds in these demos should sound instantly familiar if you played 90's games (or even many from the 2000's) recently. The JV strings, french horns, harp and timpani for example can be heard in hundreds of recordings, both old and new. Many sounds had to be cut down to fit into the ROM (either there are less samples spread across the keyboard or they start looping sooner), but most are still recognizable.
Most of the demos are 32 channel, but many home setups at the time could only output to 16 channels, so a portion of the SC-88 userbase never got to hear them properly.
ZUN used this module for all of his MIDI work before 2000. He likely also used it for previewing the drafts of his PC-98 compositions before transcribing everything to MML.
The
SC-88Pro sounds exactly the same as this module with "SC-88 MAP" activated, thanks to it using the same base synth engine, the same DAC and most of the same components, so the SC-88 is completely obsolete!
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Roland SC-88Pro Sound CanvasWAVE ROM: 20MB (40MB uncompressed) - 12MB of new sounds
Released in late 1996. This is the star of this thread. People in the west love calling this just "SC-88", but it's actually a pretty big upgrade to that. New to the 88Pro are
insert effects (such as guitar distortion), which allow composers to set themselves apart from the crowd by giving them more sound mangling or enhancement possibilities. One insert effect can be used at a time. Most of the important instruments had their samples replaced with the new stock samples from the JV-1080, and as well as even more high quality samples from expansion boards. The instrument programming is still absolutely nowhere as good as the JV series, but Roland was a lot nicer about the whole sample crippling thing this time around, so the new sounds are for the most part straight upgrades over their "SC-88 MAP" versions. It had the first good piano in a home user-oriented module.
This module was a mega hit in Japan, and its popularity grew even more ridiculous in the late 90's after it was revealed that
Nobuo Uematsu used a vanilla SC-88 for the music of Final Fantasy. About 95% of all japanese MIDIs are made for either the 88Pro or vanilla SC-88.
This is hands down the best module for those who want to listen to MIDIs at consistently good quality. It rarely sounds astoundingly amazing, but pretty much everything sounds at least decent on it. The screen and the buttons on the front make it easy for even the most clueless person to switch between the SC-55/88/88Pro sound sets or make quick tweaks on the fly, for example while playing a game.
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Roland ED SC-8850/8820 Sound Canvas8850: WAVE ROM: 32MB (64MB uncompressed) - 12MB of new sounds
8820: WAVE ROM: 24MB (48MB uncompressed) - 4MB of new sounds
Released in 1999. This has the same amount of new sounds in MB as the 88Pro, so it has to be a big upgrade, right? Well not really, because they used most of that space on the new stereo strings (which are admittedly nice sounding) and a hundred of filler SFX sounds and one-shot ethnic percussion to try to inflate the module's instrument count! Other than that you get a stereo version of the 88Pro piano, new harpsichord, clavi, music box, tubular bell, santur, harmonica, acoustic bass, sitar and some new organ variations. The solo brasses, oboe and clarinet have extra samples for notes played either softly or hard. It also has a few new poorly programmed ethnic instruments and drums many people didn't like.
Overall, it still sounds too much like the 88Pro, but there's a catch: due to some synth engine changes, the SC-8850 is infamously unable to play many 88Pro MIDIs accurately.
This module usually sells for up to
250 bucks more than the 88Pro. You're technically paying 250 more for a SC-88Pro that can't play MIDIs made for itself 100% correctly. Most of the time (depending on the track), half of the new samples don't sound much better than the old ones, and often they actually sound worse. I think it's a waste of money.
The
SC-8820 (released in late 1999) has much better SC-88Pro compatibility. It's missing nearly all of the new instruments from the 8850, but it keeps all of the filler SFX and percussion (lol). It has a few extra presets compared to the 88Pro, but most of them are just one old sound played together with another. You could do that yourself. By the way, it's also usually sold for more than a 88Pro. You're basically paying to lose the screen and all of the front panel buttons.
ZUN bought a SC-8850 around mid-august 2001, and he used it in a grand total of 3 tracks. He most likely sold it to buy a new module on november of that year (he kept the SC-88Pro). He did mention liking the piano, but I think you can guess what he thought of the module as a whole for him to replace it in 3 months.
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Edirol SD-90 Studio CanvasWAVE ROM: 32MB (64MB uncompressed) - 24~ MB of new sounds.
Released in October 2001. This module is half a synthesizer, half a high quality USB audio interface, and it's what I used to record everything in this thread. Despite the name and the fact that it was also aimed at home users, the Studio Canvas series was a whole new family of modules unrelated to the Sound Canvas series, and it has almost zero backwards compatibility with them. Nearly all of the samples from the SC-55 and SC-88 have been dropped entirely, along with the filler and gimmicks from the SC-8850. Most of the important instruments have new samples, including many samples from the then new Roland
XV series. The XV samples have a higher sample rate and have less aggressive lossy compression applied to them, giving them a deeper, more vibrant sound. The instruments that didn't get new samples have been reprogrammed, and sound more convincing. Higher quality versions of both the SC-88Pro and SC-8850 pianos are included, and some of the samples that had to be heavily cut down during the vanilla SC-88 era such as the violin, cello, oboe and shakuhachi return in full quality. Even prehistoric synth presets such as Fantasia and Halo Pad got revamped.
This module includes all of the engine features of the XV-5080, such as high quality SRV reverb, COSM insert effects like Guitar Amp Simulator (3 inserts can be used at a time) and the ability to customize every single parameter of a preset, or even create your own from scratch. The only thing that's missing is hardware expandability.
Contrary to popular belief, this module actually has 3 different sounding trumpets, not just one.
Don't buy this one if you only intend to listen to random MIDI files. It's wasn't designed for that.
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Edirol HQ-QT Super QuartetReleased in 2001, around the same time as the SD-90. This DAW plugin includes a collection of pianos, guitars, basses and drums, and could be considered a software-based expansion for the SD-90. It includes some samples which were clearly considered to be included with the SD-90 but were left out due to the lack of ROM space, such as a new piano, a modern 6 string bass (fingered, slapped and popped), some guitar and bass noises and a bunch spanish shouts to go along with your mexican trumpet.
The piano is pretty good for fast playing...
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Edirol SD-20 Studio Canvas(Actually recorded on a SD-90 in GM2 mode)
Released in 2002. This is a module mainly intended for use with a laptop, and it's missing almost everything I mentioned above about the SD-90. Half of the presets are missing, including many important ones, and you're stuck with no insert effects and the lower quality "
General MIDI 2" reverb and chorus. They also managed to make it somehow even less editable than a Sound Canvas, which were already infamous for being inflexible... This is just not very suitable for a primary module, and like the SD-90 it's not very good for playing random MIDIs either.
Most of the demos for it are pretty cheesy too. I only recorded them because a few of the instruments used weren't featured in the SD-90 demos.
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Hmm, I doubt anyone here will interested enough to read even half of this, but hopefully this will be at least a little helpful to people who find this thread on google.
This was written after a whole week of bad sleep. I might have to take another look at this post later.
OK so maybe this post is kinda long,
