[Carl Winslow]

...and how the HELL do I use this?

Like, okay, I thought this would be PRETTY simple, seeing as midi in seems to function great and all, but getting output back to the PC is certainly a pain. Winamp (and probably other things) can send stuff to the device, but not get audio back out from it. I instead have to hook my headphones to the device to get things back out from it. the UM1-EX cable says there is indeed output coming back from the device, but it's simply not being read or recieved. Am I doing something wrong here or Windows 7 is being a big baby about this?

[Daedolon]

MIDI Out, then RCA in?

I wish I knew, I've been looking for one for years and it looks like everyone is asking absurd prices (200€ and up) for an antiquated piece of equipment only people on this forum would use.

[Carl Winslow]

Suprisingly, I got mine for free because a friend of mine was upgrading to an SC-88Pro. it's really nice, I just wish I could figure out why I can't basically use it as my PC's midi device at the moment.

[Daedolon]

Windows 7 is hell for MID-interfaces unless you have a dedicated sound card that handles all that jazz. I wish I could be of more help, as I love the SC-55 and I've never even seen one, let alone had to use/configure one.

[MusicallyInspired]

Digital/analog audio signals do not pass through MIDI cables, only MIDI information. You're not going to hear anything from your UM1-EX cable. That's not what MIDI Out is for. You need to either connect your SC-55mkII's stereo RCA outputs to your sound card's Line-In or get a small mixer and hook both your computer and SC-55mkII up to it, and send that to your speakers. The former is the preferred, cheaper, and easiest method. This is old hardware, it's not like USB and HDMI where everything passes through the same cables. It also can't be "detected" as a device. Your PC will basically just send MIDI messages out through a MIDI cable and not care where it ends up. So your dedicated MIDI "device" will just be your MIDI output (the UM1-EX cable). These MIDI modules weren't just used with computers either, but in studio and live performance scenarios without computers. The capability was not there.

You're lucky to get one of these babies! I wish I had a mkII. I only have a CM-500 which is equivalent to a regular SC-55 (which has less polyphony). Enjoy it!

[Carl Winslow]

yeah, I'm really happy to have it. I've been wanting to get into making music for awhile, and getting this has really given me a real drive to get started. It's just a situation where I don't know much about what I'm doing yet beyond this and a 'music composition 101' book that I got for 5 bucks.

[MusicallyInspired]

Even more props for striking out on your own. That's how I got started. I took piano lessons as a kid and hated it. Had to go at it in my own way. Just remember that it's not so much about following the rules and common conventions as it is simply being aware of them and pushing the envelope, even if that means breaking them. Play/write what you're hearing and feeling, not what you "should" play/write. But start with the common conventions first so that once you've got those down you can leave them behind.

[Carl Winslow]

I jury rigged an old 2.1 stereo set to play the audio through the thing for the time being. it works fairly well.

(had to rearrange the deska bit to fit this shit though.)


E: question, what's the best program to play audio through this thing? winamp sometimes gives rather mixed results and doesn't always update settings correctly. any suggestions?
Also seems like there's a weird issue with it reading super complex midis, but I can't finda whole lot of documentation for how this thing works.

E2: nevermind, I found a program to set the midi instructions to their correct formatting. still get issues with extremely complex midis, like MEGAPULSE by Anomaria, but everything else is working quite well now.

[Hendricks266]

Carl Winslow, on 05 September 2015 - 04:38 PM, said:

E: question, what's the best program to play audio through this thing?

I use Sekaiju for MIDI stuff.

Carl Winslow, on 05 September 2015 - 04:38 PM, said:

E2: nevermind, I found a program to set the midi instructions to their correct formatting. still get issues with extremely complex midis, like MEGAPULSE by Anomaria, but everything else is working quite well now.

You might still be bumping against the device's polyphony limit.

[Mark]

I took a listen to a few youtube vids with that unit. It sure stands out against my sound card. I really like the horn sounds.

[MusicallyInspired]

What kind of issues? It might be your MIDI cable. Not a lot of them are made very well and you can get problems like missing or stuck notes. I use an oldschool MIDI/joystick adapter cable with my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS so I don't get those issues.

[Carl Winslow]

MusicallyInspired, on 05 September 2015 - 08:37 PM, said:

What kind of issues? It might be your MIDI cable. Not a lot of them are made very well and you can get problems like missing or stuck notes. I use an oldschool MIDI/joystick adapter cable with my Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS so I don't get those issues.

Even with Sekaiju, every so often with MIDIs made for the SC-55 it doesn't read the instructions right and plays flat tones where it should be doing warping of the tone. Most everything else seems to work fine, but it's a few particular songs with GS instructions that give this sort of error really bad. I had it fixed for a good bit, but then something must've happened that caused it to do it again.

[Duke of Hazzard]

Daedolon, on 05 September 2015 - 10:19 AM, said:

MIDI Out, then RCA in?

I wish I knew, I've been looking for one for years and it looks like everyone is asking absurd prices (200€ and up) for an antiquated piece of equipment only people on this forum would use.

Hardware only becomes obsolete when software becomes capable of emulating it.

I've heard the SC-55 emulators aren't 100% perfect even with the soundfonts, so there's that.

And Windows' implementation of it is shitty.

[MusicallyInspired]

Soundfonts are garbage.

[Carl Winslow]

pfffft, all the instruction problems were just that I didn't know the UM1-EX cable needed a driver. Everything works pretty good now.

[MusicallyInspired]

Strange that it worked at all, then. Glad you got it going. Now, run it through DOSBox and play all your games in Sound Canvas/General MIDI/Roland GS mode.

[Daedolon]

Duke of Hazzard, on 05 September 2015 - 10:08 PM, said:

Hardware only becomes obsolete when software becomes capable of emulating it.

Not what I meant.

[Striker]

For Midi out through one of those, I recommend SynthFont, it allows you to play and compose MIDI, and has great MIDI-Out support.

http://www.synthfont.com/

[Carl Winslow]

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1bNjHlsbg5Y

played this off and recorded it. sounds neat, but inexplicably the drum track seems to be missing. might be an old version of MEGA.mid or something.

[Inspector Lagomorf]

StrikerMan780, on 07 September 2015 - 08:51 AM, said:

For Midi out through one of those, I recommend SynthFont, it allows you to play and compose MIDI, and has great MIDI-Out support.

http://www.synthfont.com/

Indeed, I liked this program so much that I made a donation. It's a very versatile tool.

[Person of Color]

Am I the only one who thinks the Sound Canvas sounds like complete shit? The patch set is just dreadfully cartoony and weak.

[MusicallyInspired]

I wouldn't use it for compositions myself, but sometimes you find a great game that really takes advantage of its strengths and it's fantastic. I much prefer the MT-32, though. I just wish it had the same level of polyphony.

Remember too that this was available back in the 90s when people only had OPL MIDI and wavetable cards were in their infancy. This was a veritable live orchestra for the time. Top of the line. The later Sound Canvases definitely leveled up their quality too.