SC-55 emulation

[munt]

SC-55 emulation

[Kitrinx]

FWIW, While Roland does supply some emulators for sc-55, I don't know of one that is full quality. Sound Canvas VA is an SC-88 emulator, and also extremely expensive. LA and Sound Canvas line do work substantially differently, however I think you would be surprised by the amount of overlap in the envelope handling. SC-55 shares the same three TVP/TVA/TVF envelopes with a similar five point system. I'm sure the tables are different, but there's enough overlap that it's really not entirely out of scope, especially since one device actually combined the two together.

[DMJC]

The EmuSC project already exists for this issue: https://github.com/skjelten/emusc It also supports the SCC-1 and the SC-88 is being worked on.

[sergm]

Hmm, I am not really following. How is that Roland SC-55 does not have an emulator? AFAIK, there is more than one, yet provided by the original vendor, so I don't see any problems with that.

Additional note: the GS devices are substantially different when comparing to the LA devices. I barely see any part of munt code that could be reused in a GS emulator, even if one was developed. Therefore, talks about emulation of any GS device are definitely out of the context of munt.

[Kappa971]

Hmm, I am not really following. How is that Roland SC-55 does not have an emulator? AFAIK, there is more than one, yet provided by the original vendor, so I don't see any problems with that.

I know but it costs more than € 100/$ 100, it isn't free (unless you go into illegality) and it doesn't emulate the SC-55 but the SC-8820, with the possibility to choose the instruments of the SC-55, but it is far from accurate.
There is also the old Edirol Virtual Sound Canvas, but it is simply the Microsoft GS Wavetable (with the same low quality instruments) + the effects

Therefore, talks about emulation of any GS device are definitely out of the context of munt.

the MT-32 had a fantastic emulator that allows everyone to listen to the video game music created with it, while also preserving its history, the SC-55 (in my opinion of equal importance) did not receive the same treatment. Since there is no interest, thanks anyway.

P.S. I would have closed the issue myself ;)

[Kappa971]

Anyway @Kitrinx I think that, if you have time and desire to start such a project, you could open a fork of MUNT and "readjust" it for the SC-55 (as I understand it, most of the code should be rewritten). In this way, anyone who wants to could contribute to the project (perhaps even those of Vogons). If you don't have time or desire, no problem, thanks anyway :)

[Kitrinx]

The reason I did the work to decrypt and map out the various tables in the control rom was because of our 486 core, there really was no reasonable sc-55 option to use other than real hardware, which made me sad. mt32pi did well with it's munt port, but the best there was for gs/gm was fluidsynth. While fluidsynth is very good for general purpose GM, the soundfont format is not complex enough to properly emulate sc-55, it really needs its own emulator to be able to act like the real hardware for games like Descent and etc that really on having the correct synth to sound good.

Anyway as much as I would like to follow this rabbit hole down, my primary focus has been working on retro console cores, and I don't have a very strong musical background. It would be pretty tough for me to see this kind of project to a polished completion. I was really hoping either someone would fork MUNT or MUNT itself would be interested.

[Kappa971]

@sergm immediately closed the issue without any discussion so I don't think he is interested in implementing it in MUNT.
At this point I hope someone will fork MUNT for SC-55. Maybe you could open a topic in vogons to bring together a group of people interested and able to do something like that. I would do it but besides not being registered at vogons (but this is not a problem), I would not be able to describe the technical aspects of the SC-55 that you discovered on vogons long ago, which could serve in the development. Who knows, maybe something moves this way :)

[Kitrinx]

It does now, because munt wanted nothing to do with it.