Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

On 1/29/03 12:47 PM, "Jonathan El-Bizri" <sserendipity@...> wrote:

> 
> --- Jonathan El-Bizri <sserendipity@...> wrote:
>> Am I the only person who can't stand Roland's D/A converters? Every
>> Roland product I've ever heard has exactly the same Roland 'bedroom
>> tone'.
> 
>> LOL.  Are you sure it's the DACs and not that "32MB when converted to
>> 16-bit linear" crap?  I don't know what their proprietary wave data
>> format is, but it's something less than 16 bit data.  I think they use
>> some sort of companding with like 12 bit samples or something, and then
>> "emphasize" it after the fact.
>> 
>> All of their synths do this (as is evidenced by the disclamer on ALL of
>> their wave data sizes) so that might be what you're hearing.  A good
>> test would be to listen to one of their samplers that really do 16-bit
>> linear (like the sampling section of the 909, not the synth voices).
> 
> Well the VG-8 guitar modellers do it too. Maybe worse than anything else
> they've made; it's easier to tell than on a Rompler (when I first heard a
> 303, I thought it was the source material). So do the V-Drums, though it's
> not as bad - again, probably because of the nature of the samples - all
> percussion, and less tone. As far as I could tell (which wasn't very much,
> considering the audio quality), I could even hear it on the V-Synth demo
> posted at H-C. Still looks like a damn nice synth, though.
> 
> I think the only piece of Roland gear I've used that I couldn't conclusively
> hear it on was the SP-808. It doesn't do any pitch manipulation - it's just
> sample playback.
> 
> bIz
> 


Sorry to but-in at a late stage in the discussion.

One thing I do not hear mentioned would be the quality of Roland's sample
playback engine.  This would show up by artifacts in the sound when they are
transposed up and down away from the root of the sample.  Doing this well
was one of the things Emu perfected and they hold patents on their methods,
which turned out to be related to how it could be done in their chips.
Maybe Roland is using a different method?

While it is possible that Roland is compressing their samples I'm not sure
that would account for the "Roland sound".  And it is not necessarily "bad"
in that pre-cooked samples (using tremendous amounts of analysis and
processing to do the compression won't necessarily create a poor performing
result.  Shoot Kurzweil made a name for themselves in terms of sample
quality with a complex compression scheme that used only 10 bits for the
samples.  and that was using early 1980's technology.

My own personal guess is that it is a combination of their overall signal
path design, including the sample playback engine, the filter, the
envelopes, and the final variable AMP.  There could also be a basic
character to the source material itself.  I doubt Roland is doing a lot of
new samples.  Rather there is a lot of recycling, just maybe with newer
delivery.

I think all of the big-boys like E-mu, Roland, Yamaha, Korg have their
sound.  In the end much of it is that way because that is what the perceive
to be "best" - its a matter of institutional taste!


drk

www.delora.com/music
www.mp3.com/zdrk
drk.iuma.com