Roland ED SC-D70 Music Packs

[XxMiltenXx]

The Roland ED SC-D70 is a sound module and one of many successors of the popular Roland SC-55. While I enjoy the Roland SC-55 music packs from MusicallyInspired (Bradon Blume), I always wanted an alternative, so here it is.
The SC-D70 is essentially a Roland SC-8820, only that it has USB-Support and digital outputs.

So, what's the difference between the Roland SC-D70 and the SC-55?
The SC-D70 uses different patches (instruments) than the SC-55, so the songs sound very different.

The recorded music packs haven't been altered, except for loudness normalization.

Finished music Packs: Doom 1, Doom 2, Final Doom - TNT: Evilution, Final Doom - The Plutonia Experiment, Heretic, Hexen: Beyond Heretic, Duke Nukem 3D, Duke: Nuclear Winter, Rise of the Triad, Hocus Pocus, Descent 1, X-COM: UFO Defense (UFO: Enemy Unknown) and X-COM: Terror from the Deep.
Other planned music Packs so far are Blood, SIGIL (Doom Mod), Duke Caribbean: Life's a Beach and Duke It Out In D.C.

More information and ownloads:
http://sc-d70.retrohost.net/

If you have any questions or requests just let me know.

[Pixel Eater]

Very nice! Sounds sweet even on my spikey speakers

[Chris]

Out of curiosity, what makes this different from SC-55 recordings? My technical knowledge of the SC-55 (and external synths in general) is quite limited, does the SC-D70 have higher quality instruments and/or effects or something?

[XxMiltenXx]

I have to go into a little more detail.
The most known Sond Canvas devices after the SC-55 are:

• SC-55mkII - which raises the maximum voices (polyphony) from 24 to 28
• SC-88 - which raises the maximum voices frin 28 to 64, the output resolution from 16 to 18-bit and increases the number of tones (instruments) from 317 to 654 and the drumsets from 9 to 22)
• SC-88Pro - which raises the number of tones from 654 to 1117 and the drumsets from 22 to 42
• SC-8820 - which raises the output resolution from 18 to 24-bit, the number of tones from 1117 to 1608 and the drumsets from 42 to 63
• SC-D70 - which is basically an SC-8820 but with digital in- and outputs as well as raising the output resolution from 32kHz to 44.1/48kHz

Each unit comes with new instrument maps, which replace some of the older instruments, so some of the instruments might be the same as the old one while others may have been changed. And all contain the maps of their predecessor. So SC-D70's main map is the SC-8820 map but it also contains the maps for the SC-88Pro, the SC-88 and the SC-55. The music packs will be recorded using the SC-8820 map.

So in short: Many instruments will differ in comparison to the Roland SC-55 and the output resolution is a lot better, which will result in better audio quality. Whether you like the music packs more with either the SC-D70 or the SC-55 is personal preference. There are some instruments I prefer from the SC-D70 (e.g. brasses in D_E1M6, it just sounds great), but I prefer some of the synth basses from the SC-55 (e.g. D_E1M3). The Roland SC-D70 offers a lot more variations though (more instruments), but not many MIDIs actually make use of it.

More detailed information can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Sound_Canvas

About the continuation of the music pack:
Before I will add other games I will release a V2 of the existing ones, cause the current version does not contain any loop points metadata.

[Enjay]

The Doom ones seem very nice. Very clear and very much in keeping with the original sound.

[Valken]

I saw you made Duke Nukem 3D Atomic Edition music?! Because I love their midis... just awesome composition. Maybe Shadow Warrior and Blood after that... if you have time.

[XxMiltenXx]

Other games will come, but I do not know in what order yet. Shadow Warrior and Blood are planned too.

First off I'll update the Duke Nukem 3D and Doom with proper loop points where necessary.

[Darkcrafter]

Nice effort! Doom E1M2 sounds just stunning here. E3M2 is nice as well. But nothing beats OPL3 in some songs to me

[XxMiltenXx]

@Darkcrafter: Yeah, the OPL3 is the most nostalgic for many ppl. Same goes with the SC-55. In the end it's just personal preference whether you like OPL3, SC-55, this pack or any other soundfont.

The Hocus Pocus Soundtrack has been released. It's "Version 2", so I raised the volume slightly compared to the previous packs and OGG and FLAC have proper loop points set to them. Since Hocus Pocus itself cannot use it, I recommend checking it out on Hocus Doom!

I know I wanted to update Doom and Duke Nukem first, but Hocus Pocus doesn't have many tracks, so it was easy to do.

[Darkcrafter]

By the way, I would totaly replace the onboard overdrive and distortion guitar samples in this roland with default microsoft gs wavetable pack as it sounds better at some point.
Actually I compose music for doom myself sometimes transcribe what's not presented on the web, I was even able to find a special Doom OPL3 driver that allows me to know what sound will be like in doom pretty closely

Roland sounds especially bad at E3M3, Windows pack sounds better here. Pretty much sampling electric guitar is a pain in some place for everyone, I even end up having my own pack that still sounds robotic sometimes. That's why I prefer OPL3 to wavetable things, it sounds consistent in any song.

P.S. I would like to find out what some of my MIDIs sound like with this synth you have

[Phredreeke]

Any chance of a music pack for Perdition's Gate and Hell to Pay?

[XxMiltenXx]

There hasn't been a new release yet, but I was given some webspace by the guys from the duke4.net forum, so the future releases will be hosted there on a little website.

Roland sounds especially bad at E3M3, Windows pack sounds better here. Pretty much sampling electric guitar is a pain in some place for everyone, I even end up having my own pack that still sounds robotic sometimes. That's why I prefer OPL3 to wavetable things, it sounds consistent in any song.

I guess I know why you dislike it so much. I used the standard settings which applies a lot of reverb to the songs, which might be fitting for some but not for others. I am currently experimenting with the effects of the device and will probably use different settings per song regarding reverb and chorus, and E3M3 just doesn't sound as good with too much reverb.

Any chance of a music pack for Perdition's Gate and Hell to Pay?

You can make requests, sure, but I cannot promise you when I will get around to make those. I want to get some of the main games done first (Doom 1&2, Heretic, Hexen, Duke Nukem with loop tags), but since I want to improve it more (as stated above) it will still take some time.

[XxMiltenXx]

It's been a while but now I have news...

1. No more Mediafire! I was given some webspace on the duke4.net forum, so I can host my music packs on a proper website now.
2. Every song has a different reverb type and level applied to it as some songs benefit from more reverb while others don't.
2.1. Doom, Duke Nukem 3D and Hocus Pocus have been updated accordingly.
3. Doom 2 and Rise of the Triad have been added!

The website doesn't look like much yet, but it's working at least.

If you have any issues with the music packs or the website let me know, so I can resolve them...
...otherwise enjoy

[Enjay]

Cool that you've got a host. Downloading some of the new stuff now. Thanks.

[XxMiltenXx]

Heretic has been added, you can grab it here: Heretic Music Packs

• Heretic does not contain any loop tags as the original music wasn't intended to loop, so just like the MIDIs it will fade out nicely and then start from the beginning.
• Some music have duplicate notes which would be audible on the SC-D70, while the SC-55 ignores them. Since the duplicate notes don't sound nice IMO, I removed them.
• Other changes I made were some volume fixes to some tracks, as the music wasn't made with reverberation in mind it would sometimes cause some weird "after-effects". I have fixed that.
• I have made some crescendo's more smooth as most of Heretic volume changes are very coarse. I only changed it where this coarseness was necessary (e.g. MUS_E2M3)

Duke: Nuclear Winter, one of the Duke Nukem 3D Addons has been added... as it is christmas I think this was a needed addition at this time! You can grab it here: Duke: Nuclear Winter Music Packs
Have a nice Christmas everyone!

I hope you enjoy