This program allows you to browse the many fascinating sounds of a Roland Sound Canvas module or MIDI card.
You may run the program directly off the CD-ROM, or you may install it on your harddisk for better performance.
If you install the program on your harddisk, the Wave files will not be copied (they take up about 130 Mb of space - another good reason to go for Roland MIDI where ever you can.....). You may of course copy the Wave files manually to your harddisk if you want.
Have fun!!
THE GM SYSTEM
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The Roland Sound Canvas Demo mirrors the GM system, i.e. 16 instrument families of 8 instruments each (plus 1 family of drum sounds).
Click one of the folder icons to choose a family, and the click an instrument to listen to a short melody played by this instrument.
You may choose to have the examples played by MIDI or Wave (more on this later).
ORCHESTRAL EXAMPLES
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A Roland Sound Canvas module does not only feature wonderful single instruments. You may actually play many instruments simultaneously.
Listen to some typical orchestral examples by clicking the Orchestra button (top, left number 3), and the click the name of a style.
You may choose to have the examples played by MIDI or Wave (more on this later).
PLAY THE SOUNDS YOURSELF
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If you have a MIDI keyboard connected to your computer, you may use the program as a "Program Changer", i.e. an easy way to choose instrument.
*** NOTE: In order to use this facility, you must first turn MIDI THRU on (top button, number 3 from the right hand side) and select the correct MIDI input.
PLEASE NOTE, THAT THE INSTRUMENTS YOU HEAR WILL BE GENERATED BY YOUR INSTALLED MIDI MODULE, AND IT WILL *NOT* REPRESENT ROLAND QUALITY (unless you actually have a Roland Sound Canvas installed....).
Please check the real Roland Sound Canvas sound quality by playing the Hi-fi Audio tracks also on this CD-ROM.
MIDI vs. WAVE
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When you start the program, you will be in MIDI mode, i.e. the songs will be played using the MIDI module (if any) on your PC. If you have several MIDI units connected, Roland Sound Canvas Demo will use the one your MIDI Mapper points to.
If you do not own a Roland Sound Canvas module, you can compare the sound quality of your installed MIDI unit and the Roland Sound Canvas quality. Listen to the recordings of a Roland Sound Canvas module (a SC-7 in fact) by choosing Wave playback (icon number 4 from top, left).
PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL WAVE RECORDINGS ARE ONLY DONE IN 22 kHz, 16 bit stereo - AND THIS DOES *NOT* COMPARE TO THE REAL SOUND QUALITY OF THE ROLAND SOUND CANVAS.
We had to restrict ourselves to 22 kHz in order to fit the files on the CD-ROM (!) and to ensure playback even on a single speed CD-ROM drive.
If you want, you may edit the GMDEMO01.INI file to point to your CD-ROM for playback of wavefiles. Edit the line
WAVE Song Path=
to point to the \VB\GM-SOUNDS\WAVE directory. For instance - if your CD-ROM drive is drive D: - the line should read:
The Roland Sound Canvas Demo program and the included song files are Copyrighted (C) 1995 by Roland Corp. and may not be copied or modified in any way without permission from Roland Corp. You are permitted to install one copy on your harddisk.