How to use Nuked-SC55 for Sound Canvas playback

Nuked-SC55 is a ROM-based emulator of the Roland SC-55 family. It does not model the output of the instrument. It runs the firmware from the ROM images of the machine. Its standalone build is a MIDI device on the host. Thus it is the ROM-accurate alternative to the Sound Canvas VSTi recipe. It has the same position in the chain, and it uses the same loopMIDI port, with a different instrument at the end.

You must get and install the program, and also the ROM images that it runs. IzarraVM does not supply them, and it does not download them. Nuked-SC55 has its own license: the original MAME license, with a non-commercial condition. That condition is not compatible with the GPL-3-only license of IzarraVM. For this reason, Nuked-SC55 is a recipe, and not a receiver in the emulator.

The chain

guest game  ->  P330 (MPU-401, 0x330)  ->  IzarraVM P330 MIDI receiver
            ->  loopMIDI port
            ->  Nuked-SC55  ->  host audio device

Procedure

  1. Make the loopMIDI port, and select it as the P330 MIDI receiver. See How to use your own MIDI player. Make sure that the status line shows Ready.
  2. Get the Nuked-SC55 standalone build, and the ROM set for the model that you want. Put the ROMs in the location that the program expects.
  3. Start Nuked-SC55, and select the loopMIDI port as its MIDI input. Use the same port that IzarraVM sends to, and not a second port.
  4. Select the model in Nuked-SC55. The available models depend on the ROM sets that you have. The documentation of Nuked-SC55 lists the models of the build. They include the SC-55mk1, the SC-55mk2, the SC-155, the CM-300/SCC-1, the SC-55st, the SCB-55, and the JV-880.
  5. Start the game, and select General MIDI, MPU-401, or MIDI at port 330. If the game has Roland Sound Canvas, SC-55, or GS, select that option.

Notes

  • The model. Composers wrote most General MIDI game soundtracks of 1992 to 1995 on the SC-55mk1. The mk2 is a different instrument, and it does not sound the same. Use the mk1 for a score of that period.
  • Accuracy against cost. The firmware is more accurate than a model of the firmware. It also needs more from the host than the internal wavetable at P300. Test this path on a slow machine before you decide that the emulator became slow.
  • The audio belongs to the program. As with each host receiver, the volume control of the machine and the ReSonique II mixer registers do not change this sound. Set its level in Nuked-SC55, or in the host mixer.

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