Roland SCD-15

Originally sold by Roland, then marketed through Roland's Edirol division, it appears that the venerable SCD-15 daughterboard has finally been abandoned.

In trying to find replacements, or backup modules, I've been stunned that, of all the cards sold, one never sees one up for auction. The old Yamaha XG cards are plentiful by comparison. There are tales of discount bins, in you were if the right place some years ago. But you don't see the SCD-15 anywhere, even though it was a very big seller in its day.

The advantage of the card over others of the day, such as the early XG, was that the samples tended to be more convincing, at least by comparison. The others sounded like a synth, no matter what the patch. You had to go to keyboards, with built-in synths, or expensive sound modules, to get better results.

The disadvantage was that it still sounded a touch synthy. Except for low fuzz, which can be convincing, the mid and high electric guitars, for example, don't sound so much like guitars when you compare them with the real thing in the hands of a pro or gifted amatuer. Without the comparison, and a few years ago, it was amazing that one could get that 'live' a sound from a sound card on their PC. It was really something.

What remains the advantage is that it was low-end, and inexpensive. It was an effective way to get close to a final recording, without the expense of the studio, and actual instruments. But there's still no substitute for that, in the end, for a final rendition, or even for the interplay between musicians in composing in the first place - even as members of a group tend to specialize and work on their own, oftentimes.

The MIDIs at this site, some of them, sound very nicely polished, as is, particularly some jazz numbers, and the louder, fuzzier metal pieces, in the mp3 format. But much of that is due to audio filtering, after having recorded the MIDI playback. But MIDI, itself, is a great way to hear the song, play around with things. MIDI was never built to be a method for playing back an entire multi-track song, at once. But it serves well in just that. If the sequencer doesn't crowd you, or get in your way, the ability to change the song at something close to a final rendition can take a minute or less. The MIDI is small file. It's bright and sharp when played right through the card, without having to be recorded and filtered for wave/audio playback.

Difficult to say if there's been any improvement since those days, as people move to wave/audio playback and studio recording, even on their PCs. It's not as easy, or convenient. But it does remove the problem of synth dependencies and never knowing how your MIDI will sound on a different synth - which was the huge problem with getting anyone else to hear your work; and so the inevitable desire to record and distribute as mp3.

The Roland Sound Canvas daughtercard. May it rest in peace. It was quite a useful device.