I managed to get the latest official changelogs for the Sound Canvas VA from Roland Japan, so here I’m sharing them with you:
Ver.1.02
– Fixed the bug of not able to save the sound when in a DAW.
– Fixed the bug of not able to playback with correct sound map with certain data.
Ver.1.05
– Fixed the bug of some EFX going abnormal.
– Fixed the bug of System Effect “Delay”.
– Fixed the bug of EFX screen value displaying.
– Fixed the bug of GM/GM2 mode screen displaying and also the behavior
– Fixed the bug of Drum2 Part setting.
– Fixed the bug of display going scrambled on some DAWs.
– Fixed other minor bugs.
Well I had brought up the annoying bug of Drum2 Part setting. In the older version, the bug prevents a drum part 10 to be changed to another permanent location from the user front panel. So for instance if you move this to part 1, that part 1 will revert back to a non-drum instrument when you restart the plugin. While it will still sound correct during the sequencer’s playback, the issue has to do with the display interface. So thumbs up to Roland on this one as the bug has been fixed!
If you go through all of SC-VA plugin’s graphical interface, you can literally access & tweak almost all of their parameters visually with your computer mouse/track pad without the need to program in sysex as what the SC-8820 users do in those good old days. As you know the SC hardware module did not have a front display or edit buttons, so desktop musicians then need to connect it to a computer and use a Sound Canvas software (sysex) editor to tweak the parameters on their computer screen.
EFX Control Switches
Having fixed all of the above bugs, what remains (yes, I’m still waiting) is the unavailability of the four EFX Control Switches (Source1, Depth1, Source2, Depth2) for the Insertion Effects manipulation. These are still missing even on the latest version of the SC plug-in – I suspect such a modification may require a redesign of their user interface to add these missing switches.
On the SC-88Pro, you can access the EFX Control Switches by:
1) Press [ALL] to make the button indicator light
2) Simultaneously press PART [l] and [r]
3) Press either [u] or [d] to select the parameter whose setting you wish to change
4) Use INSTRUMENT [l][r] to set the value
5) When you finish making the settings, simultaneously press PART [l] and [r] to end the procedure
On the SC-8850, the setup procedure is as follows:
1) Press [EFFECTS] to turn it on
2) Press [F4] to scroll the screen and press [CTRL]([F3])
3) Press VAR[d] or INST[u] to move the cursor up and down, and select the parameter you want to modify
4) Rotate the [VALUE] knob, or press [DEC] or [INC] to set the value for the parameter
5) When you finish making settings, press [EXIT] to end the procedure
But it probably won’t happen as their R&D department were quite adamant in their reply that these 4 parameters can only be accessed (unfortunately!) through sysex since the SC-VA’s internals is an emulation of the SC-8820 module, and this can only be commanded externally via midi.
The fact is everything on the SC hardwares (and the SC-VA plug-in) today are fully controllable using sysex messages, which means that Roland goofed up (i.e they forgot to include these four switches) when initially creating the SC-VA layout. To me this is inexcusable as we’re now more than two decades into the future since the Sound Canvas series became popular.
Just to give you an idea on how much we have to continue using the sysex due to the missing 4 switches on the VSTi panel, there are 5 examples below which I’ve highlighted in yellow for the required manual inserts of sysex:
In summary, steps 1 to 3 can be accessed from the SC plug-in’s front panel, hence no need for sysex. We only need sysex for steps 4 to 5, which can be a real pain for the uninitiated, e.g new musicians in the future.
I suppose at the end of the day, we have to ask ourselves: Are we supposed to still rely on aging sysex on our preferred DAW when most of the instrument parameters can be modified visually on the VSTi & stored as part of a song project? And the trend shows that major DAW developers (with the exception of a few like Steinberg, MOTU, etc) are gradually dropping the once must have sysex functions in place of VSTi direct sound editing.
It just seemed to me that the original intention of coming out with this VSTi plug-in (the SC-VA) was to ensure the continuity and survival of the Roland Sound Canvas into the next decade. However the fact that we need to still apply sysex is actually taking 2 steps backward since this means that not all of the plug-in’s full features will be available on most of the current DAWs (I will cover the list of compatible DAWs in the next post).
It’ll probably be more cost effective to correct this with a one time fix (a software update) of the plug-in which will then address all the issues mentioned above. The long list of incompatible DAWs can be reduced, resulting in a win-win for end users and the manufacturer.
Let’s hope Roland is reading this.
Sound Canvas Purist 