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Topic: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove (Read 8368 times) previous topic - next topic

Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Hello, everyone!
I'm doing a comparison of the Audio PCI, (with the latest 4 meg waveset), Wingroove, and Roland Sound Canvas.
I have the Audio PCI, and the Wingroove. The Audio PCI blows the Wingroove away -- on certain instruments. It seems that Hiro (Wingroove creator) chose to augment more "pop" instruments (i.e. guitar), and these sound good on wingroove. I use mostly orchestral instruments, so the French Horn on the AudioPCI sounds worlds above the Wingroove. I don't, however, have any comparison with the
latest Roland Sound Canvas -- I'm speaking of the software wavetable emulation, not the sound card or the box.
Has anyone heard it? How does it compare with the Wingroove; The Audio PCI. I'm thinking of moving to a mobile notebook platform for the music I write. This would only be possible with a software emulation program like Wingroove or Roland. One used to be able to download a demo of the program, but that seems a thing of the past.
If anyone has some info about this product from Roland, please post or email and let me know. You might save me 70 bucks and some disappointment.

Mark

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #1 –
The VSC (the version I have) sounds pretty much like the DirectX Microsoft Synthesizer since the MSS is based on the Roland soundset.
I'm disappointed with the brass sounds but the latest version may be better.
If you're seeking a soft synth have you considered a Yamaha soft synth - I use an SyXG50 Nova Station version and that sounds better (for my needs) than VSC.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #2 –
Just to add to Barry's comments: DirectX 8 is out now, and unless my ears are seriously playing tricks on me, they've improved the sound considerably from DX7 (perhaps a higher sampling rate?). And yes, the sounds were directly lifted from the Roland SC sounds. The only drawback is that for Win95 you need to use a dedicated DirectMusic midi player, since the "Microsoft synth" doesn't show up in the list of available devices. (AFAIK it /does/ show up in Win98). So there's the completely free (and legal) way for you to sample the Roland sounds. (I actually used this soundset in one of my published tunes, "Lachrymosa")

I personally really like the Yamaha XG sounds, and the SYG50 soundset sounds almost indistinguishable from my dedicated XG firmware card.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #3 –
Barry, Fred,
I just downloaded and tried the Yamaha softsynth S-YXG50 from the Yamaha web site. Again, for "pop" and modern synth sounds, it sounds great. But the orchestral sounds --the French Horn, Brass, Strings, etc. sound very inferior to the AudioPCI. Have you ever heard it? This might help you understand. I will post a .mp3 file on my web site today of one of my orchestral compositions that will show you what I currently have. The thing I'm looking for is a better flute, maybe some punchy brass, but the AudioPCI French Horn is great. If they have improved the XG, that may make a difference. I'll check into that.
Give me some time to post that .mp3...have a listen if you don't mind and tell me what you think. :)

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #4 –
The .mp3 is online with the midi files, now. BTW, my site is listed in the Noteworthy User sites, but here it is anyway:

http://www.geocities.com/mcloud10

then follow the links to the midi files.

Mark

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #5 –
I think the Audio PCI French Horn is great (but only on the 4 Meg waveset, not 2 meg)! I have a SB Live! now, but the French Horn on the 8 Meg Soundfont bites. :( The tuba sounds better, though.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #6 –
I bought the latest copy of Roland's Virtual Sound Canvas. I bought it mainly because I have not had much luck piping the sound from by SC-88VL (sound canvas box) into my sound card to allow me to convert to wav files. I wanted to be able to put my compositions onto audio CDs. VSC does have the capability to save directly to WAV from within the program, and it's pretty slick.

Sound quality - it's way better than Wingroove (at least the version I had about a year and a half ago), but it's a far, far cry from my SC-88 box. The strings and most of the woodwinds sound OK; the brass and kettle drums are not what I would call acceptable. Also, you can only have 16 voices, not the 32 that I can get with my SC-88.

I found a way around my cd-creation problem. I picked up one of the new Philips shelf stereos that has a cd-recorder built in. I connected that to my SC-88 via gold cables and now I am getting very good recordings. It's not the "cheap" solution, but it works well for me, and gives me a good system to play back my music as I'm composing. The Philips unit costs around $500.

By the way, I've not heard any sound card or "virtual" sound generator that comes close to my SC-88. When you buy these things new they cost quite a bit (the newest version from Roland is almost $900). There is a good re-sale market on these things. I bought my SC-88 used a couple of years ago for just under $200 out the door, including both Midi and serial cable adapters. It works with either my laptop or my desktop. The sounds are very good, and highly adjustable.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #7 –
What exactly is "Virtual Sound Canvas"? It sounds like software. Where do you get it? I've been searching Roland's website (rolandus.com) and I don't see it.

Thanks.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #8 –
Virtual sound canvas is a software program. It's made by Roland but sold by a company called "Edirol". You used to be able to find the sound canvas stuff (hardware and software) on the Roland site but a while back they moved all of it to the Edirol site. I think Edirol is a subsidiary but I'm not sure.

Virtual sound canvas is pretty cheap (under $50). I uses a similar sound set to the Roland Sound Canvas hardware, but as I said in my previous message the software's sound quality is not nearly as good as the hardware.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #9 –
Ok so the soundcanvas might be real cool for MIDI, but considering the price, I see no reason to use it. I have SBLive! and I'd rather download the Roland SC88 soundfont off hammersound.net and load it into my soundcard. It sounds REALLY good that way (talk about 8-point interpolation!). Also, you can use any kind of instrument for MIDI using soundfonts. That's why I chose SBLive instead of yamaha's SW1000XG. I have bought yamaha s-yxg50 (and have tried s-yxg100) which sound very different from roland but since both of these companies are those which set standards, just about ANY midi file rocks on yamaha. the sound quality isn't too good for the yamaha softsynth but it's okay, esp because it effectively emulates the XG effects etc. Anyway, I think a yamaha XG and Creative SBLive is a much better combination than roland's external sound modules. of course if you compose your music especially for a particular synth, even wingroove (and it's 1 mb waveset) can sound awesome (like those sample MIDIs made by Hiroki himself.)

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #10 –
I am a big MIDI freak. Mainly with MIDI guitars. The Sound Canvas 3 is nothing short of miraculous, except for the first two drumsets and the brass. Wingroove has some of the best drums I ever heard in a waveset, but the cymbals all suck donkeys. PCI is awesome in all areas. The guitars are $1000 quality, but the sax sounds horrible. Standard kit sucks.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #11 –
Roland Virtual Canvas 3.2 Sucks, period. Its nothing more than 902 peices of crap. SYXG50 3.12 is a lot better, but its hard to create decent midis with it. There is also Seer Systems Reality. The demo has 128 GM sounds that are not only wavetable. Some are analog, FM, model, and Modal. You can create your own sounds. In the default soundset for Reality, the pianos (Grand through Honky-tonk), Organs (Hammond, Perc., Rock) are great, The guitars and strings are great, the brass sucks, all of the synths leads, pads and fx are great.

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #12 –
I've tried them all but the each have their good and bad. The string and guitars which are added in are better in ROLAND VSC but the drums in WINGROOVE are really good.
 

Re: Roland Sound Canvas vs. Audio PCI vs. Wingroove

Reply #13 –
I've try them all too, but I stil can't get a decent sound, 'cause I've got to use them with GM and 60% of the files sounds very poor; in the hardware the proteus and canvas are much better, but are very slow for live performance, so I really like the "surreal" by seer systems, it's the best for software, so the process I use is with surreal for midi, then convert to wave, then edit and zip to Mp3 and finally, use an Mp3 player on stage, plus a three members band. It is not a very easy way to work, and edit it's imposible during live performig, but it sounds very, very real, but you can't play solos freely 'cause a band might follow you, an Mp3 never will.