32khz

[endre1952]

The "Sound Canvas" wikipedia page claims that the SC-55 is 44.1khz, while the SC-55 MKII is 32khz. What does that mean?

I just bought my first SC-88 from Japan, I guess 2200 YEN isn't a bad price for it. This also seems to be 32khz...

[Ari]

That's kind of strange...

I know the MT-32's sample rate is 32khz, but I always thought they upped all the later synths to 44.1khz (and at some point to 48khz).

[Alistair]

I'm pretty sure Ari is right. The SC-55 mkII's main difference is 18-bit resolution audio over the SC-55's 16-bit.

To quote Wiki:

A minor upgrade to the original SC-55, the Roland SC-55mkII has increased polyphony (28 voices), more patches, raising the total number to 354 instruments and extended, and improved audio-circuitry in the form of 18-bit audio (versus 16-bit in the original SC 55.)

The SC-55mkII added a serial port as an alternative interface to the MPU-401.

I very much doubt any SC-55 variant is 32 kHz.
Although, I don't think there were many 48 kHz SC's until recently. They'd have to be digital devices, so maybe the 8820 and SCD-70 are, but other than those, probably none of he 55/88/Pro era.

[Cloudschatze]

The Wikipedia article has some issues. Someone has apparently confused the (supposed) 32KHz waveform sample rate with the DAC output resolution/rate, making a mess of things for a few of the models. As far as I know, the waveforms in the SC-55 and SC-55mkII are the same rate, whereas the DACs do differ, as Alistair mentioned.

[Cloudschatze]

Well, after taking a closer look at the edits, (which were apparently based on information on this page: http://www.blitz-aktion-midi.jp/sc_kai/cap1.html) it looks like the information is probably accurate after all. That is, the DAC clock-rate was determined to be 32kHz in a number of models. I imagine this may apply to the SC-55 as well, however, it isn't specifically mentioned.