In an obscure Japanese game called Hopmon, there are four MIDI tracks that were actually written on this very model of keyboard. If you open the MIDI files in Notepad or a similar basic text editor, the first few lines will tell you that it was written by musician T. Kinoshita in Cakewalk Pro 6.0, on an SK-88 Pro, with an SC-88 Pro as playback device in mind. I played that game back in the day, as it was released outside of Japan as a budget game, and playing its tracks through the Sound Canvas VA from Roland was such a fun experience. I finally got to hear the songs as they were intended, instead of through Microsoft's old and decrepit Sound Canvas implementation in Windows with the GM.DLS soundbank.
I definitely prefer this style of review over what many other people are doing. These demo tracks are an incredible way to share something and made the entire video feel extremely personal. You've communicated to me that you really understand its value and utility and didn't just sink a bunch of cash just to record it playing the same old DOS game theme songs into your camera's mic input before never touching it again. If you continue working with the SK-88, please consider sharing future findings and creations with us!
Thank you! My intention is to get comfortable enough with the keyboard that I can start writing music for my videos with it. So hopefully I'll be regularly sharing more eventually!
Of course, the major disadvantage is the mod wheel can be used for more than just vibrato. So if you want to use it for the filter or some other tonal change, you can't (on a Roland with this set up) turn the wheel to a position and leave it. On the Roland JD-XA they at least had both, the joystick and the wheels.
It's on the original Jupiters and SHs, too. I think it's a great option to have. One of their recent models has both the traditional Roland bender/filter stick and the Moog style wheels, which seems perfect.
Wow Shelby, I didn't know you where a music person do, this is really nice. Heres how I feel about your musical tunes 10:16 - Funky bass and drums for a platformer. 10:47 - Almost sounds like Jazz jackrabbit stuff 11:30 - Sounds like a cool under water theme
The solid feel of this keyboard has stuck in my memory since the 90s when I used to visit the local music store after school and play around with it, wasting the sales guy’s time asking random questions as though I was actually in a position to drop $800aud on it. Great to see it get such a thorough video👍
Yeah - an actual, useful sponsor. Beats yet another Raid: Shadow Legends, NordVPN or Raycon earbuds sponsorship (three products which all suck and I'd never buy no matter how much they sponsor content).
I am both biased and being compensated, but I have had no problems with my VPS and it has been rock solid stable. It's only been down twice, once for fixing ZombieLoad and the other was an issue with the physical host that was resolved in less than 40 minutes. Neither requiring anything from me.
if you've got a hankering for both aftertouch and some wacky looking products, have a look into aftertouch retrofit kits. from sticky FSRs on the keys, to little springy things that go under them, to weird optical things, there's no limit to how creative people have been trying to shoehorn aftertouch into keyboards that don't have it
So glad to see someone finally cover this one!! There's precious little on the SK series and even the SC series; I can't find many detailed videos on those outside of my own reviews. I actually thought about getting one of these for my music setup since my SC-88 Pro died and I needed a small MIDI keyboard, but I ended up getting an SC-880 from a friend so I just got a Korg Taktile controller instead... which is also how I can confirm the SC-880 is quite literally just a chunkier SC-88 Pro with a new UI, form factor, and some 'better' DACs. I think they also enhanced the patch mode a bit but that's all I know, it's the exact same sound and everything as the 88 Pro.
I was a little scared when I took plunge on buying one because there was so little info out there about them. But it absolutely lives up to any expectations. Your SC-88 Pro and SC-8850 reviews were both extremely helpful for this video! I probably watched the SC-88 Pro one 5 times to make sure I got it right. From what I've read in the manual SC-880 has twice as many patches, the high res display, and "performance" storage which I think lets you do a bulk dump to on device memory. And the different buttons layout that, after looking at the manual again, I guess has the D-pad and knob that I wish this had. At least I discovered towards the end of this video that you can hold both buttons when moving in a menu after pressing one of them to go much faster which helps a lot. The performance storage would be nice for the keyboard to make it less PC dependent, but I really like the classic Sound Canvas display on it and I wouldn't want to trade that for it.
@@TechTangents The D-pad and knob definitely help a lot with navigation, though sometimes I feel like the knob can be worse for navigation since it's the ONLY way to increment/decrement and... well, it's not the most precise thing ever. I didn't actually know the performance mode was even a thing on it, though I guess it makes sense since all the other professional Roland synths I've owned have that mode. But you can only store 8 of your own performances on it and use Roland's own default 8, and the way they're arranged isn't quuuuuite the same. Performance mode on a JD-990 for instance is used for both layered sounds and instruments on multiple channels like an SC would. The former is done in that Patches mode, which... ...the 880 has twice as many *patches* as the 88 Pro's, but not *tones*, which are the individual sounds. The patches are just a few instruments layered together with insertion effects, but for the kind of composing one would typically use a Sound Canvas for it's... kinda pointless, it's really just this weird way of bridging the gap between a full synthesizer like the JD-990 and JV-2080 and the multi-timbral bread'n'butter sounds boxes like the SC series by layering sounds together to make it sound richer.
Yeah, I probably wouldn't like only having the knob for inputting data. For the filters you can use the instrument < & > keys to fine tune a value for the last knob you touched. It took me a while to get my head around what patches are and why you would want them. And I'd definitely agree that they are pretty much useless. I think patches on the SC-880 also save the first 6 parts which is a lot more useful at least as an almost performance mode. Maybe I should have railed on the article a bit less for the difference but I was just kind of annoyed because it was practically the only source of SK-88 info online and it was wrong.
Thing sounds beautiful dude. Love these old keyboards. Bought a PSR-12 not long ago just so I could have something with a YM3812 chipset to simulate listening to my old game music back in the day. I have *never* seen anything like this before though!
Personally the SC-55 is my favourite MiDi synth. Mainly because June Senoe used it a TON in sonic adventure. Also the bass and the drum samples make me VERY happy. The SC-88 may have that too, but it doesn't do it for me quite like the SC-55
Really there is SC-55 in the Sonic Adventure music! That it some of my favourite music outright, game or not. That is awesome to know! Is there anyone who has broken down what all samples were used?
The SC-55 wasn't used in Sonic Adventure, you may be mistaking it for some other Roland sounds but the SC-55 was very rarely used in professional pre-recorded music :p The Korg Trinity, however, was used. A LOT. People have been documenting samples from games for a while now, you can actually find tons of stuff on the Sonic series here! docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJBlHHDc65fhZmKUGLrDTLCm6rfUU83-kbuD8Y0zU0o/edit#gid=808410874 And other games (which I've contributed to ^^)
@@TechTangents okay well maybe it wasn't entirely used. But in the demo tracks made for Sonic 3D blast an SC-55 was clearly used. It's not dumb to think that when June (wait was it Jun?) went back to those demo tapes for Sonic adventure, and decided to touch it up, an SC-55 may have made its way into the game.
That's a really handy list! I wish I had seen that before I did this, I might have looked for another better MIDI file for one of the other songs. Also, I think the native map OrchestraHit may be the sample used for Metallic Mario in SM64. I don't see that on there so I don't know if it's been explored and debunked already or not.
I have the module version of the SC-88 Pro, I got it in March 2010 at a winning bid of £300 which seems a bit more than it's really worth but by that point I wasn't going to be without one a moment longer! I also have Sound Canvas VA which has the same sounds as the later SK-500/ SC-8820/SC-D70 but in form of a VST instrument. I don't think the SC/SK-88 Pro sounds that outdated at all. These sounds are far more superior to the sounds in my Yamaha PSR-295.
Did you know that you can hide video in the SC-55 and SC-88 MIDI channels and get it to play on the VU meters on the front of the unit? Obviously low res stuff, but it's still neat. This keyboard probably supports it too.
I enjoyed your review and loved your music! Would you think that this unit could be used live? I would use the sounds that are already incorporated into it plus midi a module off to the side with other sounds mainly bass sounds because that's really what I am is a base fire but I wondered something to augment that by playing bass, mostly synth base. Your recommendation sir?
In an earlier version of this video I covered than and will come back to it when I do a repair on the second one but I'll go ahead and answer it now as well. I believe the keyboard I reviewed in this video has never been used, it's nearly cosmetically perfect. But I bought it as not working. When I began troubleshooting it I found that the main CPU chip itself had failed. I think the unit was returned as defective because it has stickers in Japanese(I can't confirm it, but I think this keyboard may not have been normally sold outside of Japan) on it indicating some kind of manufacturer maintenance. So I think the original owner pulled it out of the box new, it failed to turn on, and they sent it back and got a replacement. I don't know how this one ended up for sale in the US, but I put the logic board from the other one that was working with physical damage and it was perfect after that. So I think that sticker was there to make it more obvious to a new owner that the power switch was on the back, but it was never removed.
I look at this and want to say that it's a Roland equivalent to the Yamaha CBX-K1XG, but the lack of speakers and the full-size keys makes it seem not so? I'm wondering how big this thing actually is, because it does seem fascinating anyway, and I also hope it's better at velocity sensitivity than the Yamaha is. (Which is the only real gripe I currently have with the Yamaha, admittedly. There don't seem to be very many (>25
Do a demo of the sk-88pro using touhou project midis (especially touhou 6 and 7), because it uses the whole 64 voice polyphony in some cases, like quite literally
Since I just moved parts around everything is still broken, I just concentrated the brokeness into one of them. I will be fixing that one at some point in a video.
I like your music :) last track reminds me of earrrrly Boards of Canada. Do you play keys usually as a main instrument? More synth or keyboards related videos would be interesting to see :)
hey man, im not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but you said that this has no internal speaker of its own, right? so does that mean it wont make any sounds until you have it connected to a pc?
But Sound Canvas VA is not too expensive. The ST version of the SC-88 Pro or even an SC-8820 is not too expensive if you just want something for dos games.
1. Why don't You want to change your computer's motherboard to Windows 98 if you realize that it is bad? 2. are you Planning to build a PC for the 20th anniversary of Windows XP? 3. Why Does your PC on Windows 98 not display a 5.25 " flop drive?
The JV-30 was basically a souped up SC-55 so that makes sense! It's also totally unrelated to the actual JV synths like the 1080, which the 88 Pro borrows liberally from its sound set and expansions (the 88 Pro Piano for instance is just a lower quality version of SR-JV80 Session's grand, and the Sync Lead sounds are all taken from SR-JV80 Vintage Synths)
In an obscure Japanese game called Hopmon, there are four MIDI tracks that were actually written on this very model of keyboard. If you open the MIDI files in Notepad or a similar basic text editor, the first few lines will tell you that it was written by musician T. Kinoshita in Cakewalk Pro 6.0, on an SK-88 Pro, with an SC-88 Pro as playback device in mind. I played that game back in the day, as it was released outside of Japan as a budget game, and playing its tracks through the Sound Canvas VA from Roland was such a fun experience. I finally got to hear the songs as they were intended, instead of through Microsoft's old and decrepit Sound Canvas implementation in Windows with the GM.DLS soundbank.
I thought 8-bit keys had uploaded lmao. time to watch vid!
Me too.
Same 😅
Tangent Keys would be the lowest and highest keys on your keyboard, right?
David usually doesn't deal with 'professional' keyboards. And this certainly isn't an 8 bit keyboard.
Had no idea Akbkuku was also into keyboards. What a great vid this was!
I definitely prefer this style of review over what many other people are doing. These demo tracks are an incredible way to share something and made the entire video feel extremely personal. You've communicated to me that you really understand its value and utility and didn't just sink a bunch of cash just to record it playing the same old DOS game theme songs into your camera's mic input before never touching it again. If you continue working with the SK-88, please consider sharing future findings and creations with us!
Thank you! My intention is to get comfortable enough with the keyboard that I can start writing music for my videos with it. So hopefully I'll be regularly sharing more eventually!
That pitch bend/mod combo is a Roland trademark. Been around since the Roland D50 at least. Some love it, some hate it.
Of course, the major disadvantage is the mod wheel can be used for more than just vibrato. So if you want to use it for the filter or some other tonal change, you can't (on a Roland with this set up) turn the wheel to a position and leave it. On the Roland JD-XA they at least had both, the joystick and the wheels.
It's on the original Jupiters and SHs, too. I think it's a great option to have. One of their recent models has both the traditional Roland bender/filter stick and the Moog style wheels, which seems perfect.
I'm getting one of these for just 100 bucks in great condition. I'm excited to use this for my 80s and video game music!
Your linode ad was actually kinda convincing.
I didn't even know that Roland made a Sound Canvas keyboard but it's awesome
Wow Shelby, I didn't know you where a music person do, this is really nice.
Heres how I feel about your musical tunes
10:16 - Funky bass and drums for a platformer.
10:47 - Almost sounds like Jazz jackrabbit stuff
11:30 - Sounds like a cool under water theme
the one at 11:30 made me think of _The Bloop._
The solid feel of this keyboard has stuck in my memory since the 90s when I used to visit the local music store after school and play around with it, wasting the sales guy’s time asking random questions as though I was actually in a position to drop $800aud on it.
Great to see it get such a thorough video👍
Doug DeMuro would be proud of that intro
Hahahahhahaha
Linode looks like exactly the thing I needed.
Yeah - an actual, useful sponsor. Beats yet another Raid: Shadow Legends, NordVPN or Raycon earbuds sponsorship (three products which all suck and I'd never buy no matter how much they sponsor content).
I am both biased and being compensated, but I have had no problems with my VPS and it has been rock solid stable. It's only been down twice, once for fixing ZombieLoad and the other was an issue with the physical host that was resolved in less than 40 minutes. Neither requiring anything from me.
if you've got a hankering for both aftertouch and some wacky looking products, have a look into aftertouch retrofit kits. from sticky FSRs on the keys, to little springy things that go under them, to weird optical things, there's no limit to how creative people have been trying to shoehorn aftertouch into keyboards that don't have it
So glad to see someone finally cover this one!! There's precious little on the SK series and even the SC series; I can't find many detailed videos on those outside of my own reviews.
I actually thought about getting one of these for my music setup since my SC-88 Pro died and I needed a small MIDI keyboard, but I ended up getting an SC-880 from a friend so I just got a Korg Taktile controller instead... which is also how I can confirm the SC-880 is quite literally just a chunkier SC-88 Pro with a new UI, form factor, and some 'better' DACs. I think they also enhanced the patch mode a bit but that's all I know, it's the exact same sound and everything as the 88 Pro.
I was a little scared when I took plunge on buying one because there was so little info out there about them. But it absolutely lives up to any expectations.
Your SC-88 Pro and SC-8850 reviews were both extremely helpful for this video! I probably watched the SC-88 Pro one 5 times to make sure I got it right.
From what I've read in the manual SC-880 has twice as many patches, the high res display, and "performance" storage which I think lets you do a bulk dump to on device memory. And the different buttons layout that, after looking at the manual again, I guess has the D-pad and knob that I wish this had. At least I discovered towards the end of this video that you can hold both buttons when moving in a menu after pressing one of them to go much faster which helps a lot.
The performance storage would be nice for the keyboard to make it less PC dependent, but I really like the classic Sound Canvas display on it and I wouldn't want to trade that for it.
@@TechTangents The D-pad and knob definitely help a lot with navigation, though sometimes I feel like the knob can be worse for navigation since it's the ONLY way to increment/decrement and... well, it's not the most precise thing ever.
I didn't actually know the performance mode was even a thing on it, though I guess it makes sense since all the other professional Roland synths I've owned have that mode. But you can only store 8 of your own performances on it and use Roland's own default 8, and the way they're arranged isn't quuuuuite the same. Performance mode on a JD-990 for instance is used for both layered sounds and instruments on multiple channels like an SC would. The former is done in that Patches mode, which...
...the 880 has twice as many *patches* as the 88 Pro's, but not *tones*, which are the individual sounds. The patches are just a few instruments layered together with insertion effects, but for the kind of composing one would typically use a Sound Canvas for it's... kinda pointless, it's really just this weird way of bridging the gap between a full synthesizer like the JD-990 and JV-2080 and the multi-timbral bread'n'butter sounds boxes like the SC series by layering sounds together to make it sound richer.
Yeah, I probably wouldn't like only having the knob for inputting data. For the filters you can use the instrument < & > keys to fine tune a value for the last knob you touched.
It took me a while to get my head around what patches are and why you would want them. And I'd definitely agree that they are pretty much useless. I think patches on the SC-880 also save the first 6 parts which is a lot more useful at least as an almost performance mode.
Maybe I should have railed on the article a bit less for the difference but I was just kind of annoyed because it was practically the only source of SK-88 info online and it was wrong.
Thing sounds beautiful dude. Love these old keyboards. Bought a PSR-12 not long ago just so I could have something with a YM3812 chipset to simulate listening to my old game music back in the day. I have *never* seen anything like this before though!
Well this is the first time I watched a keyboard video made by AkBkukU.
Personally the SC-55 is my favourite MiDi synth.
Mainly because June Senoe used it a TON in sonic adventure. Also the bass and the drum samples make me VERY happy. The SC-88 may have that too, but it doesn't do it for me quite like the SC-55
Really there is SC-55 in the Sonic Adventure music! That it some of my favourite music outright, game or not. That is awesome to know! Is there anyone who has broken down what all samples were used?
The SC-55 wasn't used in Sonic Adventure, you may be mistaking it for some other Roland sounds but the SC-55 was very rarely used in professional pre-recorded music :p The Korg Trinity, however, was used. A LOT.
People have been documenting samples from games for a while now, you can actually find tons of stuff on the Sonic series here! docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1JJBlHHDc65fhZmKUGLrDTLCm6rfUU83-kbuD8Y0zU0o/edit#gid=808410874
And other games (which I've contributed to ^^)
@@TechTangents okay well maybe it wasn't entirely used. But in the demo tracks made for Sonic 3D blast an SC-55 was clearly used. It's not dumb to think that when June (wait was it Jun?) went back to those demo tapes for Sonic adventure, and decided to touch it up, an SC-55 may have made its way into the game.
The conclusion here is that we should thank John Burton for releasing those demo tracks on GameHut.
Listen to them, they're AWESOME!
That's a really handy list! I wish I had seen that before I did this, I might have looked for another better MIDI file for one of the other songs.
Also, I think the native map OrchestraHit may be the sample used for Metallic Mario in SM64. I don't see that on there so I don't know if it's been explored and debunked already or not.
I'm sensing a channel theme coming soon to a video near you!
I have the module version of the SC-88 Pro, I got it in March 2010 at a winning bid of £300 which seems a bit more than
it's really worth but by that point I wasn't going to be without one a moment longer! I also have Sound Canvas
VA which has the same sounds as the later SK-500/ SC-8820/SC-D70 but in form of a VST instrument.
I don't think the SC/SK-88 Pro sounds that outdated at all. These sounds are far more superior to the sounds in
my Yamaha PSR-295.
Found an SK-50 at an op shop a year ago. I'm surprised to see how much different the 88 is!
2:34 i am using that EXACT audio interface for my headphones right now. dropouts galore, lol
Holy shit you use seq24? That is such a deep cut and a wonderful piece of software.
I'm VERY, very glad you did this video, as I've just ordered one from an auction website! (Not Ebay, something else). £55. 😁
Did you know that you can hide video in the SC-55 and SC-88 MIDI channels and get it to play on the VU meters on the front of the unit?
Obviously low res stuff, but it's still neat. This keyboard probably supports it too.
I couldn't find middle C if my life depended on it yet I watched the whole video.
I find old keywords interesting I've been looking for a yahmaha psr 530 for at least a few years now as for as I've gotten is the music cartridge
more music hardware! its crazy just as im taking an interest in this stuff myself u upload this
Love the visualizer you use at the end!
Wow new video from 8-bit ke... oh, wait..
Just kidding. Nice video as always. Stay safe!
Groovy tunes you made there!
Lots of ms-dos games their composers wrote their music using these, the sc55
Dang good job on those tracks. I remember when you did the music for a time lapse in an older video, your keyboard skills have come a long way
I enjoyed your review and loved your music! Would you think that this unit could be used live? I would use the sounds that are already incorporated into it plus midi a module off to the side with other sounds mainly bass sounds because that's really what I am is a base fire but I wondered something to augment that by playing bass, mostly synth base. Your recommendation sir?
Oh, wow your advertiser sounds really cool!
that 3rd tune you made is pretty nice
Got myself one of these, runescape's midi works great with these.
First little piece sounds like it'd fit perfectly into one of the PS1 Spyro games
88Pro is best MIDI tone generator ever!
I agree, I have an SC-88 Pro. I also have an SC-55, SD-35 and SC-8850
and I also have Sound Canvas VA on my old PC.
Roland also did at least one professional soundcanvas based keyboard, being the unnecessarily large JW50.
Make data general working video pls
I also use Linode for my website. I love it a lot!
I don't know if you've noticed it or not, but the channel icon in the bottom right corner is still the old icon
Party time. Excellent.
Cool Shirt
==> Power ?
In an earlier version of this video I covered than and will come back to it when I do a repair on the second one but I'll go ahead and answer it now as well.
I believe the keyboard I reviewed in this video has never been used, it's nearly cosmetically perfect. But I bought it as not working. When I began troubleshooting it I found that the main CPU chip itself had failed. I think the unit was returned as defective because it has stickers in Japanese(I can't confirm it, but I think this keyboard may not have been normally sold outside of Japan) on it indicating some kind of manufacturer maintenance.
So I think the original owner pulled it out of the box new, it failed to turn on, and they sent it back and got a replacement. I don't know how this one ended up for sale in the US, but I put the logic board from the other one that was working with physical damage and it was perfect after that.
So I think that sticker was there to make it more obvious to a new owner that the power switch was on the back, but it was never removed.
Nice work dude! Thank you for doing it.
I look at this and want to say that it's a Roland equivalent to the Yamaha CBX-K1XG, but the lack of speakers and the full-size keys makes it seem not so? I'm wondering how big this thing actually is, because it does seem fascinating anyway, and I also hope it's better at velocity sensitivity than the Yamaha is. (Which is the only real gripe I currently have with the Yamaha, admittedly. There don't seem to be very many (>25
Subscribed purely because of your hat!
THAT EDIT AT THE BEGINNING
Do a demo of the sk-88pro using touhou project midis (especially touhou 6 and 7), because it uses the whole 64 voice polyphony in some cases, like quite literally
Damn bro I love your music
Would have love to seen a video on the restoration of the one working unit.
Since I just moved parts around everything is still broken, I just concentrated the brokeness into one of them. I will be fixing that one at some point in a video.
I like your music :) last track reminds me of earrrrly Boards of Canada. Do you play keys usually as a main instrument? More synth or keyboards related videos would be interesting to see :)
ayyyy I was waiting for this video to come out
That's a neat keyboard! I wonder if it has some of the D50's patches.
Yes there are quite a few D-50 style sounds including Fantasia.
hey man, im not too knowledgeable about this stuff, but you said that this has no internal speaker of its own, right? so does that mean it wont make any sounds until you have it connected to a pc?
The day when AkBkukU has become Lord of Synth ;P
Bit expensive for DOS games? I looked up the price and yea, total understatement.
But Sound Canvas VA is not too expensive. The ST version of the SC-88 Pro or even an
SC-8820 is not too expensive if you just want something for dos games.
This is good work :-)
1. Why don't You want to change your computer's motherboard to Windows 98 if you realize that it is bad?
2. are you Planning to build a PC for the 20th anniversary of Windows XP?
3. Why Does your PC on Windows 98 not display a 5.25 " flop drive?
*LGR grabs popcorn*
we had these in school about 17 years ago haha
Mother 3 uses this soundset
I love your hair
Please tell me where you got that rad COMPAQ hat!
It’s such a rad hat. Classic swag from a 90s PC convention at the local Hyatt.
There’s one on eBay for $50 if you still want one.
This made me really sorry I'm not able to make any music.
Can you use a midi keyboard as a midi sound card
Oh, the K in SK is for keyboard, not Kanvas.
yo tengo el SC88 pro.... algun interesado en lima, lo estoy vendiendo
What's the visualiser?
data general update?
i still have no idea what linode is
souds the same as a roland jv30 from early 90s.
I've heard that the SC-88 Pro got some JV samples but I don't have any first hand experience with that so I felt it was better to not mention it.
The JV-30 was basically a souped up SC-55 so that makes sense! It's also totally unrelated to the actual JV synths like the 1080, which the 88 Pro borrows liberally from its sound set and expansions (the 88 Pro Piano for instance is just a lower quality version of SR-JV80 Session's grand, and the Sync Lead sounds are all taken from SR-JV80 Vintage Synths)
...that’s how you pronounce “Linode”? I thought it was LINE-ode
My YAMAHA PSR-E363 has the same voices and sounds identical. It seems that YAMAHA has run out of ideas...
THIS…
fecking shrilling