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Roland LAPC-I or SCC-1

S

SiliconClassics

Experienced Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2009
Messages
148
Location
Chapel Hill, NC
WTB: A Roland LAPC-I or SCC-1 for use in tandem with a Sound Blaster Pro 2 in my 486. Can pay via Paypal - shipping is to 11355 in NY.

I have a mint-in-box Roland Sound Canvas SCD-10 (SCB-7) daughterboard, as well as a SB16 non-PnP CT1740 (4.05 DSP) that works perfectly with it, in case anyone is interested in making an offer or doing a trade.

Also, does anyone has any advice re: the relative merits of an LAPC-I or SCC-1 when used in tandem with a SBPro2? I guess I'd have to use an external cable to route the MIDI audio output of the Roland card into the line-in of the SB card? Hopefully it would then mix the audio without creating too much noise?
 
ajerimez said:
Also, does anyone has any advice re: the relative merits of an LAPC-I or SCC-1 when used in tandem with a SBPro2? I guess I'd have to use an external cable to route the MIDI audio output of the Roland card into the line-in of the SB card? Hopefully it would then mix the audio without creating too much noise?
Click to expand...

It will certainly work, but the big question is the quality of the output.

The SB-Pro2 mixes what's entering on Line-in into the audio output (given the settings are correct), but it will for sure alter the output sound slightly due to the mixing and re-amplification process. As I've never tried myself, I cannot say to what degree. In the worst case, the audio is converted to 8-bit digital data before being mixed (The LAPC-I outputs 15-bit audio, and uses a much more powerfull amplifier than the SB-Pro2).

The best solution would be to use a comercial mixer/amplifier, but those tend to be expensive if you're going for quality.
 
The SB Pro is not a full-duplex card, so the monitoring of its line input (or CD audio input) is simply an analog pass-through. However, it will be subject to some background noise caused by the slight amount of interference it picks up from the computer's circuitry and from the other sources that are routed to the SB Pro's output. As a result, for the cleanest sound, you should use the SB Pro's mixer to mute any sources you are not currently using, such as its MIDI synth, microphone input, or CD audio input, because when enabled, they all add a slight amount of background noise to the output.
 
So am I to understand the SCC-1 is not a stand alone sound card, it is simply a Midi card?
 
lutiana said:
So am I to understand the SCC-1 is not a stand alone sound card, it is simply a Midi card?
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Both the LAPC-I and SCC-1 are in some way standalone in that they both contains an interface (MPU-401), a sound generator and an output amplifier. However, as the sound generators are MIDI synthesizers, they are not capable of managing digital audio I/O in the way a soundblaster can.
 
per said:
The SB-Pro2 mixes what's entering on Line-in into the audio output (given the settings are correct), but it will for sure alter the output sound slightly due to the mixing and re-amplification process.
Click to expand...

On the SCC-1 there are 2 RCA jacks and a headphone jack. It looks like the RCA jacks supply line level voltage (un-amplified). So I would feed the SB's line in from the RCA jacks and not the headphone jack. This should help avoid over amplification since I believe the SB expects line level on the line in and then amplifies it to headphone level.
 
lutiana said:
On the SCC-1 there are 2 RCA jacks and a headphone jack. It looks like the RCA jacks supply line level voltage (un-amplified). So I would feed the SB's line in from the RCA jacks and not the headphone jack. This should help avoid over amplification since I believe the SB expects line level on the line in and then amplifies it to headphone level.
Click to expand...

What I meant was that any amplifier will have some degree of distortion, although most have very little. Generally speaking, it's usually just different responce to different input frequencies. The higher the quality of the amplifier, the less distortion, but the higher the price. Since the soundblasters were (and still is to some degree) consumer level audio hardware, the amplifier used is quite mediocre.
 
ajerimez said:
Also, does anyone has any advice re: the relative merits of an LAPC-I or SCC-1 when used in tandem with a SBPro2?
Click to expand...

Routing sound through the Sound Blaster Pro 2: do not do it: very bad quality: I experimented with that myself. Better to mix it in through an external amplifier or simply through a 2-to-1 physical connector.

SCC-1: waste of money. Games only use the GM anyway so just use a RAP-10 for GM playback (e.g. SC-7 wavetable): works great! :D

When you do have a SCC-1 just hook it up to a Roland MT-32 for LA playback. Very cheap solution: MT-32s are common and cheap. Especially on Craigslist.
 
Oy vey. Given the rarity of the LAPC-I & SCC-1, their high prices, and the inconvenience of interfacing them with a Sound Blaster, I might just stick with my SB16 and SCD-10.

As some background, I've been experimenting with the SCD-10 Sound Canvas daughterboard and two different SB16 cards - a CT1740 with a v4.05 DSP, and a CT2290 with a v4.13 DSP. Both cards seem to work fine with the SCD-10, no hanging notes. However the CT1740 is very noisy, especially when mixing digital audio with the MIDI sound (disabling the onboard amplifier didn't really help). The CT2290, on the other hand, is quite acceptable. I've tested the audio in X-Wing, TIE Fighter, DOOM, and some Sierra games.

Too bad I won't be able to hear Monkey Island I or Fate of Atlantis in wavetable MIDI, but I'm not sure it's worth $300. Thanks Peter and all who offered advice.
 
ajerimez said:
Oy vey. Given the rarity of the LAPC-I & SCC-1, their high prices, and the inconvenience of interfacing them with a Sound Blaster, I might just stick with my SB16 and SCD-10.
Click to expand...

I don't know if this is in anyway accurate. I use an LAPC-I w/ an AWE32 in my Megacube and it works just fine. I mix the sound through the AWE32 and playing sierra games w/ MIDI sound and digital sound works just great through one pair of speakers! As for price, they are excellent cards, rare and in high demand, probably wil stay that way for another 5 years or so until this generation of collectors pass... But that is just a guess on my part.
 
Shadow Lord said:
I don't know if this is in anyway accurate.
Click to expand...

LAPC-I and SCC-1 cards are certainly difficult to find, $250+ is a high price by most people's standards (especially for use in a DOS gaming rig), and as has been mentioned, they probably won't sound great if mixed into the line-in of an SBPro. I'd like to avoid external connectors and MIDI boxes for the sake of convenience.

I've been testing the SCD-10 with my SB16 CT2290, and so far it seems to work quite well, at least for games that support General MIDI. Even some of the older titles that only support MT-32 work allright. I haven't run into any hanging notes in Hexen or in most other games, though there were quite a few in Sam 'n Max Hit the Road (CD version), but that's apparently a problem with the game itself. Another nice thing about the SCD-10 is that it doesn't use an IRQ, which is important because my 486 is already loaded with option cards.

I guess if an LAPC-I comes along at a good price I'd go for it, but for now I'm not going to comb the earth for one.
 
Well, I'm not going to argue with the $250-$400 market value of LAPC-I cards, since they're rare and judging by their reputation they are worth the expense. I'm just not personally prepared to spend more than $100 on a MIDI solution for my 486 DOS gaming rig. That might change in the future, but for now it pretty much puts me out of the running.

I'm also a bit concerned that many later DOS games seem to have dropped support for MT-32 / LA in favor of GM. Does that mean I'd need two separate MIDI devices, one for LA games and one for GM games? Not sure my rig has the physical / address space to accomodate all those boards; it's already crammed with a VLB video board, SB16, VLB I/O card, ISA ethernet card, and ISA game port card.
 
I have an SCC-1 sitting on the desk next to me, so make me an offer in a PM if you are interested.

It is a bare board (no software), and I can post a pic if you like. If you do have the software all ready then I'd like to get it from you so I can test this thing before selling it to you just to make sure its ok.

I don't intend to try and sell it for the ridiculous prices on e-bay, but it be nice to make a few bucks to spend on other vintage stuff I want/need.
 
ajerimez said:
Well, I'm not going to argue with the $250-$400 market value of LAPC-I cards, since they're rare and judging by their reputation they are worth the expense.
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Absolutely. Their original MSRP was around $ 425.

ajerimez said:
I'm just not personally prepared to spend more than $100 on a MIDI solution for my 486 DOS gaming rig. That might change in the future, but for now it pretty much puts me out of the running.
Click to expand...
One way of looking at it. Another way of looking at it is that you always recoup your money selling it so it really is a zero cost computer part. :D

ajerimez said:
I'm also a bit concerned that many later DOS games seem to have dropped support for MT-32 / LA in favor of GM.
Click to expand...
Yes. That is why I run a LAPC-I + Sound Blaster 2.0 in a 80386 system and a RAP-10 and Sound Blaster Pro 2 in a 80486 system. I am going to build a 8086 system with an AdLib soon.

ajerimez said:
Does that mean I'd need two separate MIDI devices, one for LA games and one for GM games? Not sure my rig has the physical / address space to accomodate all those boards; it's already crammed with a VLB video board, SB16, VLB I/O card, ISA ethernet card, and ISA game port card.
Click to expand...
When your system is already really full that would be the case. That is why I only buy systems in desktop cases: they stack easily. :D
 
Hmm... okay, how about this. I'm fairly happy with my SB16/SCD-10 combo, but I would like MT-32 compatibility. What if I bought an external MT-32 box for $25 on eBay - could I connect it to the external MIDI-out on my SB16 and still leave the SCD-10 daughterboard attached? This would avoid using an extra IRQ, yes? And I could just switch between MT-32 and General MIDI in the game settings without reconfiguring hardware, correct?
 
ajerimez said:
Hmm... okay, how about this. I'm fairly happy with my SB16/SCD-10 combo, but I would like MT-32 compatibility. What if I bought an external MT-32 box for $25 on eBay - could I connect it to the external MIDI-out on my SB16 and still leave the SCD-10 daughterboard attached? This would avoid using an extra IRQ, yes? And I could just switch between MT-32 and General MIDI in the game settings without reconfiguring hardware, correct?
Click to expand...

Correct. You need a cable like this: http://cgi.ebay.com/390288824010. I am not sure whether you need to remove the SCD-10 though. I am not confident the Sound Blaster 16 will know where to route MIDI to.
 
BUMP - PeterNY raises a good question - does anyone know whether I could connect an MT-32 to a SB16 that already has a Sound Canvas daughterboard (SCD-10) attached?
 
MIDI OUT data is simultaneously sent to both the gameport and Waveblaster header. While having both an SCB-55 and MT-32 connected to the SB16 is fine, you'll probably want to mute one or the other (or power-off, in the case of the MT-32), since they'll both sound at once.
 
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