Roland S-550 | Demo/Review 

It's an awesome sampler, sonically maybe (S-50 and S-550) the best sounding sampler ever made. Get one!

Espen Kraft not ventured into the 80s sampler world yet, although fascinated by all those machines. I just had an Oberheim DX arrive in the post this morning. Wanted a classic EPROM drum machine. Super crunchy.

Nice! The DX is a great classic drum machine. :)

Even the analog circuits and how the filter and adsr circuits are constructed means alot, its still hard to believe that a shitty 12bit 28khz sampler can sound better than a modern 32bit 96khz :) .. but it does actually sound very well :) Still remember how mind blowing it was first time I was trying out an Emulator with an 8bit sax sampling in the local store.. Ended up buying a Korg M1 instead :p

Thanks for saying! :)

So I noticed. Cheers :D

Cheers!

Nice! Thanks I appreciate it! :)

I’ve made so much hip hop music in high school with the W-30!!!

Awesome. Thanks! :)

Thanks Colin! I have some old EMUs so I know what you mean :)

Thanks for contributing Don! I'm doing a part 2 of this and I will dig in deeper there. Focus here was mainly the emulator, but got carried away somewhat :P

Cheers!

Thanks! I will do something on the A3000 in the near future. ;-)

Thanks! Yes, it's a very mesmerizing sampler!

And its got that 12 Bit-Sound plus the Fairlight-Style Monitor. I also got mine for cheap: the guy who sold it to me had it collecting dust in his studio attic and was happy to give it away (with hundreds of disks, a mouse and a monitor) for 100 €. Its also not that sought after, unlike Emus or Akais from that era.

It beats all EMUs and Akais in sheer sound imo. Still love the others though, for different reasons.

I agree. For me that's only interested in re-creating the synthpop/pop sound of the 80s and the mid 80s in particular, the sound of samplers are essential and I love old schools samplers a lot more than analog ones.

I love analogue but a "real" sampler would be great to have so I can create patches from scratch (I have no interest in ROMplers filled with other people's idea of a good sound). Hoping Roland bring out a retro 12-bit or 16-bit sampler.

Hi, one synth that could make a complete song all by itself is my Roland G romper. Rompers all ready have tons of PCM samples built right in so all the hard work is done and all you have to do is make music. You should try one they are indispensable instruments for any musician.

Matt Baginski I guess it's different strokes for different folks - I have an Emu Proteus 1 ROMpler and I am not sure why I keep it. Only a couple of sounds pass the "sniff test", the rest are way too cheesy to use in anything I compose. I've downloaded a bunch of patches but because they're still the same samples underneath it's the same old cheese really. Any patch I use whether analogue or Yamaha DX gets customized and often created from scratch - much more fun and serendipitous than scrolling through hundreds of patches to see if one is "close enough" i.e. a compromise.

That because it’s a Proteus, I never did go for Emu stuff. Try a Roland romper like the 1080 it is the best romper of all.

I think the S-50 has a slightly more gritty "pitch shift" down the octaves than the S-550/330 and as such can be more desirable for some sound design, and it also looks fantastic. I like them all, including the W-30. ;-)

Yes !!! Wicked filters but a complete headache to use even with the mouse and monitor

I have a DJ70, S550 and S50 w/ tablet. There’s a really nice library for them. The interface on the DJ70 does suck though.

Thanks! Both great samplers with magical sound.

I got my S-550 with the with the Gotek in it, so nice to try it out and it is somewhat cumbersome. If it was up to me I' rather have the floppy drive in it. I don't care much for SCSI either, I love floppy disks and could manage fine with just that, as I have on most of my other samplers. In fact I sell off almost all the internal SCSI cards for my old samplers.

Thanks! I don't have a S-770 so I can't compare them, but the 770 is 16-bit and "hi-fi". The S-550 is 12-bit and as such is more in line with a sound I'm going for, a little more texture on the sampling.

I use Midi Sample Dumps on several samplers, but only those with smaller sample size formats like the S-10 or Casio RZ-1 etc. The larger size samples takes too long for my taste. I only use Send SX from Bome for sending/receiving samples. Free and works well.

I don't use the ESI4000 for anything but drums these days. I turn to my Emaxes for anything else. Maybe I'll edit together something later. Thanks for watching :)

Thanks! Wise choice :)

How do I use the Roland s 50 with a gotek??? Mine has that, I have floppy discs that have the sounds idk how to play anything

@@AspireDMT I made a comment 4 years ago saying I went back to floppies . Recently I installed a gotek in my Roland s50 with flash floppy software a screen and rotary controller, it’s a much happier experience this time

Hey Keith, you're best bet is to follow the advice found here. It's a real treasure for ownders of these old Roland S-series samplers : llamamusic.com/s50s550/DIY_page.html There's very few of the Goteks out there that are compatible with the S-550 so get it right the first time! :)

This is the Gotek with the original firmware, and not the HxC firmware? I have an HxC in my Mirage but was thinking of going this cheaper route for my s550. My understanding is that with the HxC firmware it should be more compatible with different floppy formats but this video should still be useful, the bootup sequence seems like a potential stumbling block.

I too have a Mirage! Yes, this is not HxC, which you really don't need, they're more expensive too, but have some potential better options like more than 99 image files, less button pushing and filenames can be longer. OS loads without same type of button pushing as well. Apart from that they behave the same way. I find them too a hassle in a way and prefer floppies really. It's all a matter of what suits you the best I guess. In a busy, stressful live situation I prefer to have my sounds on ONE floppy with a clear label. Much less room for error! :)

This is a mono sampler. Theoretically you can sample each stereo source twice and route the individual samples to two ouputs and in a mixer pan hard left and right I guess. Not the way to do it. You sample in mono and you play back in mono and use a effect unit to make pseudo stereo if you want. Not the way I use it though.

@@EspenKraft Ah - I was curious as I was reading the contents of the S550 RSB library and I saw there were some stereo kits mentioned. Haven't yet tested them out - though wrote 8 of the DS/DD disks this evening. Thanks for the reply!

​@@EspenKraft Just tried loading in some of the Roland Library disks - interestingly, seems at least some of them are designed as stereo pairs imgur.com/tdsiStY I'm pleasantly surprised!

Yes, I too have "programs" that are stereo in that sense. The cumbersome part is getting there as we touched in the prrevious comments, but it's doable ;-)

It's all in the manual, the manual is easily found online. The manual is how we learned to use this stuff in the 80s and it still works. ;-)

I use the ESI4000 for drums and not anything else. I have a vast sample library I've made from all the drum machines I've had through the years and I fire those off the ESI4000 in a live situation. If I want the EMU filter sound I turn to my Emaxes these days.

The S-50 and S-550 is pretty much the same, the S-50 marginally better, but takes up space. If that'snot an issue go for it! :)

@@EspenKraft thank you very much... I have my old trusty atari 1040 with cubase, yamaha cs1x via midi (that was my first electronic music setup in 1998) and I guess the s50 would be a nice add-on!

Thanks! Yes, you can use the same emulator in the S-330. The S-330 is pretty much the same sampler as the S-550, just less memory.

Yes, if you mean the TR262 or RX5 triggering samples off the S-550, that is not a problem. It's done over MIDI as with any other MIDI keyboard.

@@EspenKraft Great, thank you for your help.

I don't have time to give step by step instructions on using old gear, you wouldn't believe how many requests I get to do that. You should just go here: llamamusic.com/s50s550/s-50_s-550.html This page answers almost everything you need to know. You can't use another mouse on the S-550 without some electronics between the mouse and the S-550 though.

It's actually quite easy. Changing the midi channel is right there in the first window if you use a monitor with the S-550 which makes everything much easier than from the S-550 itself. I use mine with an external sequencer all the time. It 's the column which says channel. Just change each sound to the midi channel you need.

Cool man, you'll love it! :)

By the way, what display do you use? Do you know if its possible to connect to a normal mac with a converter or something? Thanks!

The display is a TV with SCART inout. The S-550 has RGB outout and I convert that to SCART. It's not as easy as it sounds to convert this signal to use with a modern computer screen, but check the Roland S-sampler group on Facebook, I've seen some examples of it there.

Espen Kraft Thanks Espen! I’m going to check how they do it!:)

Thanks! It's the S-550 you see here but I get what you mean. If you've never used any old 80s sampler and are coming from a more modern plugin daw environment I usually don't recommend getting one. Simply because 9 out of 10 times it becomes a door stop pretty fast. The reason is always that the workflow and integration is too cumbersome for a most people. However, if you're willing to accept that this will be tedious, slow and with lots of problems on the way, both musical and technical, you'll be amply rewarded. I suggest you start with a old sampler where you don't need a OS disk for boot up, I suggest Akai S700, 900 or 950. Good luck!

Thanks for the explanation, I didn't know about the boot disk. But since my connection with the synthesizers is more a way to relive the sounds of the past, and not live on it, maybe I even have more fun having to load diskettes, if that assures me that lo-fi sound, welcome :) On the other hand I went crazy when I saw all the sounds that are available to download from the S roland line on the internet. The same I am analyzing if there is not much difference here in terms of price and if I get to the akai s900. Thank you! Regards!

@@egguitarsluthier199 hi, on the same journey here...what did you end up with and whats the current status, did you embrace a new workflow with hardware samplers?

Using an old LCD TV which has all types of inputs, as they often had. I'm using a custom made RGB - SCART cable going from the sampler to the monitor. Works very well.

Check out the other comments. Llamamusic is the place to gp, they have almost all the sounds available.

These old samplers need to load the OS in at startup, from the floppy or in this case, the floppy emulator.

Ah, great. I claim that Pet Shop Boys brought back the Major7 chords into pop music!

Espen Kraft I use them loads myself, as well as other suspended chords :) My latest track here. soundcloud.com/neon-haze/from-behind-glass-broken

The roland W30 is not so much different only smaller screen .

Thanks man! I use the old samplers that way, one sample across the whole keyboard. It's then you get those old artifacts and grit that makes the authentic sound I'm after in my productions.

I understand. Like that 'Moses - We just' sound. The 80's brought some very exciting electronic musical instruments what made 80's and early 90's songs sound like they sound :)

Exactly and I strive for maximum sonic authenticity in my music and I love old samplers as well ;-)

Great.

@@EspenKraft have you done a video on how to get a sample to one key or a few different samples on a few keys or a single sample across the whole keyboard? I have seen most of your videos but I don't believe that I have seen how to do it.... I have gone looking for how to do it here on RU-vid but I haven't found anything yet! Either I have missed a video or no one has done one.... The Yamaha sampler just doesn't seem to have a logical layout. Seeing someone else do it at least points to a screen that I can look for on our machine.... I know that it can do all the above but it's not DOS or windows and that means I'm at the mercy of the RU-vid God's! My son picked up a Yamaha sampler that looks similar to the one that you have in your rack below the amazing Roland.... Speaking of which, my son just picked up a Roland U20 and apart from some of the buttons which don't want to work (needs new tactile buttons on the PCB) it sounds amazing.... I have my heart set on the Roland W30.... Sure Roland still makes workstations that are far more advanced and for not much more money than a W30 but there's something about it, I don't know what it is, but I just know that I have to have one! With the floppy drive intact! It just works!

All your answers is here: llamamusic.com/s50s550/ No need for me rambling on when someone did it for me :D

They have something working to replace QDs now, but I don't keep track of where or how... I like floppies and got rid of my S-550 for that reason. Wanted one with the original floppy drive in it. ;-)

Thanks! I use a cheap Roland RGB to SCART cable. Easily found on Ebay. Works like a charm.

This video was made some time ago. I've sold the Juno 6. I didn't midifiy it. I don't do that mostly. I have no need for that. 90% of all my songs are recorded by hand as audio straight in. ;-)

Sweet, thanks! :)

No, you can' t do that. No emulator exist for the QD-system. The QD-system isn't disk technology at all, it's basically just audio tape that stores data, it's circular instead of being on a roll. That's why it doesn't exist any emulators for it. You can't emulate it a data tape easily.. ;-)

Check out Llamamusic, that's the go-to site for the S-50 / S-550. ;-)

It came with 8 outputs yes.

You can't think of these early Roland samplers in terms of "layers" of patches. This isn't a rompler from the 90s. You can mix two sources into one TONE. That's it. The manual is online. Check that out.

@@EspenKraft thanks! I asked because the Mirage Ensoniq sampler of 1984, you could sampler 8 layers. It's amazing!

True, that works in a very different way. Cheers

Didn't you watch my video about it? ;-) I use it mainly for effects though and rarely as a sampler. It's a great buy if you don't pay too much.

Awesome. I can grab it for about $70 and it has a demo floppy with it.

Oh, go get it NOW! :)

Thanks!

Hey! The whole premise of USB-floppy emulators are somewhat flawed as the logistics of having floppy images on a memory stick doesn't work that well imo. I actually prefer floppies still. It forces you to keep focusing on shorter samples. Timing issues are of no concern to me as I only ever PLAY samples in real-time off the old samplers except for the Akai S1000 mostly. The S-550 is very nice sounding though and possibly the best sounding sampler ever made. Again in my opinion.

@@EspenKraft love your videos! just installed a gotek/flash floppy with oled in my s-330 .you can see file names instead of just numbers with the oled.

@@lito9467 Yeah, I know. I hate floppy emulators no matter how fancy they are. I'm replacing the Gotek in my S-550 with an original floppy drive as fast as possible ;-)

Those are downloaded from the internet. There's lots of samples for the S-50/S-550/S-330/W30 online. Almost everything Roland ever put out + users own samples. as Image files. Google it! :)

I have no idea where those patches came from, they're just on a disk I have.

@@EspenKraft serendipity! The best way to make music. Thanks for all your inspiration!

No.

Marc Brassé agreed. The gotech emulator isn’t worth the hassle.

I’ve stuck an HXC floppy emulator in my W30, works a treat

@@djhatstand7312 So it is more direct in it's operation?

@Marc Brassé, it’s really to use, it uses an SD Card that you can load up through a PC with Roland library disc Images readily found on the Internet, you set it up to always boot from the same folder whenever you turn on the W-30, I’ve put a SCSI chip in my W-30 so have the SCSI bootdisk in the boot folder, when you turn the W-30 on it loads up automatically, then when ready to go you can go up and down the floppy folders, it scrolls the name on the little screen on the HXC so you select the one you want, then you load it through the W-30 as you would a floppy.

You need a system disk regardless, so the FlashFloppy replacement is a good move. There is a guy on reverb/ebay selling a SCSI card for these, well worth it, it makes everything much quicker (edit programs are loaded off of SCSI, and you get a nice performance bump with pretty much everything). I just use a Zip disk dedicated to the S550, and it works good enough, the compatible CD drives are unobtainium and there are quirks abound with the SCSI implementation (external drives are not automatically recognized, 80mb limit, sampler stuck on id 7, CD-ROM utility disk 1.0 is the most stable, etc).

That's just a dirt cheap LCD TV from 2010 or something. Someone threw it in the bin and I just grabbed it. ;-)

@@EspenKraft ah ha i see. thanks for your comment!

Let me ask you this, and I mean no offence, why are you getting a old school sampler if you know nothing about them? It will only lead to you getting frustrated and selling it shortly after. There are plenty of forums, sub groups and places where you can read up on what they do, how they operate, how to fix them, upgrades etc. You don't need floppy emulators at all, in fact, it's only cumbersome and unnecessary. I have a emulator in my S-550 because it was in there when I bought it and I plan to get rid of it and getting the original floppy drive back. I like floppies and it's the only "proper" way of using these samplers. It was how they were sold and they way I like to use them today. The S-770 is one of the best, but it has a learning curve and not the sampler I would go for as the first.

Thanks! No, you've got it wrong, the Gotek is a USB-floppy emulator. It can only hold floppy image-files. None of these kan be over 720 kb in size so for all practical purposes it's like having 99 separate floppies on ONE memory stick. No more! And you can only load one at a time into the emulator itself and from there into the sampler.

So the memory stick itself can be quite small in memory size so a "big" one is really waste of money.

For the S-760 you're much better off using a scsi emulator like the SCSI2SD instead of a floppy emulator. It's a much better solution.

Roy Maya I can totally see that, is it possible to put a SCSI-drive inside the S760, as I want a small physical footprint? The most interesting would be to make an editor/librarian directly on an iPad/Android, booth for graphical editing and storing samples. Then again, there are already sampling apps, not sure if they can reproduce the sound/filter characteristics of a hardware vintage sampler though...

The S-760 is not designed to have a scsi-drive installed internally, but I was able to put a SCSI2SD in place of the floppy drive and route the scsi cable out the back and connected to the external port. The SCSI2SD doesn't generate any heat so it's no problem putting it internally.

Yes, you could, but there are better options for the ESI4000 than a floppy emulator. Go for some SCSI to SD instead. Check out the EMU sampler forum on Facebook :)

@@EspenKraft many thanks Espen

The S-550 is 12 bit and lo-fi in sound compared to the more transparent 760 16 bit sampler. The 760 sounds good though, but I prefer the S-550. Gotek emulators are painfully tedious to use as you can see in my video. Better with HxC emulators. For samples and everything else you need to know, go to Llamamusic. Link in the description. :)

@@EspenKraft Apart from S760 I guess for lofi that leaves me with my S700 for 12 bit and I believe my Mirage rack is 8 bit isn't it? I also have Korg DSS1, Yamaha EX5R, Akai S5000, Roland VP9000, EMU ESI32 , Kurzweil K2500RS , Circuit bent Casio SK1, Korg Triton rack ,Oberheim DPX1 & Powertran MCS1 sampler delay plus several Eurorack samplers , plus Steinberg Halion & NI Komplete software. Do you think I should find something useful amongst that lot?

Man you have plenty of gear there to make whatever you want LoFi or HiFi ;-) The Mirage is 8-bit yes. The DSS-1 is especially nice!

Just remember to have the OS as 000.IMG on the memory stick and it must be formatted as shown in the description to my video.

Heard the s50 has a darker sound than the s550 ?

It's usable without, but it is much easier with you're right about that. I use a RGB to SCART cable and run it into a 14" LCD TV. Nothing fancy :)

The S-330 came after the S-550. The S-330 basically half the memory of S-550.

@@EspenKraft Hm! Looks like you're right. I'd swear that 330 was manufactured 2 years prior... Mandela effect, lol

Sure, the S-50/550 came first and they stripped those down into the S-330 before turning their attention to what became the S-7XX series.

Good for you! I have one too. Great machine :)

All the samples off the Gotek in this video can be found here: llamamusic.com/s50s550/

You too Matthias! :)

Thanks Johnny! The effects are actually from the Yamaha A3000 sampler below it in the rack. You can use that samplers 3 separate effects as send/returns on a mixer.

Espen Kraft thank you.

I don't own the S2000 anymore.

I have an Akai S2000 and I have a Gotek drive to put in it

It's nothing. Just random octaves in a Pet Shop Boys style.

@@EspenKraft There is definitely a 90s song that sounds very similar. As someone who owned an S-550 back then and was writing breakbeat/jungle tracks and releasing them If I can remeber I will let you know :)

@@EspenKraft Possibly a Beatmasters or S'Express track

@@EspenKraft Actually I remeber now - it was a Pet Shop Boys song - dominion dancing :) ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ik2YF05iX2w.html

A riff like that was used in numerous Italo Disco/Synth-pop tracks in the 80s. Everything I play here is totally random.

Great! :)

It's too much imo. I wouldn't spend more than 300 euros tops if everything was in good condition and even that is probably too much as well.

@@EspenKraft Thankyou so much. Turns out it only has 18M RAM too. I've since found a Yamaha A4000 with 128M for 280 Euros - that may be more interesting :-)

They're both great samplers in different ways. 280 euros for a 4000 is also too much imo.

Almost every floppy drive on old gear can be replaced by floppy emulators today. Check the respective forums online for tips on a specific model. I personally don't like floppy emulators so I won't install it on any more gear of mine.

@@EspenKraft Thanks a lot, also for the quick answer! Since I have lots of disks I thought it would be a good option to have all of them on a single little Usb device. More, it would be good if uploading time was reduced. Not too sure, but asking on the forums as you kindly suggested could wipe away my doubts.

The loading time from floppy emulators takes exactly the same time as loading from the real floppies. It's in the nature of the floppy emulator to mimic every aspect of using a floppy. So nothing to gain there. I speak here of the Gotek ones that I have on the S-550. Not sure about the HxC though as I don't use those at all.

@@EspenKraft Thanks again!

The S-550 is vary picky about what Gotek you install. Check out llamamusic.com/s50s550/sinfo.html

How did you get it to work on the S-10 that used Quick disks? As far as I know no one has been able to port emulators over to the S-10 successfully.

I hope you get it sorted!

With the digitize tablet you can draw any waveform you want into the 550. It does not come with basic waveforms built into it like the Akai series.

Espen Kraft Thanks for replying Espen! I'm actually getting a Roland W30 which wouldnt have the tablet, I just said S550 since youre more familiar with it. I was wondering if I could sample in a waveform? Also just wanted to say youre a real inspiration man, youre the reason I love old 80s synths and have collected quite a few so far. Big fan here!

Thanks Daniyal! As you can sample anything you want into it and edit any waveform, what you input is what you can work with. Even single cycle waveforms, but I think you should sample a longer one, and just edit it down to one single cycle afterwards as it will be easier to setup the sample process that way.

Sounds good man, really appreciate the help. Keep up the great work.

Depends on what you mean? You mean changing programs from a sequencer?

Yes, one of the filters does. The S-559 has both the non-real time filter as the S-50 and the S-10 that there is no undo from, but the S-559 also has the TVA/TVF like we learned to know later on the D-50. This you can manipulate in the edit window of the S-550. I show this in the video.

Congrats!

@@EspenKraft Plesse, I notice you get high quality color picture on LCD you're using to display S-550. How do you interface S-550 with LCD monitor? Do you use some kind of digital RGB to VGA or HDMI adapter? Cheers

I just use a cheap Roland RGB to Scart cable bought through Ebay. Had it for years, works excellent. :)

@@EspenKraft So you have LCD monitor with SCART? What diagonal is the monitor? It looks small on your video. My idea is to make light and small 7" or 9" LCD for S-550. Unfortunately small size LCDs with RGBS input are rare so I must do custom converter.

I have no idea, it's just a cheap LCD tv someone threw out and I picked it up. I use this for all my old computers when I show them in a video, it works well for that. When I actually use my Roland S-samplers I only use the sampler itself, never with a monitor. ;-) I think it's 17" come to think of it.