Roland GS, or just GS, sometimes expanded as General Standard or General Sound, is a

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and re ...

specification. It requires that all GS-compatible equipment must meet a certain set of features and it documents interpretations of some

commands and bytes sequences, thus defining instrument tones, controllers for sound effects, etc. In addition to the simpler

General MIDI General MIDI (also known as GM or GM 1) is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committe ...

standard, GS defines 98 additional tone instruments, 15 more percussion instruments, 8 more drum kits, 3 effects (reverb/chorus/variation) and some other features. The

Roland SC-55 The Roland SC-55 ( Sound Canvas) is a GS MIDI sound module released in 1991 by Roland. The SC-55 was the first sound module to incorporate the new General MIDI standard. It was the first in the Roland Sound Canvas series. The SC-55 used both PC ...

was the first synthesizer to support the GS standard.

History

The GS extensions were first introduced and implemented on

Roland Sound Canvas Roland/Edirol Sound Canvas lineup is a series of General MIDI (GM) based pulse-code modulation (PCM) sound modules and sound cards, primarily intended for computer music usage, created by Japanese manufacturer Roland Corporation. Some models inclu ...

series modules, starting with the

in 1991. The first model supported 317 instruments, 16 simultaneous melodic voices, 8 percussion voices and a compatibility mode for

Roland MT-32 The Roland MT-32 Multi-Timbre Sound Module is a MIDI synthesizer module first released in 1987 by Roland Corporation. It was originally marketed to amateur musicians as a budget external synthesizer with an original list price of $695. However, i ...

(although it only emulated it and lacked programmability of original MT-32) and gained explosive popularity. In addition to the Sound Canvas series, Roland also provided GS compatibility in its own professional lineup through the JV-30 keyboard and the VE-GS1 expansion board for other JV-series instruments. In addition, GS compatibility is provided in the GM2 specification which Roland helped to create and actively supports. Some other manufacturers attempted to be compatible to Roland GS, but could not use the GS trademark or samples. In

Yamaha XG Yamaha XG (EXtended General MIDI) is an extension to the General MIDI standard, created by Yamaha. It is similar in purpose to the Roland GS standard. Features Relative to General MIDI, XG gained popularity by increasing the number of availa ...

synthesizers for example the GS implementation was called "TG300B mode". Dream S.A. used unlicensed samples of Roland GS instruments and was sued.

Notable features

Banks

The program in every individual bank will align with the 128 in GM's instrument patch map. The Sound Canvas used additional pair of controllers, cc#0 and cc#32, to specify up to 16384 (128*128) 'variations' of each melodic sound defined by General MIDI. Typically, cc#32 (Bank Select LSB) was used to select a family (i.e. 1 -

SC-55 The Roland SC-55 ( Sound Canvas) is a GS MIDI sound module released in 1991 by Roland. The SC-55 was the first sound module to incorporate the new General MIDI standard. It was the first in the Roland Sound Canvas series. The SC-55 used both ...

, 2 - SC-88 etc.) then cc#0 (Bank Select MSB) was used to set a particular variation bank.

Drum kits

MIDI channel 10 is used for drums by default like in General MIDI, but they are accessible on any channel through the use of SysEx. Only 2 different drum kits can be used at a time. There are 15 different kits in total: * 1 Standard Kit * 9 Room Kit * 17 Power Kit * 25 Electronic Kit * 26 TR-808 Kit * 33 Jazz Kit * 41 Brush Kit * 49 Orchestra Kit * 57 SFX Kit * 128 CM-64/CM-32L Kit

Additional percussion notes

There were 16 additional drum notes that span Drum Kits 1 to 49: * 25 Snare Roll * 26 Finger Snap * 27 High Q * 28 Slap * 29 Scratch Push * 30 Scratch Pull * 31 Sticks * 32 Square Click * 33

Metronome A metronome, from ancient Greek μέτρον (''métron'', "measure") and νομός (nomós, "custom", "melody") is a device that produces an audible click or other sound at a regular interval that can be set by the user, typically in beats pe ...

Click * 34 Metronome Bell * 82 Shaker * 83 Jingle Bell * 84 Belltree * 85 Castanets * 86 Mute

Surdo The surdo is a large bass drum used in many kinds of Brazilian music, such as Axé/Samba-reggae and samba, where it plays the lower parts from a percussion section. It is also notable for its association with the cucumbi genre of the Ancient Near ...

* 87 Open Surdo

Additional controller events

Additional controller events included in SC-55 and SC-88 were: * 0 Bank select MSB * 5 Portamento time * 32 Bank select LSB * 65

Portamento In music, portamento (plural: ''portamenti'', from old it, portamento, meaning "carriage" or "carrying") is a pitch sliding from one note to another. The term originated from the Italian expression "''portamento della voce''" ("carriage of the ...

* 66

Sostenuto Piano pedals are foot-operated levers at the base of a piano that change the instrument's sound in various ways. Modern pianos usually have three pedals, from left to right, the soft pedal (or una corda), the sostenuto pedal, and the sustainin ...

* 67

Soft Pedal The soft pedal (or pedal, ) is one of the standard pedals on a piano, generally placed leftmost among the pedals. On a grand piano this pedal shifts the whole action (including the keyboard) slightly to the right, so that the hammers which nor ...

* 84 Portamento Control * 91 Effect 1 (Reverb) Send Level * 93 Effect 3 (Chorus) Send Level * 94 Effect 4 (Delay) Send Level * 98 NRPN LSB * 99 NRPN MSB * 120 All Sounds Off * 121 Reset all controllers * 123 All notes off

SysEx messages

There were messages that allowed the user to turn the GS mode on/off, to set effects processor parameters, to change EG envelopes etc.

Supporting hardware

Beginning in 1991, Roland introduced GS support in the majority of its consumer MIDI products.

Tone generator modules

* FG-10 * M-GS64 * RA-90 * SC-50 *

* SC-55mkII * SC-33 * SC-155 * SC-55ST * SC-55ST-WH * SC-55K * CM-300 * CM-500 * SC-88 * SC-88VL * SC-88ST * SC-88Pro * SC-88STPro * SC-880 * SC-8850 * SC-8820 * SC-D70 * SD-90 * SD-80 * SD-50 * SD-35 * SD-20 * DS-330 (Boss) * Yamaha MU1000EX * Yamaha MU2000EX

Synthesizers and electronic keyboards

* E-15 / E-35 / E-36 / E-56 / E-70 / E-86 * JV-30 / JV-35 / JV-50 * JW-50 * SK-50 / SK-50IV / SK-88 Pro * XP-10

Sequencers

* SD-35 * PMA-5 * MC-80EX (VE-GS PRO expansion board; SC-55, SC-88, SC-88 PRO maps)

References

{{Roland MIDI standards Japanese inventions