Roland Roland (; ; or ''Rotholandus''; or ''Rolando''; died 15 August 778) was a Frankish military leader under Charlemagne who became one of the principal figures in the literary cycle known as the Matter of France. The historical Roland was mil ...

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

MIDI Musical Instrument Digital Interface (; MIDI) is an American-Japanese technical standard that describes a communication protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, ...

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 Commi ...

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

was the first synthesizer to support the GS standard.

History

The GS extensions were first introduced and implemented on

Roland Sound Canvas The 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 include a Serial communicat ...

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, ...

(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 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, 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 ten different kits in total: * 1 '' Standard'' - the only kit used in GM standard * 9 ''Room'' - features lower-pitched snares and toms * 17 ''Power'' - features gated reverb and louder dynamics in comparison to other kits * 25 ''Electronic'' - emulation of 1980s-style electronic drums such as Simmons, with distinctive synthesized sounds * 26 ''TR-808'' -

Roland TR-808 The Roland TR-808 Rhythm Composer, commonly known as the 808, is a drum machine manufactured by Roland Corporation between 1980 and 1983. It was one of the first drum machines to allow users to program rhythms instead of using preset patterns. ...

emulation * 33 ''Jazz'' - features softer kick and snares, typical of jazz drumming * 41 ''Brush'' - emulation of brush drumming * 49 ''Orchestra'' - a collection of orchestral percussion, including

timpani Timpani (; ) or kettledrums (also informally called timps) are musical instruments in the percussion instrument, percussion family. A type of drum categorised as a hemispherical drum, they consist of a Membranophone, membrane called a drumhead, ...

s, orchestral snares, gran cassa, and clash cymbals * 57 ''SFX'' - collection of sound effects, which also featured in the GS sound set itself * 128 ''CM-64/CM-32L'' - a kit conforming to

format Newer models of

and other GS-compatible Roland synthesizers features additional kits not included in the base GS sound set; these include kits based on various Roland drum machines such as the TR-909, CR-78 and TR-707, as well as various percussion kits comprising both traditional and modern percussions.

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 Click * 34 Metronome Bell * 82 Shaker * 83 Jingle Bell * 84 Belltree * 85 Castanets * 86 Mute Surdo * 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 * 66 Sostenuto * 67 Soft Pedal * 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 * FG-1000 * M-GS64 * RA-90 * SC-50 * SC-55 * 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 MU50 / MU80 (referred to as TG300B mode) * Yamaha MU1000EX * Yamaha MU2000EX * Dream SAM9703 * Dream SAM9708

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 * Yamaha Clavinova CVP (since 2004, shared with GM2 sound set) * Yamaha PSR-S

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