Easter Noodling - 1st Exploration of the Roland S-330

I have had the Roland S-330 for several weeks, but apart from a quick stick it on. Really haven't played with it to understand what it can do.
It is now setup in my make shift studio and here are the 1st explorations of some of the sound libraries that I have acquired.
The equipment mentioned above (if you can still buy it!):
Roland S-330 (Used): themusictechgu...
#RolandS330 #S330 #RolandS330Sampler #Roland
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Easter Noodling - 1st Exploration of the Roland S330 - 2020-04-12

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Join the TMTG community www.patreon.com/themusictechguyuk

[@samplehunter]

By the way, to select another patch you can just stay on Part A which is already set to MIDI channel 1 of your keyboard and instead move the cursor to the Patch column. This way you can easily step thru all patches including the second bank with the +/- buttons or via MIDI Program change. Parts B-H are only useful if you want to play different patches independently on multiple channels or layered on the same channel. The mouse is handy but not mandatory and way too expensive to buy afterwards. I never had one for my S330 and did a lot of sampling and editing with it. A monitor is highly recommended if you want to edit the sounds or do sampling though. But if you just use it in Playmode, like on stage, it works very well even without it. You don't necessarily need to boot up from the utility disk, you can also just boot directly from a S330 sound disk you want to load which saves a bit time. The utility disk is only needed if you want to record new samples, use the utilities or import sounds from W30 or S50/S550 disks.

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Hi @samplehunter Thanks for the Roland S-330 tips. I have used the cursor keys to use the sampler when I don’t have the mouse plugged in too. I would go so far as the monitor is essential, the screen on the unit does not provide enough information to use the unit effectively. Agreed on the utility disk. Jon

[@Aliengroover]

@@TheMusicTechGuyUK I just repurchased an S330. It was my first real sampler and it was enjoyable. I will say I although the monitor is extremely helpful, and recommended, I rarely used one.

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Hi @Aliengroover As you say not vital to the operation but extremely helpful. Jon

[@jeffbornhoeft8643]

have you made your own sample sets? I'm trying to figure out how to sample some drums and map them to individual keys, but am completely stumped. If you've done this, I'd love to see how it's done. thanks!

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Hi @jeffbornhoeft8643 A couple of gotchas before you start. You only have a limited amount of memory, so choose you sample rates and times carefully. Remember instruments like cymbals need a certain amount of decay to sound correct. Effectively you sample the instrument, lets say the base drum. You then edit the waveform. In this case you want to set it to one shot, I.e. press key get one kick. You assign this to a tone and set a trigger key. You then repeat this for the other instruments in the kit. You then create a patch and add all the tones to the patch to create your drum kit. I’ll look to create a video on this principle in the new year. Jon

[@marcbrasse747]

Basically the S330 is the rack version of the W30, although it probably lacks the sequencer.

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Have you subscribed? :-) @Marc Brasse. The W30 was released a number of years after the S-330 and here was a much more capable sampler than the S-330. The S-330 was a halfway house between the S-50 keyboard sampler and the S-550 which was billed as the rack mount of the S-50 but had more sampling capabilities and better filters. While the W-30 can read S-50 disks it is a more capable sampler than the S-550 without the additional sequencing capabilities. Jon

[@marcbrasse747]

@@TheMusicTechGuyUK OK, thanks for setting me right then! :-) I still own my W30 although I haven't used it for a long time. For quite e few years it however was my personal "affordable Fairlight".

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

@Marc Brasse. No problem.

[@platimatic]

*Plays a few notes from "Song for Guy"* Well you did wear an Elton John t-shirt :)

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Your right I was wearing an EJ t-shirt. It was subconscious. Jon

[@velonaut303]

Hi Great video. Besides the mouse, I've heard the monitor output is a bit of an oddity, and tricky to get working with modern monitors. How did you solve this?

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Slightly stupid story behind the monitor setup. The guy that gave me the S330 also gave me an old Philips Computer Monitor 80. Which is a green cathode ray monitor. God knows how old it is. Anyway as I said on the video, apart from switching it on, loading up the system disk and making sure I could get sound out of it I hadn’t done too much with the unit. Then the other day I plugged it all in and couldn’t get the green screen to fire up. Couldn’t work out what was going on. Luckily I had the old Sony TV that I was using with the S50 here and plugged it into the composite video socket on the back and that didn’t work either. Then like an idiot I realised that the extension lead/cord wasn’t switched on at the wall socket! In truth I didn’t have to do anything with the TV. It worked without the need to fiddle with anything. In the past I have had issues with composite video which was the reason I purchased the RGB/SCART connector for the S50 and my Yamaha CX5M which tend to be simpler. Although all connections are meant to conform to a set of standards certain manufactures of pattern monitors potentially cut corners which leads to the compatibility problems.

[@samplehunter]

Composite out should work with mostly any TV with analog composite input but it's grayscale only. No big deal as you still can clearly see all text and graphics like e.g. the waveform editor.

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

Hi @samplehunter As you say it is ok for working with the unit and in some instances loosing the colour is better. But for videoing the output I had to come up with another way of getting the video out as pointing a camera at a screen does not provide very good results. Jon

[@maccagrabme]

Just out of interest why did you go for this over say a S760? Was it the 12bit quality? Thanks

[@TheMusicTechGuyUK]

@littlegee. The guy I got this kit off was looking for a new home for it. It originally came with an old green screen computer monitor. I have now got the kit that renders the screen in HD which give a much better output. Anyway I digress. It wasn't a conscious choice it was offered and I said yes. I also have a S-750 so haven't really considered the S-760. Jon