Roland S550
Category: Products / samplers / roland samplers
Added: 03-Sep-07 | Author: admin
New price: discontinued | S/H price: 100 - 150 GBP
Company Link: ROLAND UK
Company Link: ROLAND USA
Roland S550
The Roland S series has held as a tradition the ability to add an expansion board giving you the addition of mouse control & monitor screen viewing... This started with the S330 & S550, & continued onwards with the S760/s770 models... This screen add-on, if you get it on a secondhand unit allows all the editing functions to be performed on screen... This may be helpful, but don't let it make you overlook other things... Here's a screenshot of the VGA monitor from the S330
In common with other samplers of this age/budget range, you get a basic 1 Mb ram, (2Mb on the S-550)... These Roland units allocate a top sampling rate of 30K & 15K as the other option... Like the Emax & Akai S900, the Roland S330, S550 and W30 are 12 bit machines, but the Roland line-up does offer less sample rate choices than the Emax, and thus you might get a subjectively better sound out of an Emax if you go for the higher sample rate (48k) when you need detail over sample length.
The Roland S550 is 16 voice polyphonic & splits its sample time into 4 'banks' which can't be joined together for long samples (the S330 devides into 2 banks, again which cannot be joined together)... So you can think of the S550 as being simply an S220 with double the sample banks and memory. This inability to utilise all the memory might be a bit of a problem for longer loops cos with the limited memory this 'devide' feature of the ram means 7.2 seconds max sample time on the S550 PER BANK at the highest 30k sample rate, and generally the sample organisation is a bit cryptic on these Roland units. However, the Rolands offer Polyphonic seperate outs over the other common 80's 12-bit samplers' usual mono seperate outs. This is not such a big deal with a hard disk system tho, cos you can create loops of stuff to input to the H/D. bear this in mind though, cos it could be important to you. The S550 is 8 part multi-timbrel just like the S330, so it can play 8 sounds on 8 outs for a full arrangement if required.
The S550 could have a (now unavailable) SCSI option fitted, to which you could rig up a CD rom or H/D..... However, I'm not sure if any CD roms are available in a format for these machines outside of the Roland library... (SCSI was not available for the S-330).
I would rate the S330 & S550, (& W30 keyboard version) as being my joint runner up choices after the E-mu Emax for a budget sampler along with the Casio FZ stuff... The W30 being a workstation also includes some rom sample banks for it's synth section to which you can add samples of your own, so think of the W30 as a synth with the addition of a sampler... The W30 can read the 'S' disks, but the 'S' samplers can't read the W30 disks without first converting them on a W30.
These Roland units offer a decent synthesis section, with resonant filters, LFO's & modulation section & envelopes.
So... all in all, the Roland S330, S550 & W30 units are a safe excellent value for money item for some oldskool classic sampler grit... but check the competition.
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Category: Products / samplers / roland samplers
User Comments
Product: Roland - S550
Name: digitalia
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://members.xoom.com/fortyfourone
Activity: part-timer
Date: 25-Mar-00
i got me an S-550 for super cheap, and totally dig it. but.... the memory thing. can i still get more RAM for it, or how hard/expensive is it to retro-fit it for a SCSi?
by the way, my website is a decent resource for wav samples, check it out, ya'll
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: nothingnewhere
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.mp3.com/synesthetic/
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 01-Sep-00
Ive owned both the 330 and 550, and am currently using the 550. The filters are realy somthing special, they dont sound all that digital to me. It realy is a shame that you cant move the hipass filter, but it is nice to have for makeing hi hats and sutch anyway. I realy love the envelopes too, you can make your sounds very 'animated', and i realy like beang able to place the sustain point in a place other than the last step in the env. One of my biggest problems with the 550 is that you absolutely NEED a monitor or TV to edit samples; the display is total shit in comparison with the s-330's. I thought that the memory limit would be constraining for pads and strings and such, but realy its not so bad, the wave smoothing helps alot too.
Overall this is a great sampler when on a budget I think, and how can you not love that soothingly gritty 12bit sound??
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Skinny
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 23-Nov-01
Help! My utility disk has broken for my
s-550 and i've stupidly lost my
backup, can anybody help with where
to get a replacement?
Skinnabub@aol.com, cheers
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Alick
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.exmusic.co.uk
Activity: part-timer
Date: 26-Nov-01
I too use a S550. Great piece of gear. Enough sample time to have drums, strings, piano etc all from seperate outputs. For those who want more info, there is a dedicated Roland user group with lots of info and operating disks for download at http://www.generalconcepts.com/sgroup/
Get in there and dig deep.
(I don't look, I find...Picasso)
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: mauricio ferrada
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 10-May-04
I need the manual of the Sampler Roland S-550 (in pdf).
Thank you
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Regie
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 25-Feb-05
I need some help....
Pls. Send me the manual of Roland S550 and System Disk
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Sherwin
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 13-Sep-05
Has anyone here who has system disk of Roland S550? I cannot find my system disk... Can you help me?
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: cyril Blanc
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 27-Apr-06
I am looking also for the PDF of the S550
I want to connect it to my Dell screen !
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: neil
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Aug-06
i need the os utility disk of Roland S550 sampler. i need it badly. thanks :)
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Entege
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 02-Sep-07
Is there any solution? I have no mouse to my -s-550! Is it
possible to connect anouther kind of mouse?
Sorry for bad english!
Thomas
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: max
Email: Email supplied but hidden
myspace.com/valuablegods
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 17-Feb-09
Scsi in theory was availble cheap supported. but in reality it is very delicate, inconsistent and unituitive. this I found w/ the 2800i akai the Cd-rom works but pc sequence integration never materialized if you are looking for robust library maybe ZIP or Jazz or CDrom but to interface with CPU I advise against it. time is patience. This is why I bought a s330 for WAve EDIT AND consolidation against sequencer utilities
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: tony
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 24-Sep-11
[quote] Sherwin wrote: Has anyone here who has system disk of Roland S550? I cannot find my system disk... Can you help me? [/quote]
I have one you need to pay shipping and floppy disk cost...Ebay guys charge WAY too much
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Tom Chambers
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.midimark.com
Activity: part-timer
Date: 05-Mar-12
[quote] Skinny wrote: Help! My utility disk has broken for my s-550 and ive stupidly lost my backup, can anybody help with where to get a replacement? Skinnabub@aol.com, cheers [/quote]
try midimark.com for sounds / system disks.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Roland - S550
Name: Jamie Downing
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 01-Feb-16
Correction is needed in this article, this all started with the S-50. The S-550
came later and then after that the S-330, and so on. The S-50 was the first 12-bit
sampler by Roland which was in a keyboard version (not rack mount), featured
RGB monitor output and RC-100 tablet input rather than a mouse (draw
waveforms like a Fairlight!). The W-30 was basically the S-550 back in a
keyboard version and a improved version of the SYS sequencer software that
was available for the S-50 but no monitor option.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Last added comment
Product: Roland - S550
Name: ED Carr
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 02-Sep-19
I need a omg RGB for my Roland S-550 Sampler please if you have one or
know where I can buy or get one I'd like to know. Thanks
| Product rating out of 5: |
'Roland S550'
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