All About the Roland VC-1 (D-50 V-Card)
There's a lot more to the VC-1 than meets the eye, and at first I thought it was just an emulation with nothing new but that's quite far from the truth. There are many misconceptions and assumptions about the card, but that's not unexpected since it's so weird and uncommon.
- It includes 64 new patches and 28 waveforms that weren't present on the D-50 / D-550.
- You can transfer patches from the D-50 / D-550 directly to the VC-1, and vice versa.
- The VC-1 can output higher quality behaviour by default, or, defect to an inferior output that's more similar to the original D-50 regarding aliasing.
- The VC-1 is using the D-50's actual original code, which is why V-Synth integrations can't work as it's not an emulation and also why it's so friendly with D-50 patches and communication. Shocking but true, it *is* a D-50 by all intents and purposes as far as the digital portion is concerned.
- Because all of the VariPhrase synthesizers only have one PCMCIA slot, the VC-1 had to be designed with its own internal flash memory which doubles for VC-1 D-50 operating system itself: not FPGA or ROM-based (which is kind of weird). If something bad happens, you actually have to reload the VC-1's software back onto the card!
This does also mean two things: the PG-1000 controller will also work on the VC-1, and the VC-1 UniQuest could also be used to program a D-50 / D-550 (assuming it's not using any custom extensions). Keep in mind there's no documentation of people mixing either or so I can only speculate, however there's proof that the D-05 works with the PG-1000 so we can assume the aforementioned is true:
SOS' Paul Nagle mentions it's a RAM card, but this is false. It's flash memory, if it were RAM everything would be lost the moment the machine were to be powered off. I suppose this does mean every VC-1 card in existence has a certain amount of read/writes it can perform before it 'expires'.
Paolo of SynthMania has a whole page demonstrating the VC-1 exclusive patches (for some reason his page says it has no aftertouch, which is false):
There's a few patches that seem to be related to older ones; Musique Concrete is kind of like Intruder, and Next Stop Nirvana is kind of like Soundtrack.
VC-1 / D-05 / D-50 Feature Comparisons
I've tried my best to figure out what's different between them all (any mistakes are because I don't own everything & lack of documentation):
| Feature | VC-1 | D-50/550 | D-05 | Roland Cloud |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New 64 patches + 28 waveforms | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Modern Filter + D-50 Filter | Yes | No | No | No |
| PG-1000 Compatibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Probably Not? |
| VC-1 UniQuest Compatibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Probably Not? |
| Original D-50 Patch Compatibility | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
For the longest time the VC-1 was the best choice for a modern D-50 solution, but with the D-50 Roland Cloud you get all of the VC-1 patches and the creature comforts that come with software and DAWs. The D-05 is less desirable because it's just another piece of hardware you have to manage with ground loop hum, an interface for ants, a hefty price tag... and it's discontinued now.
There is discussion regarding the Boutique ground loop hum here:
VC-1 / D-05 / D-50 Audio Comparisons
Because the VC-1 has two operating modes (classic 'D-50' mode and the modern mode without aliasing), both can dramatically alter how the resulting output sounds. None of the below comparisons mention which mode it's operating in which is a big problem... as some of the major differences may be running the VC-1 in its modern mode. I wouldn't be surprised if most left the VC-1 running on its modern mode.
If there are any differences in output, it's due to the analog output and not the software since it *is* the same original D-50 code.
Nicolas Melis has a comparison between a D-50 and the VC-1 running on a V-Synth, however it's kind of hard to tell the finer details because the V-Synth is panned too much to the right whereas the D-50 has both channels panned normally.... so it causes quite a lot differences that otherwise wouldn't be there if both synthesizers had equal volume and equal panning:
Marshal Arnold has a great comparison between the VC-1 and and D-05 (boutique). The audio has a bit of ground loop hum (lol I think it's the boutique itself because it goes away when he switches to the V-Synth) but it's hard to hear once the instruments start playing:
- Roland Boutique D-05 vs Roland VC-1 D-50 V-Card (V-Synth) - How close are they?
And in case someone didn't believe if they're not sensitive enough, here's a snippet from the video I recorded and amplified: D-05 Ground Loop
Someone in the video also said they think the D-05 and VC-1 use the same FPGA, unfortunately that's not the case since: #1 the Boutique lineup uses the same FPGA for everything, #2 the VC-1 is mostly flash based. The FPGA the boutiques use didn't exist when the VC-1 was made, this is vintage tech! It's possible that the D-05 is also running the same D-50 operating system like the VC-1 since it's compatible with the PG-1000 as well.
Also Marshal said he wasn't interested in selling the VC-1 despite having the D-05, but now he has more vindication because the D-05 has a dirty output whereas the VC-1 on the V-Synth is nice and clean.
Woody Piano Shack's comparison between the D-50 and VC-1, the after touch was omitted so this does cause differences in the VC-1 samples unfortunately (I'm not sure if this is why 'Intruder' sounded different, because it shouldn't as the software code is the exact same between the D-50 and VC-1):
- Roland V-Synth XT versus Roland D50 (VariOS VC-1 V-Card)
Also, no idea why Woody downplays the Intruder patch... you can do a lot of textures with it for music.
Audio Thoughts
I know some of the comments on Nicolas Melis' video surprisingly say they think the D-50 sounds brighter as a whole, but I don't think so. There've been instances where the VC-1 sounds brighter, the D-05 sounds brighter, or rarely the D-50 sounding brighter. I'm going to assume these micro variances are due to the amplifier differences and VC-1 operation modes.
A good example of the brightness variations are on the Woody Piano Shack comparisons, and even in lieu of the after touch problem, you can see how very similar the two sound unlike Melis' video with the panning issues. In fact, if someone were to actually do a proper comparison of both without panning or after touch issues and in the 'classic D-50 mode', it would be so close if not identical that it's impossible to notice in a mix. It is the same code, after all.
I'm kind of curious how the VC-1 would stack up against the Roland Cloud D-50 because the JV-1080 Roland Cloud VST does have some issues and differences to the original hardware. Most of it is pretty subtle and you only notice it on very particular patches... so... I'm wondering if this is the case with the D-50. Who knows. I can tell you that even though I hated how the Roland Cloud JV-1080 distorted some patches, once they're in the mix you really can't hear most of it.
