Roland RSS-10 (1995)
Roland's second swing at three-dimensional sound: the $45,000 system, now in a 1U rack for a few grand.
Overview
The RSS-10 is a 1U rack-mount 3-D sound processor. The pitch was direct. Roland's original Roland Sound Space technology had arrived as a system costing $45,000, and the company claimed the RSS-10, at $2,995, produced more convincing 360-degree placement for a fraction of that. You could argue about "more convincing," but the arithmetic was hard to argue with. EQ Magazine (February 1995, p.19) covered the RSS-10's release and its 360-degree soundscape capabilities.
The box manipulates the apparent elevation, azimuth, and distance of a sound source, then plays it back over an ordinary two-speaker stereo system. No surround array, no extra amps, no fifth speaker behind the couch. As the source moves through the virtual space, the reverb reflections move with it in real time. That coupling of dry positioning and reflected field is the whole trick, and it's why the unit sounds like more than a fancy panner when it's working well.
The parameter range is wide for a 1U unit. Maximum source distance runs to 81 meters in 1 cm steps, or 655 meters in 8 cm steps, depending on the mode. Room size is adjustable from 1 to 100 meters, and reverb time spans 0.1 seconds to 40 seconds. That upper figure is not a typo, and it suggests the unit was built for sound design and post work as much as for music. Input levels show on a pair of 12-segment LEDs. Output levels get 3-segment LEDs, which is a slightly stingy display for a unit at this price but gets the job done.
I/O is studio-grade rather than consumer: both +4 dBm XLR and -10 dBm ¼-inch inputs and outputs, with 20 dB of headroom. MIDI In and Out are present, plus an RS-422A/232C serial port for the computer control software. Up to sixteen units can be linked. EQ Magazine (February 1995, p.19) noted the linked configuration yields a total of 32 channels of three-dimensional audio, which made the unit interesting to installation and post people as well as home studios.
All parameters can be automated under MIDI control, and Roland shipped two types of control software for Mac or Windows: one program for designing a static 3-D soundstage, and another for driving dynamic effects such as Doppler shift, flanging, and programmable movement. Sound on Sound (UK, March 1996, p.64) described the software as two separate programs, RSS FX for moving sounds and RSS Stage for fixed-position sounds, and noted that getting the Mac to talk to the hardware required installing Apple's rather unpopular MIDI Manager. That's a real friction point.
The same review gives the honest caveat. Sound on Sound (UK, March 1996, p.66) found that stationary sounds placed behind the listener tended to collapse, with the stereo image drifting back to the front of the room, unless the sound kept moving. That's the basic limitation of two-speaker 3-D. The review also observed that summing the output to mono can sound like somebody went wild with a flanger and an EQ unit, so check the mono sum before patching one into a mix bus.
Collectors and post-production people still chase these. It's a distinctive spatial tool with a sound of its own, and because the workflow depends on software, a working unit with a functioning computer setup is worth more than a bare rack box. The serial port and the Mac/Windows software are the fragile links in the chain, so buyers should confirm what's included. The 1998 Roland price list still carried the RSS-10 at a suggested $1,995, down from the original $2,995.
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