Roland SBX-1000 (1991)
A three-in-one sync brain for the post-production room - and a machine that far outran its own documentation.
Overview
The SBX-1000 was the long-awaited successor to Roland's SBX-80, and the first question every SBX-80 owner asked was whether it performed as flawlessly as its predecessor. EQ (April 1992, p.96) said hands-down yes. Then it asked the second question, whether the owner's manual was in English. The answer there was "sort of." Roland shipped three manuals this time, better written than earlier efforts but still far from perfect. The review's conclusion is one collectors still repeat: the unit itself far surpasses its documentation.
The documentation describes three devices sharing one chassis. The first is a cue list section. It lets a user build a series of MIDI events, plus General Purpose Interface events for machine control, triggered at particular SMPTE times. It works much the way a video editor builds an Edit Decision List. The second is a 16-track MIDI sequencer with a full complement of editing features. The third is a tempo controller that builds a tempo map synced to SMPTE, governing playback of the internal sequencer and any connected external MIDI gear. According to Mix (October 1991, p.222), the cue-sheet approach could store note number, control change, other real-time MIDI messages, and song position for a connected sequencer, in a single rack-space chassis listed at $1,895.
The price is where the record gets odd. EQ's review (April 1992, p.97) lists the SBX-1000 at $3,495, nearly double the figure Mix published months earlier. Treat the lower number as the earlier announcement and the higher as the review-unit list price. Either way, this was never a budget box.
The back panel shows where it was meant to live: two sets of MIDI in/out ports, SMPTE input and output, four GPI outputs, and audio input jacks. Up front are cursor arrows, a weighted data entry wheel, and tape-recorder-style transport controls for play, stop, record, rewind, and fast-forward. There are also six locator points, whose SMPTE values can be typed in from the numeric keypad or captured on the fly. An onboard 3½-inch disk drive saves work from any or all three sections, stores setups (though not locator points), keeps a list of most-used MIDI events, and accepts the periodic system updates Roland issued.
The sequencer section follows Roland's familiar convention. Anyone who has used the company's MC or MV hardware sequencers will recognize the layout. Twenty songs can be stored, with a maximum capacity of 110,000 notes shared across all three sections, at a maximum clock resolution of 1/96 of a quarter note. Sixteen tracks each hold data from multiple MIDI channels, with full provision for selective extracting and merging, and a microscope function for single-event editing. Sequences made on other Roland instruments load directly from the disk drive. Standard MIDI files can be imported and exported from MS-DOS formatted disks, though the review unit had an annoying tendency to lock up when loading MIDI files created on a PC. Roland said a future software update would correct it.
The tempo controller got the most praise. A SMPTE-synchronized tempo map can be built five ways: by converting the internal sequencer's tempo map, by typing tempos beat by beat on the numeric keypad, by tapping the front panel Tap key, by feeding in a prerecorded percussive audio signal such as a click on tape, or by importing MIDI clocks from an external sequencer. Individual beats can be edited and tempo changes smoothed. A Correct command rescales any section of the map, or the whole thing, either by ratio (play back two percent faster) or to fit a time area (bars 3 through 6 in exactly four seconds, resolvable to as little as a single frame).
Cue list events can be placed manually at SMPTE points within a resolution of 1/4 frame. They can also be entered via MIDI input, a technique with particular value in sound effects work, or recorded from a user-created event list by hitting the Tap key or in response to percussive audio. MIDI controller messages, program changes, pitch bend, aftertouch, and even system-exclusive messages can be captured this way and played back at the correct SMPTE times. The cue list also embeds sequencer start commands for internal or external MIDI sequencers, and GPI commands that start or stop connected CD players or tape decks, pretty much any with footswitch inputs. Every event is freely editable: move it forward or backward in time, change note number, velocity, or gate time. Up to sixteen revisions of a single cue list can be created.
The sections talk to each other. The internal sequencer can be started from within the cue list, and its playback tempo is controlled from the tempo controller. A Shift command in the tempo controller automatically moves the cue list's sequencer start time so a particular bar/beat lands on a specific SMPTE point. Stripe a video, and the downbeat of bar seven can be made to hit a precise moment in the action.
The one real limitation, flagged plainly in EQ's summary (April 1992, p.96), is that the SBX-1000 does not support MIDI Time Code. For a machine built around SMPTE, that omission shaped who bought it and who didn't. The review's verdict was that it could be an invaluable tool in the post-production studio. Emulating all its functions with a computer would take a SMPTE/MIDI interface plus more than a thousand dollars' worth of software, though anyone already running such a computer system might not need all the power it provides.
The SBX-1000 runs a software-based operating system, as most disk-equipped Roland products do, so EQ expected it to evolve with future synchronization developments. One possibility was MIDI Machine Control, with the unit eventually acting as a master MIDI machine controller as well as a synchronizer. The disk drive is central to the design: setups, event lists, and system updates all pass through it, so a unit with a dead drive loses a good deal of its practical value.
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