Roland's update policies

[Lezlie]

I was hoping Roland could set a couple of their guys on the job of optimising previous models operating systems. How much effort could it really be?
I recently purchased an sp-606, fully aware of its shortcomings. However, I think Roland still should've ironed out some of its issues (support for larger memory cards + resampling whole patterns).

Is it part of their corporate strategy not to resolve these issues, or can it actually be real obstacles in the technology preventing them from doint this?

btw: was the issue in song mode ever resolved on the mc-909?

[Lezlie]

Oh, just for the record I have to say that i absolutely LOVE Roland, and I'am fully aware that the same could be said of other manufacturers as well.

[PHeMoX]

Yeah, but I think it's a valid topic, regardless of whether we are or aren't Roland fans.

I mean, I am currently rocking an MV8800 and although I think it totally kicks ass for what I can already do with it, there's a handful of relatively small things that could be HUGE improvements in terms of work flow.

Some things depend on hardware, like loading times (streaming from a hard drive has it's advantages instead of loading into RAM memory first). Others don't and could be implemented easily. Like a scrolling cursor for example, or even more mouse control.

Then again the MV has had many updates in the past and can not be compared to the very first batch that had OS.1.0 installed. So Roland did invest lots of time in both MVs (they basically share the same Operating System).

Is it part of their corporate strategy not to resolve these issues, or can it actually be real obstacles in the technology preventing them from doint this?

btw: was the issue in song mode ever resolved on the mc-909?

While I do think Roland listens to user input when it comes to adding new features I also think Roland doesn't want to fix anything that isn't broken, nor add too complicated things that are likely going to mess things up that did work fine already.

As a rule of thumb in games programming my experience is that for every new feature there will be at least a dozen new bugs to fix. Similar is true for software and firmware updates for this kind of hardware for sure.

While this isn't a good excuse not to fix actual issues, it does give a hint to why certain features might not be added or changed. I'm not sure, but I think the MC-909 was ultimately quite bug free in it's latest version. (The 808 ain't a bad alternative these days though.)

The Compact Flash thing is something strange though. Perhaps the main reason why they won't invest time in updating that, is that newer gear has a bigger capacity and therefore would be more likely to sell?

That makes no sense though when you look at the rate at which Compact Flash cards get bigger and bigger (meaning the 4Gb is already the new minimum size and can't be read in the SP-404 and SP-555).

Anyways, I've been typing lots more than I wanted. Peace, I'm out.

[fauna]

i don't know if its a corporate policy or not, but a lot of us on here have several SP- machines.

would we still, if one box had all the features we wanted? not sure. maybe we'd just stick to one.

[ColeRockLee]

I blame corporate greed. The limited memory card size seems like deliberate crippling to me. The file system they use (FAT16) can read/write up to 4gb files. There were 4gb cards readily available when the 404 released. Smells like bullshit to me. Why would they update a current product when they could sell you a newer one? I doubt they'll ever stop this kind of thing and I don't ever see myself buying any new Roland gear because of this.

[hurlingdervish]

i blame engineers making sacrifices. when they design these things sometimes things have to go in order to meet space/power/energy needs. there is also the chance of getting electrocuted if they try and do too much. so their solution is to make specialized gear instead of one end all be all box

[PHeMoX]

i blame engineers making sacrifices. when they design these things sometimes things have to go in order to meet space/power/energy needs. there is also the chance of getting electrocuted if they try and do too much. so their solution is to make specialized gear instead of one end all be all box

'end all be all box', yeah, like my grandmother's huge fridge. It still works after more than what? Over 35 years? Really rock solid. No need to buy a new one... but that's indeed the reason why the company that made them went bankrupt about 10 years ago.

I don't think it's unfair to cripple a machine to some extent, but it's really crazy when we as customers can't buy compact flash cards anymore within a reasonable amount of time. They should have perhaps thought about that, as it only took about 6 months for the 1Gb cards to fully disappear from the camera shops. My SP-555 was pretty much still brand-new when this happened!

Add a hard drive or predict and add a healthy size range in the machine so it's prepared for the future. Of course, when Roland first released the SP-404, compact flash cards that were supported were definitely still widely available. How different it is back when they released the MC-808, also using compact flash cards...

It won't make me not buy future Roland products, but I sure do stay away from secondhand roland gear that uses compact flash or other kinds of flash cards as much as possible.

[hurlingdervish]

its not just "how awesome should we make it?" its usually "how awesome CAN we make it?" if roland could create a super machine, they would and the 555 is sure trying hard to be that machine. cause once they do strike gold they can just keep rehashing the same box over and over ad nauseum
cough cough...akai...cough cough...

as for future proofing, the last round of sp's were probably designed around 2002 ish even though they came out in 2006. it takes a long ass time for things like this to go from the design phase to actual production. the plans were probably sent from one department to another to another for several years.

the reason compact flash is so popular is because you can read data really fast from it and its convienent to have different cards that you know what samples on are on which. sure you could have a hard drive but if you were playing live you would need to search that hard drive with some sort of computer screen, which defeats the purpose of having a hardware sampler

[dman5000]

i think they make different machines kind of expecting them to sell for different markets but at the same time try to keep them in some general "sample drum machine realm" and that back and forth you get in a corporation make for some machine to have shortcomings in certains fields of beat production and then not the fullest features in the machine intended market.. for example i believe i read the sp 404 was designed with guitar players and djs in mind, it doesnt really have all the features you'd want for those 2 needs though, likewise there is a whole lot more you can do on it and people were freaking them in a different way so they come out with sp 555 which is like more suped up and little bit more geared toward beat production and djing. also consider most of the sp's are under 1000 dollars which makes them more bargain gear despite the awesome stuff that can be done with them. i think the mv series was rolands attempt to come out with a box that does it all, but i havent used one.
in short what im saying is no machine is intended to do specifically what any of us are trying to do with our individual work flow and production, they are created to try to be appealing and easy to use for a wide range of people/musicians.

ps i dont know alot about integrating computers with hardware for playing but i think the monome device is basically like a make your own programs for all these buttons machine, you can basically make any of those buttons do whatever you want them to and make your own programs to use, but im not a scientist so im just gonna keep looking for the right machines and noise makers.

[cartesia]

First thing first,

things like maximum compact flash size limit, are usually set in the hardware. nobody can write a piece of software that changes the maximum size the hardware can deal with..

Alot of things are actually hardware limitation rather than software, and this comes down to cost of product.. If you had paid an extra $500 for your SP, you woulda got some awesome shit.

Also once a product is no longer part of their retail line, OS updates etc will be discontinued - what's the point in them upgrading a product they dont make any profits off anymore? Complete waste of money!

[Lezlie]

First thing first,
things like maximum compact flash size limit, are usually set in the hardware. nobody can write a piece of software that changes the maximum size the hardware can deal with..

Is it really? I mean, wasn't the V-Synth upgraded to accept larger size memory cards? (could be faulty memory on my part here)

Also once a product is no longer part of their retail line, OS updates etc will be discontinued - what's the point in them upgrading a product they dont make any profits off anymore? Complete waste of money!

That's the thing. I think it very well might be in the companys interest to upgrade to a certain point, as they would come off as more dedicated to their products and their customers.

I think maybe it could be a solution to ask for a few dollars for such upgrades - not the ones fixing bugs, but ones that introduce new features. Waldorf are doing just that for the sample upgrade to their Blofeld module.

[cartesia]

Is it really? I mean, wasn't the V-Synth upgraded to accept larger size memory cards? (could be faulty memory on my part here)

Pretty much, yes..
in the case of say, the 404, the maximum storage size is 1GB, or 1 billion bytes.
Each byte is made up of 8 bits, and so we have 8 billion bits.

The reason the storage cannot be more than this, is the 404 simply can't see (or 'count up to') a location with an address higher than 8 billion. (actually it might be able to see up to say, the 9 billionth or 10 billionth.. but nobody makes 1.1GB cards.. It would need to be able to see right up to 16 billion to use the next size card (2GB).. )

It's the same reason why my macbook can't have more than 4 gigs of ram, even though larger sticks of ram have the same kind of connector, and even though OSX supports more than 4gigs of ram. It simply cannot see any memory higher than the 32 billionth bit.

The VSynth is very strange, I've no idea why a companpy would not allow full access to the maximum storage size possible - according to the hardware - right from the first release. It doesn't take any extra programming to make the extra storage available .. if your program can access a compact flash card, it can access as much of it as the hardware allows.. They would've had to actually program in a LIMIT to the amount of storage space accessible in the original OS.

Anyway, back to the other point - them making your old gear more desirable again, is actually screwing them out of profits haha. If you were happy with your gear, of course youd be happier with the company. But if you were happy with your gear, you wouldnt be so inclined to buy their latest gadget.

They need to get it just right, make you enjoy the product - but not enjoy it so much that you will never buy a new one.

I think paid upgrades could perhaps work, but how much would you be willing to pay? And where would the line be drawn between support that *should* be provided for free, since you bought a product, and 'optional' OS upgrades.

[PHeMoX]

The reason the storage cannot be more than this, is the 404 simply can't see (or 'count up to') a location with an address higher than 8 billion. (actually it might be able to see up to say, the 9 billionth or 10 billionth.. but nobody makes 1.1GB cards.. It would need to be able to see right up to 16 billion to use the next size card (2GB).. )

Mmm, well but the fact that the OS doesn't search beyond the 8 billionth bit, doesn't mean the OS wouldn't be able to with it's current hardware. It just doesn't bother.

I actually think an OS update would totally make it possible for the 404, 606 or 555 to read and use more compact flash space. The only hardware limitation is the format. The compact flash readers usually don't have a size limitation, unlike hard disks that depend on a motherboard that needs to physically support larger harddisks. It's why my MV can't read anything above 120Gb.

That's a physical limitation, I really think there's a difference with compact flash.

They would've had to actually program in a LIMIT to the amount of storage space accessible in the original OS.

In software programming it makes sense to add those kinds of limits though. For speed reasons or else it would search forever.

[jbl]

hey cartesia, not to be arguementitve, but i can think of a few machines that can actually store more than the company lets on; the sp- 808 could be upgraded to 250 and even 750 zips later on(but the drive needs to be replaced, os updated). the mpc 500/1000 can read 8 gig cf cards (maybe more) even though akai says 2g max. that's all i can think of right now.

i can't see my self needing more than a 1g on the 404 personally but the drawback is they are getting harder and harder to find. these days, whenever i see a low g/mb rated cf card, i grab it even if i don't need it.

[cartesia]

yeah

case 1 - requires new hardware

case 2 - requred no new OS - in other words, they just didnt advertise it as being able to take X size card.

It's not case 2 with the SPs, because we know for a fact that they dont work with bigger cards as they are.

Mmm, well but the fact that the OS doesn't search beyond the 8 billionth bit, doesn't mean the OS wouldn't be able to with it's current hardware. It just doesn't bother.

its NOT THE OS that does the actual accessing, its the hardware that cannot address that high.

If you write in your program
"access memory slot 14085890237"

The hardware will be like "Error WTF? Could not access 14085890237"

Or it will overflow and access memory location (14085890237 minus 8000000000)

Technically you could write an SP404 operating system that supported 500 terabyte quantum alien holographic storage spheres,

the 404 still wouldnt have the hardware to actually do it though.

If you could rip out the compact flash reader and install a newer one, THEN you could rewrite the software to make use of this new hardware. In fact you may not even need to rewrite the OS, depending on how they've implemented card access.