SC-55 MkII & macOS

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almeath
Posts: 178
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:40 pm
Location: Australia

SC-55 MkII & macOS

Post by almeath »

I am seeking some help with getting a Roland SC-55 MkII working properly with ScummVM in macOS. I have it partially working, but not in the manner I expected.

The SC-55 is connected to a 2019 iMac via a Roland UM-ONE Mk2 USB MIDI adapter. The drivers installed fine and I tested the functionality via the Audio MIDI Setup app in macOS. In ScummVM I selected the UM-ONE as the music driver. I should add that I normally have external Bose speakers plugged into the single audio-out jack on the iMac. To test the SC-55 I instead plugged the speakers into the audio-out jack on the front of the module, as shown below.

Image

With this configuration, when I start a game in ScummVM, the SC-55 works as expected and I hear the music through the Bose speakers, but I hear no digital voice or sound effects (I am using King's Quest VI and VII for testing purposes). I thought the digital sounds would play through the iMac's internal speakers, but there is just silence.

I then plugged the speakers back into the iMac, but left the SC-55 on. This time, when I start ScummVM I hear the digital voice and sound effects through the internal iMac speakers. To hear the SC-55 music I had to plug in some external earphones, and I can hear it is definitely playing the music through those.

Now, the strange thing is that after starting up with the Bose speakers plugged into the iMac, if I remove them during gameplay and plug them into the front of the SC-55, I can then hear music through my Bose speakers and the digital voice and sound effects through my iMac's internal speakers.

My questions are:

1. Why does ScummVM fail to play digital audio when the SC-55 is plugged into the speakers, unless I start with the external speakers plugged into the Mac and then hot-swap them back to the SC-55 during gameplay?

2. Since the iMac only has one audio-out jack and no line-in, should I be looking at some kind of external adapter or sound card that will augment my Mac's audio capability? Could the RCA jacks on the SC-55 be of any use in this way?

Ideally, I want to have the music from the SC-55 and the digital sound effects from the iMac played together via the external Bose speakers.

I realize some of these issues have nothing to do with ScummVM, but I am reaching out for help because there is scant information on the Internet regarding these issues on Macs, and I am not really an audiophile.
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corpse
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Joined: Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:28 pm
Location: uk

Re: SC-55 MkII & macOS

Post by corpse »

HI,
Since the iMac only has one audio-out jack and no line-in, should I be looking at some kind of external adapter or sound card that will augment my Mac's audio capability? Could the RCA jacks on the SC-55 be of any use in this way?
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/m ... mh0052/mac

I think the socket can be used for either, haven't got a mac to test myself; but some googling seems to suggest this is the case.

Thanks Tom.
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almeath
Posts: 178
Joined: Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:40 pm
Location: Australia

Re: SC-55 MkII & macOS

Post by almeath »

corpse wrote: Wed Mar 18, 2020 3:36 pm
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/guide/m ... mh0052/mac

I think the socket can be used for either, haven't got a mac to test myself; but some googling seems to suggest this is the case.

Thanks Tom.
Thank you - I managed to resolve the problem in an unexpectedly simple way. I noticed that the external Bose volume controller included separate microphone and line-out jacks. I was able to use a 3.5mm interconnect cable to effectively use the speaker interface as the mixer and now it all works perfectly. :)

Image
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corpse
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Location: uk

Re: SC-55 MkII & macOS

Post by corpse »

Glad to hear it's sorted.
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