Roland MC-500 memory upgrade

[Gurkah]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is a way to upgrade the on-board memory on my Roland MC-500 sequencer. As it is now I can only load about 7 songs before the memory is full. I would love to load the entire live set (about 10-12) songs at once so I don't have to load a few songs on stage mid gig.

Thank you!

[Vxster]

I don't think you can do it without swapping out a board. That is probably going to be hard to find.

The Mk II had more capacity, as did the MC50.

[Gurkah]

Thank you for your reply! I guess I’ll have to be on the lookout for another sequencer.

Is there anyway to make it load the songs faster? I’m using a Gotek Floppy emulator and it takes a while for each song to load. My band mate have to do an awful lot of small talk from stage while I load up more songs

[Vxster]

Thank you for your reply! I guess I’ll have to be on the lookout for another sequencer.

Is there anyway to make it load the songs faster? I’m using a Gotek Floppy emulator and it takes a while for each song to load. My band mate have to do an awful lot of small talk from stage while I load up more songs

Yes, our guitarist would take a while to finish the song as I changed disks and flipped the switch

I think the limiting factor on the MC 500 will be the processor when loading the songs. It's an old Z80 if I remember correctly so even with the Gotek, it will take a while to load.

[madtheory]

The Gotek works exactly like the floppy disk. The data rate is capped by the mechanical disk system, not the Z80. There is no way to speed it up via the floppy interface*.

You could consider purchasing two MC-50s. You can load one while the other is playing, and you get expanded memory with the same User Interface (pretty much).




(*I guess you could redesign the actual circuit with a DMA (Direct Memory Access) which is something a Z80 can actually do. And then you'd have to rewrite the program code.)

[Gurkah]

Thank you for your answers!

I’ll keep a look out for another MC-500 or a 50