Roland U 110

General information

Roland's answer to the E-mu Proteus, the predecessor of the more successful U-220 module and U-20 keyboard and the ancestor of the prototype T-110, the U-110 was Roland's first dedicated sample playback synth. It used ROM to store sounds rather than loading them from disks into RAM, hence it was not a true sampler as it could not sample sounds.

The U-110 contained a base 2MB of sounds stored in ROM. It could be expanded with up to 4 Roland SN-U110 sound library cards, unlike the more popular Roland U-220 that could only accommodate two. It had six individual outputs.

Test mode

Tests carried out:

1. S-RAM Check,
2. LCD Check (display switches on all pixels),
3. KEY/LED Check (pressing down a key will blank out that keys name on the display and if there is an LED in the key that will light up as well if working),
4. Battery check,
5. MIDI Check (using a midi cable connect midi in to midi out on back of unit. Midi message light will flash and a graphical representation of data flow will appear on the display),
6. Wave ROM check,
7. ROM card check,
8. DAC Offset Adjust,
9. DAC MSB CHECK,
10. Sound Check (By pressing <- and -> you can cycle though the modules voices. if working a tone should be heard from headphones or other connected output device (mix output) also pressing [dec] or [inc/enter] checks the effects),
11. Output check (this checks the individual voice outputs use <- or -> to change the currently selected output and check to see if a test tone is emitted from that output).