Roland S-220 12-bit Sampler
- At October 30, 2018
- By amsynths
- In Sampler
16

Introduction In October 2018 I bought a 31-year old Roland S-220 sampler for £70, with no photo of it working this was a bit of a risky purchase! Why buy one in the first place, given it only manages 4.4 seconds of sample time at 30 kHz and 12-bits? Even the disk drive is horribly unreliable and impossible to replace or even find blank QD diskettes for.
Well its that 12-bit lo-fi sample sound that I am after, so I can sample some modular synth sounds and create bass lines and strings. I also want to develop a Quick Disk drive replacement using a microprocessor, which will store 100 sample banks in memory.
History The Roland S-220 was introduced in September 1987 as an upgraded 16-voice version of the S-10/MKS-100 but with the same limited 256k byte RAM. It lasted about a year in production before the improved S-330 was launched with 756k byte of RAM, so its a relatively rare sampler. The S-220 received a new operating system with a lot of improvements over the S-10 including 4-part multi-timbrality and up to 4 audio outputs and a good auto loop. There is an external trigger and arpeggiator, so it plays nicely with modular synthesizers.
My S-220 I bought a new mains lead and carefully powered it on, after checking there were no internal issues such as damaged power caps. It booted successfully but the LCD screen was extremely worn out and barely visible, so a new green 16 x 2 OLED display from Raystar Electronics (Part Number: REC001602AGPP5N) was bought for £22. You can buy the OLED in different colours, all part numbers start with REC001602A and they are the correct 80mm x 36mm size.
New OLED Display It is a simple swap, the new LCD is the same size as the new OLED, and the EL back light power can be disconnected from the power supply. I also removed the inverter when I recapped the power supply. The front panel has to come out to gain access to the LCD, and the interface wiring has to be desoldered from the old LCD and re-soldered to the new LCD without pin 3 connected (no need for contrast).
This is easy to do as the wiring unplugs from the motherboard. The OLED needs careful alignment with the front panel bezel so all the top and bottom of the characters can be seen. The character size of the new display is slightly larger, notice the tight fit of the lettering. I widened the holes on the OLD PCB as much as I could to get the alignment.
Sample Disks I also bought a set of new Roland sample diskettes, the L-109 Synth & Organ, as it has a rather nice Jupiter 8 and VP-330 sample bank. This loaded successfully on the second attempt after I cleaned the disk head and felt pad. Amazingly the QD drive works, although it is easy to do sample bank transfers over MIDI using the S-10 Manager software.
Second S-220 A couple of weeks later I bought a second S220, but this was in much worse condition . The electronics seem okay but the QD motor was permanently on and whining loudly, and the drive belt had melted. I did manage to reduce the whining and improve the head tracking but the Motor will not stop when powered on. So this S-220 will be the “mule” for the QD drive replacement project.
I fitted a white OLED and a new Bourns 24 step encoder (PEC11R-4225F-S
Maintenance The lithium batteries were replaced in both samplers, they keep power to the 8k bytes of Performance Data held in SRAM. A symptom of the battery failing is that the Bender range setting needs to be input at power on. Don’t believe the voltage measured on the battery, even if its above 3V replace it. The old battery legs can be cut away and the new one soldered in place without removing the PCB.
The PSU and Main boards were refreshed with new electrolytic capacitors, especially the 4700uf and 2200uf reservoirs as they have been working for 30 years, along with a lot of cleaning out of dust from the casing! The audio path capacitors were upgraded to Nichicon UES types.
I also installed a proper 3 pin IEC socket and earth connection to the chassis, which means the non standard 2 pin cable can be dispensed with. I also replaced all 30x push button switches on the front panel which took a long time, but was worth it! They are ALPS SKHHBSA010 part number.
Outcomes The first S-220 was moved from the workshop into my studio in August 2019 and hooked up with MIDI for sample transfer and audio. The second S-220 remained in the workshop for the QD replacement project, but is now in the studio with a Gotek USB drive fitted. Incidentally the S-220 uses a nice Burr Brown 16-bit DAC chip, the PCM54HP, typically used in high end CD players around 1988, but not the best DAC ever made.
QD Drive Replacement Part of the reason to buy a Roland S220 was to design and produce a QD drive replacement. The QD drive uses a single spiral track recorded onto each side of the diskette, and is half like a cassette and half like a 3.5″ floppy drive. It transfers data slowly at 100 kHz and is encoded in MFM format with 64k bytes each side taking about 5 seconds to load. Samples can be loaded and saved but also the disk can be read to provide the sound name and bank setting.
The drive replacement will use a micro-controller to read and write the data, a small OLED display and a SD card for storage. This project will take place in 2Q19 and it has its own dedicated web page here.
UPDATE: Some clever folks modified the software for the HxC Gotek USB Floppy Emulator in the Summer of 2019 to support Roland Quick Disks, so I have cancelled my project and I am now using this software with Gotek drives. This post explains the technical details of the Roland QD diskette drive and the test outcomes. I have loaded all the Roland S-10 factory library onto two USB drives, along with various sample banks from the Internet as well as my own growing collection.
Charly Riviere
I have a Roland S-10 (first-hand) and a Roland S-220 (second-hand). Both have a Quick-Disk problem so I can’t load my (almost) hundred 2.8 disks recorded 3 decades ago.
Therefore, ANY substitute/replacement which could allow me to recover my samples from those pesky 2.8 disks would be awesome!
amsynths
The quick disk replacement wont read the disks directly, but the good news is I do have a working drive that can read them and can transfer them to a PC over MIDI sample dump. Then they can be stored on the PC and sent back to the sampler and stored in the quick disk replacement, all the sample banks. If you want me to back all your disks up to MIDI sample dumps, so you can use a PC to load your library into your samplers let me know. Its the S110 librarian. Check google..
S220_Fan
Happy New Year!
Looking forward to this quick drive replacement project details!
Great work! Much appreciated!
mESMO cHICAGO
Wow ! I have made an offer on a really nice little S220 but I think it has a dead drive , I used to own one back in the day and used to get some great string arpegs out of it . I was looking for information on the Quick disk drive and found this ! Glad to know some of us refuse to let this great little sampler die !
Ricky
Great work, keep this little baby alive! Say, I was wondering, I pulled out my S220 recently and the belt was shot, all I had was a rubber band, it’s working, but can I ask where you got the replacement belt from? Thanks and great job, cheers.
amsynths
I bought this belt from eBay.
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Riemen-fur-2-8-Zoll-Quick-Disk-Laufwerk-in-Roland-MKS-100-DIGITAL-SAMPLER-BELT/283423352197?hash=item41fd592585:g:2XAAAOSwA3dYbT~J&frcectupt=true
Graham Hunter
Very interesting. What was the model of OLED you used?
amsynths
I used this one from eBay but you can get them on Amazon as well for £16:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/REC001602AGPP5N0-Display-OLED-alphanumeric-16×2-green-REC001602AGPP5N00001/401475258831?hash=item5d79ca49cf:g:m58AAOSwoPpaWLM3
Sean
Fantastic work! This was super helpful in replacing my ldc and battery. Any news on the QD replacement? What’s the web page for it (that you hinted at right at the end)?
Thanks!!
amsynths
Hi, The QD disk emulator project has moved back a bit as I am working for Behringer on 2 new analog synths. But I do aim to have the emulator done by Xmas, as well as the modification to the S-10 OS code. Rob
Howie
I ordered the equivalent OLED display replacement for my S-220 but just realized the original LCD assembly connects to the mainboard via 14 wires whereas the replacement OLED expects 16 wires. Is it simply a matter of connecting the first 14 positions in the same order as the original display, ignoring positions 15 and 16? (As well as not connecting wire 3 for contrast?)
Howie
Never mind, a quick look at the Datasheet that came with the replacement OLED reveals that pins 3, 15 and 16 are NC. So I went ahead with my install and the results are perfect with exception of the display needing to be physically repositioned a few mm lower as previously mentioned.
I’m in the USA and ordered the display from Mouser, part # 668-REC001602AWPP5N
Thank you to AMS for making this page! I wouldn’t have bothered with this upgrade otherwise.
Brian
A big Thank You to AMS for creating this page, and to Howie for providing the Mouser part#. I just completed the OLED upgrade for my unit. (Had previously changed the battery, and the drive got a new belt, spring, and calibration.) After sitting on a shelf unused for thirteen years, I thought I was dusting it off to sell. But having too much serious fun with it now!
Robert Todd
hi, on your pic: S-220 Recapped PSU, what are the Q1 and Q2, components, are they voltage regulators connecting to the front panel or something?, as on my Roland SDE 3000 delay half the front screen is taken out and does not respond to pushbutton commands and there are two of these components one of which looks like it has corrosion from a leaking cap on it. I will recap the board but would like to learn more about this kind of component, any help please?
amsynths
Hi, The S220 voltage regulators attach to a metal heat sink in the middle of the casing. The SDE3000 has 4 voltage rails the +5V uses a linear voltage regulator 7805. The other 3 use power transistors. The VFD display has its own power straight from a separate winding on the transformer. I usually replace all the power caps and the power transistors and regulators, even if working as they are not designed to last 40 years.. Hope that helps !Rob
Detelder
Hello
I have followed with great interest the article on the Roland S220.
I own one, but I can’t find the S10 Manger I can tell you about. can you inform me or put it for me in download
thanks in advance