Nuked SC-55 CLAP audio plug-in

The Nuked SC-55 CLAP audio plug-in (CLAP) is built upon J.C. Moyer's fork of nukeykt's original Nuked SC-55 project.

Contrary to the original Nuked-SC55 this plugin is based on, Nuked SC-55 CLAP has no graphical user interface. The plugin only reacts to MIDI messages, just like an external MIDI module without a display (e.g., the Roland SC-55ST). Future versions might include the emulation of the original hardware's LCD display or even a full custom GUI.

The plug-in aims to preserve an important part of DOS gaming history for all to freely enjoy for posterity. It is only intended for personal use (e.g., retro gaming or writing music as a hobby) and research purposes. See the License section for additional details.

Installation

Download the latest version for your operating system from the releases page page, then unzip it into one of these OS-specific locations:

• Windows

  • C:\Program Files\Common Files\CLAP\
  • $LOCALAPPDATA\Programs\CLAP\

• macOS

  • /Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP/
  • $HOME/Library/Audio/Plug-Ins/CLAP/

• Linux

  • /usr/lib/clap/
  • $HOME/.clap/

macOS Gatekeeper

If macOS Gatekeeper prevents the plug-in from running, you will need to explicitly whitelist it with the following command from the terminal (replace <path-to> with the actual path to Nuked-SC55.clap):

sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine <path-to>/Nuked-SC55.clap

ROM files

The emulation needs dumps of the original hardware's ROM chips to function. If any of the ROM files for a given model are not present or they are invalid, you will not be able to load the plugin for that particular model. It is the easiest to grab the ROM files from here, but here are the instructions how to set them up if you are getting them from elsewhere.

Create a Nuked-SC55-Resources directory in the folder where the CLAP plugin resides with a ROMs folder in it. Finally, create subfolders inside the ROMs folder for the different models with specific names (e.g., SC-55-v1.20).

This is how the folder structure should look:

Nuked-SC55-Resources
  ROMs
    SC-55-v1.00
	  ...

    SC-55-v1.10
      sc55_rom1.bin
      sc55_rom2.bin
      sc55_waverom1.bin
      sc55_waverom2.bin
      sc55_waverom3.bin

    SC-55-v1.21
	  ...

    SC-55-v2.00
	  ...

    SC-55mk2-v1.01
	  ...

On macOS, you can also put the ROMs folder in the Resources folder inside the Nuked-SC55.clap application bundle.

As an alternative to creating the Nuked-SC55-Resources directory in the plugin location, you may set the SOUNDCANVAS_ROM_PATH environment variable to a list of absolute directories of where to look for ROM's. The OS PATH separator is used as a list delimiter Eg:

$Env:SOUNDCANVAS_ROM_PATH = "C:\path\to\ROM\dir"

$Env:SOUNDCANVAS_ROM_PATH = "C:\path\to\ROM\dir;Z:\alt\path\to\dir"

or

export SOUNDCANVAS_ROM_PATH=/path/to/ROM/dir

export SOUNDCANVAS_ROM_PATH=/path/to/ROM/dir:/alt/path/to/rom/dir

Here is the list of required files for each supported model. Lookup is performed by filename, so make sure the names match exactly. The SHA256 hashes of the ROM files are verified before loading; see src/nuked-sc55/backend/rom_io.cpp for the complete list of supported hashes.

SC-55-v1.00/sc55_rom1.bin
SC-55-v1.00/sc55_rom2.bin
SC-55-v1.00/sc55_waverom1.bin
SC-55-v1.00/sc55_waverom2.bin
SC-55-v1.00/sc55_waverom3.bin

SC-55-v1.10/sc55_rom1.bin
SC-55-v1.10/sc55_rom2.bin
SC-55-v1.10/sc55_waverom1.bin
SC-55-v1.10/sc55_waverom2.bin
SC-55-v1.10/sc55_waverom3.bin

SC-55-v1.20/sc55_rom1.bin
SC-55-v1.20/sc55_rom2.bin
SC-55-v1.20/sc55_waverom1.bin
SC-55-v1.20/sc55_waverom2.bin
SC-55-v1.20/sc55_waverom3.bin

SC-55-v1.21/sc55_rom1.bin
SC-55-v1.21/sc55_rom2.bin
SC-55-v1.21/sc55_waverom1.bin
SC-55-v1.21/sc55_waverom2.bin
SC-55-v1.21/sc55_waverom3.bin

SC-55-v2.00/sc55_rom1.bin
SC-55-v2.00/sc55_rom2.bin
SC-55-v2.00/sc55_waverom1.bin
SC-55-v2.00/sc55_waverom2.bin
SC-55-v2.00/sc55_waverom3.bin

SC-55mk2-v1.01/rom1.bin
SC-55mk2-v1.01/rom2.bin
SC-55mk2-v1.01/rom_sm.bin
SC-55mk2-v1.01/waverom1.bin
SC-55mk2-v1.01/waverom2.bin

Building

The main build method is via CMake and vcpkg. This is what the CI workflow uses.

On Linux you can also build without vcpkg, using system libraries.

Prerequisites

All platforms

• CMake (3.27.0 or later)
• vcpkg (latest)

Windows

• Visual Studio 2022 (17.11.0 or later)

macOS or Linux

• Clang (16.0.0 or later)
• Ninja (1.12.0 or later)

Installing vcpkg

If you don't have vcpkg installed yet:

git clone https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg.git
cd vcpkg && bootstrap-vcpkg.sh

Then append this to your .bashrc or .zshrc:

export VCPKG_ROOT=<vcpkg_repo_location>
export PATH=$VCPKG_ROOT:$PATH

On Windows, run bootstrap-vcpkg.bat instead and set the PATH Windows enviroment variable accordingly:

$env:VCPKG_ROOT="<vcpkg_repo_location>"
$env:PATH="$env:VCPKG_ROOT;$env:PATH"

Building the project

Windows

First you'll need to configure the project:

cmake --preset debug-windows-x64

Then build the debug artifact (this will create the Nuked-SC55.clap plugin in build\debug-windows-x64):

cmake --build --preset debug-windows-x64

To configure and build the release artifact (this will create the Nuked-SC55.clap plugin in build\release-windows-x64):

cmake --preset release-windows-x64
cmake --build --preset release-windows-x64

The msvc-sanitizer preset is also available for debugging.

macOS

Run build-macos.sh to create the universal binary app bundle in the out directory. Alternatively, follow the manual steps below.

First you'll need to configure the project. Use the corresponding command to configure the debug or release build:

cmake --preset debug-macos-arm64
cmake --preset release-macos-arm64

To cross-compile, (e.g., for x86_64):

cmake --preset debug-macos-x64
cmake --preset release-macos-x64

To build the project (use the same preset):

cmake --build --preset <preset-used-to-configure>

This will create the Nuked-SC55.clap app bundle in the build/<preset> directory.

The clang-sanitizer preset is also available for debugging.

Linux

First you'll need to configure the project. Use the corresponding command to configure the debug or release build:

cmake --preset debug-linux-x64
cmake --preset release-linux-x64

To build the project (use the same preset):

cmake --build --preset <preset-used-to-configure>

This will create the Nuked-SC55.clap plug-in in the build/<preset> directory.

The following presets are also available for debugging:

• gcc-sanitizer
• clang-sanitizer

Using system libs on Linux (alternative build method)

On Linux it is possible to compile using system libraries, without using vcpkg. Prerequisites are different in this compilation mode:

• Clang (16.0.0 or later)
• Ninja (1.12.0 or later)
• SpeexDSP (1.2.1 or later)

To configure the project, use one of the syslibs presets:

cmake --preset debug-linux-syslibs-x64
cmake --preset release-syslibs-linux-x64

Build the project as normal.

The following presets are also available for debugging:

• gcc-sanitizer-syslibs
• clang-sanitizer-syslibs

Cleaning the build directory

To clean the build/<preset> directory (e.g., for MSVC):

cmake --build --preset release-windows-x64 --target clean

To start from scratch, delete the build directory and run the configure commands again.

License

Nuked SC-55 CLAP, based on Nuked SC-55, can be distributed and used under the terms of original MAME license (see LICENSE file). As per the license, neither the code nor the published binaries may be used directly or indirectly for the creation of commercial Roland SC-55 emulation hardware boxes. Moreover, any use of the software in commercial music production is prohibited and so is including the plug-in in any commercial software package.