Roland GS
Roland GS, or the GS Format, is an expansion of the General MIDI standard, made by Roland.
It was introduced with and primarily used by the Roland Sound Canvas series, starting with the Roland SC-55. Some Yamaha XG devices provide unofficial support for it via the TG300B mode.
According to Roland, the main features of the GS standard (excluding ones common to GM) include:
- Multiple drumset types,[1] accessed with a Program Change message[2]
- Support for additional MIDI messages like Mono mode and Portamento[2]
- Variation instrument specification with bank selects[1][2]
- Adjustable Reverb and Chorus effects[2][3]
- Tone editing[3]
Since it lacks these features, Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth is (despite the name) probably not compliant with GS.
There doesn't seem to be a publicly accessible specification defining what is and isn't part of the GS format. Comparing the feature sets of various hardware products with the GS logo suggests, however, that the minimum spec corresponds roughly to that of the Roland SC-55 or SC-55mkII, but without the CM-64 compatibility banks.
References
See also
- Category:Roland GS devices (list of pages about GS devices)
- GM–GS–XG quick reference (list of Control Changes used by GS)