Update: 26Sep04

[Tom]

A couple of new posts...

An "instrumental" version of "WHEN I SAW YOU" (The Love Theme from King's Quest II VGA) was posted a couple of weeks ago, by request.

An XG version of Police Quest 3's "Crackhouse" is also now available.  This one was a bit of a struggle to convert -- XG doesn't have a "shaku-vibe", as well as most of the other instruments used in the MT-32 version.  But XG does have vibe and shakuhachi, so....  It was fun to convert, anyway.

[Alistair]

You're really enjoying converting to XG again, aren't ya Tom?

The SC/ED modules don't have 'ShakuVibeMS' (or whatever it is exactly) either.. I wonder what you used there.

General MIDI's pads and whatnot generally can work for PQ3 tracks, and I imagine XG has a lot of cool synth instruments for such a purpose

- Alistair

[Tom]

The biggest struggle in converting "The Crackhouse" was the guitars.  I used two guitars for the MT-32's sole feedback guitar patch.  Though the sound still isn't exactly the same, it's close enough.  Shaku-vibe is another 'two-instrument to one' sound, which is probably what I did in the ED version...a vibraphone and shakuhachi playing together at the proper pitch.  The only simple track conversion in this song was the bass -- an XG sound called "Fat & Porky" worked very well once the notes were extended to account for XG's difference in sustain in comparison to the MT-32 patch.

I haven't been able to do XG conversions for a long while, so yes, I'm enjoying working with it again -- re-discovering all the neat SW60XG sounds.

[Alistair]

Heh.. fascinating, and cool. Plays alright on my softsynth.. I seem to like ED's XG tones more than Yamaha's synth, though. (I'll try and get some MU module some day. )

With XG, how do you access the sounds, as in name? Obviously you use controller 32 to access banks, but in the sequencer program how do you see which instrument you're using (In Voyetra, that is- obviously Cakewalk has INS files).

Keep the MIDI's flowing.
- Alistair

[Tom]

From the instrument Sound List that came with the soundcard.  There's also quite a few good XG documents available online, too.  I think the most famous and most exhaustive is "The Beggar's DB50XG Guide"  (or something like that.  Very extensive, including lots of SysEx instruction.  You choose instruments on the SW60XG, or CM-500, or the SC-8820 --  the same way you would with any synth.  I think that's what you were asking?

[Alistair]

Yeppers, coolness. I'm just used to the 8850's LCD display- love the pictures, demo sounds and that sort of thing.

Thanks much for the simple explanation. I should probably get into it sometime..

Keep us informed about QuestStudios' events, as always. Eagerly await the Contest.

- Alistair