Star Control 3 MIDIs

[apeman]

Star Control 3 was the somewhat disappointing sequel to the fantastic Star Control 2. SC2 had wonderful music, in MOD format. SC3 inexplicably chose to use bland "elevator music" MIDI tracks instead.
Nevertheless, since I'm currently playing through the game, I was wondering if anyone knows which system the music was originally written for, Roland or XG? In the setup program you can choose (among others) GM or XG, although they both seem to use the same driver file (Miles Sound System). I have played it on a SC-55mkII and a Yamaha MU10, and the tracks definitely sound... different.

When the program starts up, it says: "General MIDI timbres for Yamaha OPL-2- and OPL-3-based sound cards were produced by The Fat Man(TM) and developed by K. Weston Phelan and George Alistair Sanger.  Copyright 1993, The Fat Man(TM)"
Is that at all relevant? (probably not, since I'm not using any OPL for my MIDI, right?)

The music was composed by one Andrew Frazier. Any of you heard of him before? Is his other stuff any better than this?

[Ari]

General MIDI timbers for OPL-2 and OPL-3?? That sounds weird. OPL-2/3 is FM and doesn't conform to GM.

I don't know which instrument the music in this game was meant for, but I guess it really doesn't matter, since it sounds pretty bad on both. The music was so unsophisticated and badly done, it almost ruined the entire game for me.
I think it's a safe bet that if the setup lets you choose XG, it was written for XG, just like the case of Wing Commander 3 which lets you choose Sound Canvas in the setup, and was indeed written for a Sound Canvas.

Although, now that I think of it, Dune 2 also lets you choose Sound Canvas in the setup and the music was actually written for the MT-32 (though it's SC soundtrack has it's moments as well).

[Rhizome]

General MIDI timbers for OPL-2 and OPL-3?? That sounds weird. OPL-2/3 is FM and doesn't conform to GM.

I don't think that's entirely true...

The demo of Descent simply sends the GM music through the OPL2/3 chip, and it does seem to attempt to produce the GM instruments. The same goes for the Yamaha YMF PCI cards when using the FM driver - they sound as if they try to produce the GM instrument set

I'm not sure if this is Descent/Yamaha's FM driver sending some sort of data to the OPL2/OPL3 to become GM in some fashion.

[Ari]

Well, I've tried playing Sierra MIDI music through an AdLib, and it doesn't sound exactly the same as the real FM music. It might be able to play it, but not the way it was intended...

[Rhizome]

Well, I've tried playing Sierra MIDI music through an AdLib, and it doesn't sound exactly the same as the real FM music. It might be able to play it, but not the way it was intended...

That's usually because the FM and GM MIDIs are completely differently. With Descent, there are MIDI files specifically for OPL2/OPL3 then the GM ones. However, the FM MIDIs don't play correctly as they require patch files that only the game (or correct software) can use 

[Ari]

Offtopic, I see you've quoted me in your sig. 

[Rhizome]

Offtopic, I see you've quoted me in your sig. 

Yeah, that line gave me quite a chuckle 

[NewRisingSUn]

General MIDI timbers for OPL-2 and OPL-3?? That sounds weird. OPL-2/3 is FM and doesn't conform to GM.

What nonsense are YOU spouting?

OPLx doesn't "conform" to any MIDI standard because OPL doesn't accept MIDI input directly. A MIDI player for FM interprets MIDI events and sends appropriate OPLx chiptune bytes, using a bank of instruments describing the FM's carrier and operator waveform envelopes for each instrument. And that bank of course can be arranged to match the General MIDI Level 1 specification.

[apeman]

Thanks for the replies.
I'm now no longer so sure the tracks were written for XG originally... all the game's MIDIs are stored in one big file called GM.XMI - could the filename be something of a giveaway?

Anyway, here are some samples. In each case the setup program was used to change the music device to either GM or XG.

Title music: SC-55mkII | MU10

Battle music: SC-55mkII | MU10

What do you guys think? The XG sounds a bit "fatter", but also a bit more clumsily arranged than the GM, no?

[Cloudschatze]

What do you guys think? The XG sounds a bit "fatter", but also a bit more clumsily arranged than the GM, no?

Sounds like vanilla GM. In addition to the samples, the differences that you are hearing have been described by George Alistair Sanger, aka. "the FAT Man," as "The Great Dilemma."

The Great Dilemma

The biggest problems of incompatibility between GM instruments revolve around Tonality and relative Volume of each tone. I see two possible methods to achieve greater compatibility in these issues between GM instrument systems:

• Method 1: -Instrument sounds must be restricted to being very similar in tonality to a reference set. The volume/ADSR is specified scientifically by dB.
• Method 2: -Instruments may have any tone. The volume/ADSR must be perceived to be very similar to a reference set.

[Ari]

General MIDI timbers for OPL-2 and OPL-3?? That sounds weird. OPL-2/3 is FM and doesn't conform to GM.

What nonsense are YOU spouting?

OPLx doesn't "conform" to any MIDI standard because OPL doesn't accept MIDI input directly. A MIDI player for FM interprets MIDI events and sends appropriate OPLx chiptune bytes, using a bank of instruments describing the FM's carrier and operator waveform envelopes for each instrument. And that bank of course can be arranged to match the General MIDI Level 1 specification.

Well, if you want to get technical, I'll concede that you are correct if OPL-2 and OPL-3 meet these requirements.

[NewRisingSUn]

These are the requirements for a MIDI device. Words like MIDI channels and "continuous" controllers are meaningless for the OPL chips because they're not MIDI devices. All these things are requirements of the software that translates the MIDI events into chiptune bytes; such software would be an Adlib MIDI driver, or the MT-32's control ROM software, or AWEUTIL for the AWE 32.

And of course, nothing on that page has to do with your original objection that "General MIDI timbers [sic] for OPL-2 sound weird". If you have 128 FM instrument definitions conforming to the General MIDI instrument patch map, they're General MIDI timbres. It's as simple as that.

[Ari]

OK OK, you win.