Lol.  I'm gonna bump it yet again.  No I never got the patch script going.  I'll be selling my SC-8850 soon again.  I put it up for sale earlier here and somewhere else, but since no one was interested, I just held on to it.  Gonna try another round of sales before I put it up on the Bay.  I've been using the SC-88pro patchscript.  If I need an 8850-only sound, I simply dial it in.  For the most part, I usually end up using the 88pro sounds.

THANK YOU SO MUCH!  You are a life saver!  I actually went in and messed with the entire "system" string... Took all after noon to get the partial reserves and channel values correctly.  So now I understand how to set up channels and such.  LOL.  Thanks so much.  

I mean, I'm trying to do this all from the MIDI Implementation chart, and it's a doozey to understand.    But in a strange way, this is all very fun.

Okay, so I've been able to send the MT-32 screen display messages, and it works just well.  Here's how:

Header = [F0 41 10 16 12]
Address = [20 00 00]  "Insert text ascii here"
CheckSum = [??]
Footer = [F7]

Put all together (including the CheckSum which is a rather odd way of calculating - not in the traditional way at all) and that's the sysex message.

One problem.  I'm trying to edit the master volume of the MT-32.  Address mapping is 10 00 00 and offset is 22 bytes.  I can adjust the Master Volume, but when I send the following:

"F0 41 10 16 12 10 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 15 CHECK F7"

It adjusts the Master Volume, but sets EVERYTHING ELSE to 0 - which bricks the system essentially, as the other bytes control the partial reserve for all the parts, master tuning, reverb, etc.  It resets everything else to 0.  How the hell do I control JUST the Master Volume?  Is there a way to target JUST the Main Volume switch through a Sysex string?  This is very fun, by the way.

Eh sorry, wasn't trying to be mean (yes - sometimes I come here out of the blue moon too!).  I legitimately thought you were trolling.  Let me explain:

I create a topic that's almost two years old now.  Some dude comes on (which, is not just some dude by the way - he's made very excellent SC-8850 files and contributed to the forum) and makes an obvious mistake.  I mean, a very, very obvious mistake.  In the same league as saying my car goes from 0-6 mph in under eight seconds.  When obviously I meant to say 0-60mph.

So he comes on here and says 32hz samples.  And six months later you bump the thread to correct his mistake.  Well of course, he meant 32khz samples.  As far as I know, there isn't a single synthesizer that operates on 32hz samples.  The samples would sound like a garbled mess.  Anywho, that's why I thought you were trolling.  You see why right?  It just irritated me to see someone bump a thread I made two years ago for something so trivial.

And really, if you weren't trying to, (and it now seems that you weren't) then I am sorry.  I belong to another forum where people troll and bump threads just to get the post count.  Obviously, with the fact that this place is a little dead these days, you probably weren't trying to do it.    I hope that I could at least communicate where I was coming from though.  Glad to see you've got an SC-8850 and I hope you enjoy it.  I'm actually trying to sell mine.    But yeah, that did sound mean and I apologize.  Not sure what gave me a case of "the ass!" 

Ha - I should have read this before I posted my topic.  I have the same problem as you.  I'm trying to figure out how to send MT-32 sysex using Java.  So far I have something that sends sysex, and the light blinks.  Hurray!  But I need to know where to go after this. 

So I want to make a Java program that allows me to edit the MT-32, sonically speaking.  I would transmit Sysex to the MT-32 and allow the users to adjust certain things of the instrument (hopefully) in realtime.  Currently, I have working sysex code that sends sysex to the unit, but I honestly don't understand the way sysex messages are supposed to be constructed.  Does anyone here have a clue or at least could point me to something that can explain it to me?  Roland's MIDI implementation is a bit daunting for a second-year programming student such as myself.  I feel we may have bitten off a little more than we could chew, but nonetheless, I'm pressing on.

I love browsing your site every now and then.  I really appreciate the Earthworm Jim in your D-550 page. 

I'm putting up my Roland SC-8850 for sale.  $375 shipped to anyone who wants it.  PM me for an offer or for pictures.  The reason I'm selling?  I don't use it anymore - it's just sitting on my desk.  Sad as it is to see it go, it's time.  

Oh, and one more thing - Paypal please.  Price is for shipping to the US.  Internationals will probably cost more - I'll have to find out. 

Man, this is great stuff!  I wish you could make some more MT-32 stuff.  Very impressive!  

EDIT:  Is there a way we can get some MIDI files of this stuff?  I'd love to see/hear my MT-32 do this in real time.

Old thread I know, but thanks for posting these!  I've played the game on emulator.  For me it's a toss up as to which soundtrack is better.  Some sound good on MT-32 (the loading music, for example), and others sound better with the SC-55. 

Done!  Gave it my vote.  I never got to play it, but I might give this a try soon - regardless of whether or not it's on Steam.

Welcome back!  I own the SRX-06 expansion board for my XV-2020, which is a collection of the JV boards; and can attest to the quality of the patches.  If I had to nitpick, I would say the strings sound a little dated, especially compared to the newer stuff.  But the winds, percussion, and virtually everything else can still hang with the best of them. 

Will try to do it when I'm off work (Steam stuff is blocked).

Lol - I know that!    I was just wondering if there was anyone kind enough to send me the MIDI file.  But no worries.  I remembered that my wife (yes wife - lots of things have changed since I last posted here regularly!) has an XP machine.  I ran it on that computer and transferred the MIDI file.  So now I have a GM-sorta MT-32! 

Hey all, I just tried to get the MT-32 to GM exe that's on the MT-32 resource center to run on Windows 7; and I can't get it to run.  I was wondering if there's anyone here who could run the file for me and send me the MIDI files (that's all they are)?  Also, there was another MT-32 General MIDI converter that differed from Roland's official one.  It also had a special "composition" bank that included a bunch of cool sounds.  Anyone here have that as well?  Thanks! 

Man, I love the fact that I can just come and lurk whenever I feel like it, and there's still some interesting stuff for me to geek out on!   Thanks Eric!

Of course he meant that.  Don't resurrect an old thread just to troll... 

It's a great module for sure, but it's very dated at this point.  No need to fret over selling one.    Congratulations on the purchase, by the way.  The sound canvas series, especially at the 88 level and up, are great sketch modules; and have a good and fun sound character that is perfect for video game composition - if you're into that kind of thing.

For the MT-32's polyphony limit, multitrack recording is the easiest way to go.  I do this with my XV-2020, as it only has 64 voices of polyphony (some patches consume up to 8 voices per note).  If you don't want to do that, you could always go the route of treating the MT-32 as one of its less capable cousins of the era.  If Tim Follin can squeeze epic compositions from the Commodore 64 or the NES, then one really has no excuse for the MT-32.  At its worst, the MT-32 can still churn out more than double the simultaneous notes of both systems mentioned above.

Check some of these out for examples of programming tricks:

Tim Follin: Time Trax for Sega Genesis.  The Genesis uses a 6 channel (here, it's in 5 voice mode) Yamaha chip, with a 4 channel (one white noise, three square waves) sound chip.

Tim Follin - Time Trax, Title Music (Mega Drive/Genesis)

Tim Follin: Pictionary for NES.  The NES had three melodic channels, one noise channel, and one (rarely used) digital sample channel.  See what he does with only 5 notes of polyphony?

NES Pictionary Soundtrack

And one more from Tim Follin on the C64, which only had 3 voices of polyphony (4 if you used a bug in the original models):

Tim Follin's C64 Music - part 1/4

As for polyphony, I've been thinking of composition "tricks" to simulate more polyphony on the MT-32.  The idea is pretty much the same as composer tricks for the limited 8-bit game consoles and computers: arpeggiations, single channel pan echos (hard attack on the left, followed by an "echo" of the sound on the right using the same MIDI channel), and other stuff to make it seem like the unit's cranking out high polyphony when it isn't. 

I think that the MT-32's old enough to treat it as such.