But the big question--- is there going to be MT-32 support?!

These sound really great! You're making me shoot dirty looks at my hardware!

in my totally untrained opinion (so excuse me if I don't have any of my lingo right ), I really like them both. The only thing I'd offer as a critique is that the bongos in the Silpheed tune (I don't know what the original one sounds like, I'll dig through my downloaded MT-32 files later) are too "close" and sound way out of balance. It was more like I was listening to the tune on my stereo and then some guy next to me started beating on some bongos. I would say that if you pushed them into the background a bit (lower volume and a touch of reverb?) it would make their entry a little less jarring. It sound pretty durn realistic but the bongos really overpower the track when they're present.

Really nice work!

Hey thanks! That is really super that someone actually took the time to explain WHY the problem wasn't (easily) fixable instead of just saying, "Oh, we can't fix that; sorry." I appreciate that a lot.

I am running the CD version (though not the Win95 enhnaced version), which is basically the same as the floppy, with 640x480 graphics available and support for the AWE32's MIDI section (which sounds surprisingly good in Tie Fighter; it had been so long that i thought maybe i was misremembering the quality of the AWE's sound). I might try that hanging note patch, anyway, and see what happens-- worst case I have to reinstall.

Thank a lot!

I hate how hobbies can drag you from forum to forum and you kind of lose contact with people Anyway, I just threw together a "retro" system (though it's not very retro, really). It started as a way to play FF7 PC, but then I found a great custom graphics driver that fixes the incompatibilities with NT-based OSes. So this retro system turned back into a Sierra/Tie Fighter/General DOS system. I put retro in quotes because it's a P2-350 on a 440BX board that I had stashed away in my closet. IT has 3 ISA slots so it's been pretty fun. Right now I've got a VooDoo 3, VooDoo Graphics (so I can play Whiplash! Whoot!) An AWE32 with my SCB-55 on it (I think that's the right board. I actually forget which one it is. It's the one that has specs closer to the MKII), an SW60XG, and my MT32.

This is where my problem with the system arises, and I'm starting to think that there isn't a fix. Waaaay back when I was using the AWE32 in my primary system, I bough a DB50xg (new at Best Buy!) and it caused the system to lock. I kept the board (it doesn't make any sense, but I'm glad I did-- it's living on a Santa Cruz in my main box-- it rotates with the Roland board). In the set up for Tie Fighter, I actually like the sound of the SCB more than the SW60xg, but in game on the AWE32 notes hang, when iMuse transitions the whole system locks up for several seconds (and you can imagine all of the transitions in Tie Fighter). Is there *any* fix for this, or is the MIDI interface on the AWE32 just that bad? It seems to be okay with the MT-32 in Tie Fighter and in patched Sierra games, but is it just this miserable at driving its own WaveBlaster port?

My only other WaveBlaster alternatives are a Santa Cruz (when they started to disappear, I bought a second one, just in case), and an old Aureal card. I'm sure those aren't very DOS friendly though. I REALLY want that SC-55 sound in my DOS games, but the AWE32 just seems miserable with it on there (though I think it worked all right in HEXEN for some reason!).

Anyway, fun to brows the board again. If no one wants to answer this, that's okay, it's just nice to be gawking around in here again!

Just to be a bastard-- 32mb is 33% more than 24mb, but 24mb is 25% less than 32

Does the DX-SC51 allow Dolby Digital/AC-3 passthrough? I have 2 santa cruz cards but they won't play multichannel DD streams, only stereo. One of my boxes is multi purpose and I need it to have working a Dolby Digital stream.

Whoa! Explain this one to me! Patching FF8-- I'll do some googling, but if you happen to know off hand...

Heh, I thought I at least had a SB 1.5 back in the day-- nope! It was a SB 2.0-- I added the CMS chips myself. I wish I still had it for the nostalgic value, but back then, it was actually worthwhile to sell PC parts!

Wow, I'm totally embarrassed! I had been looking for a place to download XG Edit a couple months ago and found a thread where someone was lamenting its no longer being available. I'm glad I asked first!

Oh... maybe I'm thinking of something else. I swear it was XGEdit, but it might be a different XG tweaker that I have... something developed by a 3rd party. Ummm

AFIK, you can't pay for XG Edit even if you want it, so would it be wrong if I were to post a key for it? I won't do it unless I get permission because I know that these posts are googled

I'm having a lot of fun just goofing with MIDI files and converting the instruments to XG and playing with some of the settings (and then saving those settings). It's a lot quicker and easier than doing the same thing in XGWorks, that's for sure!

And his avatar is awesome!

Can you go into your PC's BIOS and reserve IRQs? You could set 2 and/or 9 to "LEGACY/ISA"-- at least, that's how it often works.

http://www.synthman.com/roland/support/supplementalnotes/SUPNOTES/MPUCARDS.html

Here's a site that shows you what the different jumper settings are for the LAPC-I

The jumpers themselves are toward the middle of the card, but more "front middle" I believe. Do you have a place for jumpers but no jumpers themselves?

Okay, my friends have a son who is really good with the ol' piano, but he wants to be in a band and play guitar even though it's not really his strength. I think he doesn't really know what his keyboarding powers could do for him and his small-town band (and he's only 14), so I would love to track down an old, awesome synth for him that is flexible and unique sounding. I really like some of the industrial-type sounds that the DX-7 can churn out (based on demos, anyway) and just have some really basic questions about it.

The first one is that I keep reading about how difficult it is to edit sounds-- I guess my question is: how is it difficult? Is it difficult to even start messing with the sounds, or is it difficult in the sense that 'I know what sound I want, but how in the hell do I get it to sound that way'? Does that question make any sense?

Also, I know that there are a ton of sounds floating around the 'net, so I assume that it can be plugged into the computer (TX, especially :-D)-- is it easier to tweak on a PC?

I'm still kicking this around--- I know that there is a plug in card that will work with an SW1000, but I'm not giving mine up, and getting a second one and a PLG150-DX or a 100-DX would be more costly, me thinks (and just not as cool as a retro synth ).

Thanks!

yep! it works great-- and it's really not much quieter at 68 than it is at 100. Weird I remember the first time I played KQ4 on my friends' tandy (we split the costs-- he took the 5.25 discs and I took the 3.5-- I had a Tandy, too, but we played it on his first)... I can't imagine how blown away I would have been if either of us had had an MT-32!

The others have sounded okay, and I don't remember hearing this problem much in the past-- but I didn't play KQ4 with it very much. I am pretty sure that it's a volume problem, but I just wanted to make sure that i wasn't under-powering the unit and risking some kind of damage

Thanks!

It sounds like a mellowed out Silpheed theme mixed with some of the music from the 1997 version of Lolita (I like them both and I like this!). Thanks for sharing

Okay, I finally have the sound on my computer set up the way I want it once again. Compatibility issues solved by ditching the Via chipset and moving to Intel again. That aside... here's what I have:

SW1000XG
Santa Cruz w/ SCD-15
MT-32 connected to the Santa Cruz.

The Santa Cruz is also acting as my mixer with the SW1000xg on the Line In jack and the MT-32 on the versa jack (you can set it to be analog out, analog in, or digital out... kinda neat). Tonight I was just testing to make sure that everything was working well (and, well, any excuse to listen to music...). I noticed while listening to the KQ4 intro that during the peak of the fanfare at the beginning of the piece I started to get a lot of crackling and popping in the audio, the display on the MT-32 was also dimming a bit... I want to call it a "flicker" but it wasn't going out completely... just dimming.

The power supply that I use is not from Roland but is a radio shack 9v 800mA model. The standard one is 1.2A, right? But the unit only draws 650mA? I assume that the 650mA is RMS and not peak, so is it possible that I'm underpowering the unit for the louder parts?

The other thing that I'd considered is that the output of the MT-32 is too high for the input on the card and that's the source of the noise, though the SW1000 never causes problems like this.

Right now the MT-32 is powered off and I want to see what you guys think before i power it back on... or is this just some of the MT-32's known distortion and I just don't know enough to recognize it?

Thanks!