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1  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: CM-32L/rev 01 MT-32- any use in recording Sierra soundtracks? on: June 08, 2013, 12:16:45 PM
Well, I use a MT-32 2nd gen, not a CM module. I assume those two are the same minus the PCM sound effects?

can you confirm if the same happens to you?
http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,2138.msg34148.html#msg34148
2  GENERAL DISCUSSION / Anything & Everything / Re: Talentless Hack Creating Crappy Enhancements of Classic Game Music on: May 09, 2013, 05:40:05 PM
james couldn't respond here as he couldn't register.

i posted about that here but haven't received any answer
http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php/topic,3541.0.html
3  GENERAL DISCUSSION / Anything & Everything / Re: Talentless Hack Creating Crappy Enhancements of Classic Game Music on: May 02, 2013, 03:20:35 AM
No, LucasArts has with "Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis" the one score that most needs being worked on --- not because of the shortcomings of the MT-32, but because of the low quality of the music editing. There's tons of bad notes, unquantized stuff and bad instrument choices, like "Str Sect 3" for orchestral strings. And of course, the existing enhancement offered on some website doesn't fix that at all, it just changes the instruments and plays it on some modern synth with crappy soundfont, making it sound even worse.
(I already did the editing for my own purposes.)
Have you done that just for midi files or for the game? Is it available anywhere?
4  QUEST STUDIOS INFORMATION AND SUPPORT / Support / registering doesn't work on: April 21, 2013, 05:45:51 PM
registering doesn't work. I see the last registered member is from 2012 so i wonder how long it is like that Sad
5  GENERAL DISCUSSION / Anything & Everything / Re: Talentless Hack Creating Crappy Enhancements of Classic Game Music on: April 21, 2013, 03:54:50 PM
here is my message that waits for moderation on his site:
Quote from: robertmo
You have to be aware that midi music is not simple as you think.
In the past there was no midi standard (no general midi) and all midi music for games was made for Roland MT-32 synthesizer. Later games were designed for Roland CM-32L synthesizer (appeared also as a PC card as Roland LAPC-I) which was enhanced MT-32 (had extra sound effects - gunshot, thunder, etc.). Although both modules (mt and cm) claimed to be compatible they were actually not. Games designed for cm-32l used extra sound effects not available on mt-32 and also transfered midi messages faster so that slow mt-32 couldn't handle that. Also games designed for mt-32 exploited its bugs. The bugs were removed in cm-32l so games that used them didn't sound correctly on later module. The important thing about mt and cm modules is that they were programmable - the musician could create completely new instruments with them. And they did that. That is why no other midi device is compatible with them (actually there were later roland modules: cm-64 and cm-500 that are compatible). But nothing else is. If the game music was designed for one of them there was nothing else that could play that music correctly. That music was also almost perfect. Later games were designed for Roland SCC-1 (sound canvas). This module couldn't create new instruments but still if the game was designed for it there was nothing else that could play the music correctly cause of differences in instruments and their volume - in extreme cases some instruments are not being heard at all on other sound modules cause of that. Later Roland released later models of sound canvas but still cause of slight differences between them game music only sound correctly on the model it was designed for.
All above modules were very expensive and not many people had them. At the same time there was Adlib (and later Sound Blaster) with its frequency modulation (fm) synthesis that tried to emulate instruments but the quality of most of them was very poor - and that is what most people remember. Later General MIDI specification appeared and sound cards with wavetable synthesis appeared but they obviously couldn't play games music properly cause it was designed either for mt-32 or scc-1. Later some games were designed for Gravis UltraSound and later for Sound Blaster AWE32.

The important thing here is if you want to enhance any game music you have to know how that music sounds. So you have to play that music on synthesizer it was designed for. In most cases that game music is so perfect it doesn't need any tuning as the devices were very good and expensive. Sometimes some instruments could be improved. That music was also written by payed professionals and is really perfect. Technology was really not a limitation for them. Check for example old Star Wars music. You cannot enhance it. Old games were limited with graphics: number of colors, resolution, etc. and that can be improved. You cannot add maximum reverb to every instrument cause that is not new technology enhancement. Reverb was available in the past and if it was not used there was a reason for it. Same would go for applying maximum bass in amplifier to enhance music. If the music designer wanted more bass he would use it. If you want people to play the game with good music just allow them to play the game with the music the game was designed for with some slight modifications that were not available in the past. If you are not a professional you are simply not able to make better song than professional. You cannot change instruments. Your advantage is only modern technology. Like you can add higher resolution graphics or 3d,  even adding higher resolution textures is somewhat controversial as you have to be good at it. you can add speech (ok, it won't be by professional actors but at least better than nothing), you can add touch interface, port it to mobile devices. But with music it is different as it was already perfect that time. MT-32 was 32kH stereo.

I am not a musician so also take a look at what musicians who also enhance old games music have to say:
(link to here)
6  GENERAL DISCUSSION / Anything & Everything / Re: Talentless Hack Creating Crappy Enhancements of Classic Game Music on: April 21, 2013, 03:38:59 PM
I wrote him a long explanatory message and linked this thread so we will see what happens. Anyway I have to say I could be same mad on you as you are on him and i am actually more on you than on him as he did something wrong cause of lack on knowledge, while you had the knowledge and did nothing - i mean you didn't informed him. Unless of course Alistair talked with him and failed. But you NRS could try too. You could at least link him to this thread like i did (the same day i got to know about it). While you had how many years? Blame yourself now Wink
Anyway we will see what happens now, how he responds.
7  GENERAL DISCUSSION / Anything & Everything / Re: Talentless Hack Creating Crappy Enhancements of Classic Game Music on: April 21, 2013, 09:58:20 AM
because it is called "enhanced" which means better. I think you should do something, talk with james or scummvm team to rename all that stuff. If that was called "remixed/modified" i think it wouldn't be used by anyone as default. and to maybe mark original song as "original/official" so that nobody has any doubts.

oh,  and by the way is that truth that james really haven't heard original mt-32 track? i guess not, but just in case maybe you could encourage him to by mt-32/ try munt/ listen to available recordings before making any project.
8  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: MUNT back in active development on: April 13, 2013, 10:38:39 AM
What about General Midi emulation? I know it's built into Windows, but doesn't quite sound like the real thing. I used an SCC-1 back in the day.
Use Virtual Sound Canvas VST with SAVIhost
9  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: A Word of Caution about the LAPC-I on: April 11, 2013, 05:00:57 AM
I also have to say that there is nothing on the forum about dune 2 problem (the volume bug). I searched very properly. The only explanation I encountered is that it is the same as the one in willy beamish. But it cannot be the same as you say in Willy it is plays vs not plays the note. While in dune 2 it is only about the volume difference. Those notes are being played on cm-32l just silenter.
10  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: A Word of Caution about the LAPC-I on: April 11, 2013, 04:52:03 AM
Quote from: robertmo
So can anyone explain what is going on here as i guess this subject was not discussed here?

I imagine it might be the same issue affecting the "Space Alvin" patch, described on the earlier pages of this thread. I'll try to take a deeper look sometime this week...

I don't think it is the same as Space Alvin is something that happens I guess always. While dune 2 problem doesn't happen if you mute one of the tracks, so it is like dropping notes cause MT-32 old is not able to handle too complicated song. It is just the too loud thing that happens sometimes that is not simple note drop. So I guess it may have something to do with combining "the volume bug" and "not being able to handle too complicated song bug"
11  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: A Word of Caution about the LAPC-I on: April 08, 2013, 08:00:20 AM
One more question appears
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/viewtopic.php?p=300997&#300997
I wonder if mt-32 (new) displays instrument names with the same bugs
12  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: Dune 2 MT-32 MIDI files on: April 03, 2013, 02:41:14 PM
I think it is better to name the songs like i did than just meaningless numbers
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/dune2-mid-mt.zip
13  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: Dune 2 MT-32 MIDI files on: April 01, 2013, 04:28:41 AM
When I view the files in Total Commander's lister it indeed looks different than other files from that 9 songs collection so it looks it is not a part of the same recording session indeed.
14  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: Dune 2 MT-32 MIDI files on: March 26, 2013, 08:30:33 AM
It looks that at least one song may be missing from the project:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/dune-additional.mid
I found this one in the smaller project that contained only 9 GS midi files, and it is not included in the project containing 34 midi files. Maybe it is from other game? Anyone knows anything about this?
15  QUEST STUDIOS INFORMATION AND SUPPORT / Support / Re: Broken Search Function on: March 25, 2013, 05:08:46 AM
Would it be possible if you asked Tom for those privileges? As Tom looks too busy to manage the site for years now.
16  QUEST STUDIOS INFORMATION AND SUPPORT / Support / Re: Broken Search Function on: March 24, 2013, 10:09:30 PM
i noticed that search fails when you are looking for something that is in the topic.

So the workaround is to search in the topics first, and later modify your search so that it doesn't find those topics, like searching in different subforums and/or different dates and/or excluding from search something from those topics
17  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: A Word of Caution about the LAPC-I on: March 24, 2013, 12:56:53 PM
It looks i found something about dune 2 music that wasn't mentioned here on the forum

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/1sysex.mid
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/Attack01.mid


Dune 2 is said to be designed for mt-32 rev 0 and exploit its firmware bug.

I found that there are two instruments that are affected: distorted guitar and phaser guitar.
Both instruments are used in the above .mid.

In munt and cm32l/lapc both guitars are very silent and hardly heard in all dune2 songs so they sound differently.
Also you may notice on mt32 that if you set volume of all tracks to 0 both guitars will still be heard. Their volume looks to be somehow fixed (using firmware bug i guess) so that when you change volume they always play at the same volume. On cm32l/munt you can adjust guitars volume.

At the end of above song there are 8 guitar sounds and depending on something the last three are played differently sometimes: sometimes one is silent and following is too loud or two are too loud. I encountered many variations. They are ok if you mute at least one of other tracks or change volume or make some other change (slow down tempo) Actually not sure about if it is ok as i wasn't testing missing effect at that time (just too loud). The result is different in different players (also the order i use players affects it)

The recording when one sound is too loud is here
http://vogons.zetafleet.com/download.php?id=11853

The recording when one sound is missing is here
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/dune2_attack01_mt32.ogg

I also tried the game on a 386dx40+mt32(connected through scc1) and i encountered the missing sound problem there too.

So can anyone explain what is going on here as i guess this subject was not discussed here?
18  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: MUNT back in active development on: March 24, 2013, 12:29:35 PM

Rhizome I was responding to this:

https://skydrive.live.com/redir?resid=81940F2FC1006A8A!223&authkey=!Uc0V5cXIiGU%24

I put up a recording of it on my side. I can hear where there are what sound like phasers on the guitar hits in the CM32L. I don't remember ever hearing those on an MT-32.

Anyone have an MT-32 *hooked up* they can use to see if it has the phaser hits as well? All I can find are CM-32L/LAPC-I recordings of this track.
I thought you Rhizome and RvLeshrac were talking about the same guitar. Unless RvLeshrac was talking about something else too Wink
19  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: MUNT back in active development on: March 20, 2013, 08:57:12 AM
ok so i finally figured out what you were talking about. here are the recordings done more properly:

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/tfx_guitar_cm32l.flac
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/tfx_guitar_mt32.flac
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/tfx_guitar_munt.flac

It looks that cm32l is very close to mt32, while munt is far away from both of them Smiley
20  MUSIC & SOUND CARDS / Roland MT-32 Sound Module / Re: MUNT back in active development on: January 14, 2013, 02:50:59 PM
here you can see obvious differences between mt32 and munt/cm32l:
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/dune2_attack01_mt32.ogg
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/1sysex.mid
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/12573276/Attack01.mid
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