I got the service notes today. Roland Australia was kind enough to help me out and there was no charge.

They refer to MT-32 (Old) and MT-32 (New) and also MT-32 (without headphones) and MT-32 (with headphones).

I didn't find any reference to "generations" or a "third generation" so I rearranged the wikipedia article a little.

I split up these three generations into two main areas:

MT-32 (with MT-32 (Old) and MT-32 (New)

and

MT-32 compatible CM modules (with all the CM modules)

You're amazing.  How do you know all this trivia about this game?

Realms of Arkania 1 is probably the worst possible game to use for a sound card comparison.

Even though the game itself was programmed for PC, the music was originally composed by Rudolph Stember for Amiga. Only the Amiga music therefore counts as the "original" version. Immediately when it was first released, attic released a Soundtrack CD containing arranged versions of the music. Not only are they longer than the in-game versions as well as made from higher-quality instrument samples (obviously) than the Amiga tunes, there are also subtle differences in some pieces themselves, such as the city music ("Thorwal"). Most songs are also in a different key. The soundtrack CD contains one song unused in the game, "Down at the Blue", it lacks the short ship-traveling music.

RoA1 was first released in German on PC and Amiga, with the Amiga version providing the original music. The original German PC version played the actual Amiga TFMX tracks on Adlib, which didn't sound too bad at all. It did NOT support Roland MT-32. Dungeons have no music at all, only atmospheric sound effects (which are barely audible on Adlib, but clearly so on Amiga); neither do battle scenes have any music, only sound effects. It does have the original ship-traveling music.

When Sir-Tech released the English version of the game on floppy, they (apparently) insisted on MT-32 support. Only then was the music converted to XMI format. For this, they used the arranged CD versions, NOT the original versions. This sounded kind of okay on Roland, but downright appalling on FM, much worse than the original TFMX-based implementation. Being based on the CD arrangements, it lacks the original short ship-traveling music, playing the shop tune during ship voyages instead. However, Guido Henkel (who composed Star Trail's music) composed two new songs, one for dungeons (replacing the original pure atmospheric cue), another one for battles.

Both the German and English CD-ROM version incorporated the soundtrack CD, minus "Down at the Blue", as well as arranged versions of Guido Henkel's two new songs. The difference between the two composers is quite pronounced, as Stember used some professional sampler for his music, while Henkel only used an SC-55 for his two tracks. Again, the ship voyage music is missing.

As you can see, it's quite a complicated situation. Hm, maybe I should post samples...

Obviously, since the music was never composed for MIDI devices, this game therefore shouldn't be used for sound card comparisons.

You do have a couple of options from M-Audio, like the FastTrack Pro (4x4) or FastTrack Ultra (8x8)

MOTU MicroBook (4x4) comes to mind, looks like it's a new product, don't know much about it.  I know MOTU has been around a while and has a good following.

I'm pretty sure all the major Mixer manufacturers have some variants with usb/firewire interfaces built into the mixers.  Yamaha MW Series, Beheringer Xenyx USB, Alesis MultiMix 8 USB2, all come to mind.  Prices are all over the place here.

There's also some stuff from Apogee Electronics, but I think all their stuff only works for Mac OSX, not sure.

I would say that the MOTU MicroBook looks like what you want, on paper.

That's all I got for now...  I've been using M-Audio gear for years now, so I know more about them than others I've mentioned, and can't really comment on the other brands, except for maybe Yamaha (since I have two Yamaha MG mixers, which are both great).

While I've never had a reboot, I find the CM line's RCA jacks quite error-prone. On my CM-500, the volume of the right channel seems to vary depending on how much pull there is on the cable, which is not the case for the left channel or both of the CM-64's jacks.

Modifying for XLR connectors and impedance-balanced outputs might be a fun project though.

Hi,

I wanted to ask if its normal for CM-line devices to reboot on imperfect headphone/line-out contacts. For a CM-64 exhibiting this problem, I solved it by resoldering the jacks, but still I wanted to know if the reboot on imperfect connections behavior is normal for the CM line.

Thanks

I am looking for sound cards with two or more line inputs for a project I am involved with. The purpose is for analyzing multiple sound signals (well three in my case) using specialized software. I know M-Audio has a couple of models but I am looking for alternatives. Any suggestions?

Tested all 3 and all good!

Oh well... Moving on...

Got some soundcards today, that will keep me busy

They can be purchased directly from Roland - just call the contact number on their website.


Not really. This conversation is tiring and needlessly antagonistic. Feel free to continue it on the MT-32 Wikipedia Talk page, in fact.