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MT-32 - Finally!


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Finally scored one of these for a reasonable (at least I think) price of $125. 

 

I have the SC-50 (which is basically an SC-55 without the MT-32 emulation...which sucks anyway) and now the MT-32 connected to my mixer. So now I can on the fly hear what a game or a MIDI music file sounds like through either device. I am quite impressed with the MT-32 for things that support it. I have already tested it with LSL6 and both Monkey Island I and II. Really awesome. I would have been king of my neighborhood had I owned this thing back when it was released. Love it!

 

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Yes, the MT-32 is quite amazing when you consider it is pretty much the first of these devices to be released back in the day at least for the prosumer crowd. You can easily see why Sierra was so hyped to try and sell it and get it into the hands of as many of their loyal fans as possible back in the day. These are some of my favorite games form the era that used the MT-32:

 

- Silpheed

- Space Quest III (One of my absolute faves)

- King's Quest IV (First Sierra game released to support the MT-32)

- Loom (EGA Version)

 

And the main reason I wanted the MT-32...

 

- Wing Commander

 

You will note I stated the EGA version of Loom, and that is because as far as I know, it was the only version of the game to have the full MIDI OST that played through the module. The VGA version was a Talkie version so all audio was from the CD by then. So yeah, if you want to hear Loom as it was originally intended, you have to play the earlier EGA release.

 

I have three such modules attached in my setup. I've got the MT-32 on the bottom, with my MT-300 above it (For GS stuff mostly), then my SD-20 above that. They all plug into a Roland MPU-105 MIDI input selector that then goes into my Roland UM-ONE Mk2 back to the PC to handle all of the MIDI signaling.

One of these days I really need to get my dedicated DOS gaming PC back out and (likely repairs needed), so I can move everything over to it and find a dedicated spot in the game room to play these games though my larger AV setup.

 

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Nice catch you have there, and I would say $125 is a pretty good price.  I had been looking at those for a while after another thread talking about MIDI music.  As cool as they are, I just have no practical use for one.

 

There was a guy at VCF-SE for a couple of years running with a computer music exhibit.  I do not recall seeing him in recent ones, but I think a good exhibit showing the history of computer music would be excellent.  I cannot tell you how many people I run into who think that computer music pre-2000 was beeps and boops.

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I love the Roland series of synths, and I get a huge kick out of playing games in EGA with incredible quality music.

 

Everyone above mentioned some great MT-32 soundtracks (you basically can't go wrong with anything from Sierra or Lucasarts), but here are some more awesome games to try out:

 

- The Legend of Kyrandia

Even better than the excellent OPL version of the soundtrack.

- Lands of Lore

A fun "casual" RPG with gorgeous graphics and a great soundtrack.

- Ultima VII: The Black Gate

This is an interesting soundtrack because it's almost like a movie soundtrack, in that it only plays during certain events/locations.  It's extremely atmospheric and the OPL version doesn't do it justice imo.

- Star Wars: X-Wing

Similar to Wing Commander in that it has a dynamic soundtrack that changes based on what's going on in the game, but I'd argue that it works even better in this game.

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  • 1 month later...

The price of these sound cards just blows me away. There's a RAP-10 for sale on eBay right now, and it's almost $500... which seems to be a steal right now.

 

I have a Roland SCC-1 that I bought for $35 way back in 1996. I had a friend that did music production in high school, and when he upgraded to a newer computer that also had PCI slots, he was told that the 8-bit SCC-1 wouldn't work in a 16-bit ISA slot. He just told me that his new computer wouldn't support it... so I was like... sure, I will buy it right now. Took it home, it worked in my Pentium 486 DX2/66 and I was rocking those old (somewhat current at the time) games.

 

Over the years, I had several different sound cards including a Gravis UltraSound ACE (stand-alone music board that can run parallel to an SB), and even a Gravis Ultrasound Max. I also had a Roland SCD-55 or whatever it was called, which was also another daughter board for a Sound Blaster. In the mid 2000s, I started buying up all of the daughter boards I could find because I was fascinated by the fact that there were so many, and they were so cheap since games largely stopped supporting MIDI. I had everything from Crystal to Korg to Yamaha, so I had like 12 different daughter boards that I would swap out.

 

I sold ALL of that stuff like 10 years ago... and sold it on the cheap. I think I pretty much gave away my UltraSound ACE (like $70 bucks)... which I would KILL to have now. I see these going for $1,000 bucks... which is insane.

 

 

I still have my Roland SCC-1, sitting next to an original Sound Blaster 16 ASP (ST-1740 I think?), with a Korg General Midi daughter board on it. I hand-picked these specifically because they require absolutely NO drivers to be loaded. They are not PnP, which means you set the jumpers. The Roland requires an address and an interrupt, and the SB-16 requires an address, interrupt, and a DMA, and the Korg has a separate address and uses everything from the Sound Blaster. So my Autoexec and Config are minimal, and I can maximize the lower 640k.

 

I run Windows 98 SE (boots into DOS mode, with MEMMAKER copied from DOS 6.22), on my Acer Altos 9000 dual Pentium-II MMX-233. I can't remember what graphics card I have... I honestly haven't turned the computer on since I moved here 3 years ago. But it has all my classic games on it, and I can use SloMo to slow down some of the games that run just a bit too fast.

 

For the 386-era games, I have a Dell 325P, which has a Cyrix 486DLC25 processor on it. Runs basically the same speed as a 386 SX-25, but when I want little extra oomph, I enable to cache (I just run a non TSR application), and it immediately performs at the speed of a 486 SX-25.

 

For the super-old games... I have my 8088 KayPro PC-10.

 

 

Sad though... all of those computers are sitting in the closet. I barely have time to play games, and when I do, it's usually through DOSBOX on my newer Lenovo that I do everything else from.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I bought a Roland MT-32 because I wanted to hear Super Fighter's soundtrack playing through it. I didn't expect much due to the laziness of many developers at the time when it came to making the MT-32 sound good. But I was shocked when no music came out at all! Contacting the main programmer, he admitted he'd never even tested the MT-32 or General MIDI support due to lack of hardware in the office.

 

Turns out the only way to get it working is to play a different game with MT-32 support first, and not reset the instrument bank afterwards And of course, the music sounds like crap. What a kick in the pants that experience was!

 

Thankfully I then tried multiple Sierra games, Gods, etc. with the MT-32 and finally justified the purchase. Of course this was 20+ years ago and they only cost, like, $50 + shipping on ePay, but I digress. The MT-32, when handled properly by the musicians and programmers, sounds amazing. Def my favor8 MIDI box for oldie PC games; I prefer it over General MIDI even at its best.

 

I haven't played a huge amount of games with MT-32 support, but my favorite to listen to is the Leisure Suit Larry III soundtrack. So y'all should give that'n a listen if you haven't already.

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@aeberbach

I have an MT-32 and mt32-pi.  The mt32-pi works great, and even has some nice features over actual MT-32 hardware.  You can load it up with ROMs from different MT-32 and CM Series devices, and quickly select which device to use using the on-device button.  This is great for playing those games that support the extra CM Series sounds, or games that sound better on the old or new MT-32 devices.

 

I was 100% happy with the mt32-pi, but ended up going back to my actual MT-32, just because I wanted the "authentic" experience.  With MT-32 prices where they are now, I would definitely go for an mt32-pi.

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I really like the MT-32's set of patches. Its a good mix between sounding synthetic and acoustic for several of the instruments, especially the strings — great stuff, really adds to the retro feel for the games.

 

One game I actually prefer the sound of the MT-32 over the SC-55 is SimCity 2000... something about that instrument set just really fits the aesthetic for me. They work well with some of the more blues/jazz style compositions.

 

 

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10 hours ago, RetroSonicHero said:

One game I actually prefer the sound of the MT-32 over the SC-55 is SimCity 2000... something about that instrument set just really fits the aesthetic for me. They work well with some of the more blues/jazz style compositions.

This sounds almost identical to the instrument set used on my old Sony Ericsson phone.  It sounds odd to some people, but I actually enjoyed listening to MIDIs on my phone through Bluetooth speakers (and in my car.)  I cannot recall seeing anywhere what MIDI set SE used for its phones, but they sound great with a good MIDI.

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