/vr/ - Retro Games

I remember the PC version of Final Fantasy 7 came with this MIDI driver that sounded awesome. I can't remember the name, but I know it was a Yamaha driver. I was teaching myself how to write music at the time, and so I'd make these MIDIs with an absolutely terrible program called MIDI Maker, which crashed if your song was longer than 30 seconds, and they sounded so awesome with that Final Fantasy driver. I'd take them to school and listen to them there and they'd just be awful.

Good times.

>>5075927
I think that was S-YXG70, a specialized version of Yamaha's S-YXG50 synth. You can the S-YXG50 version online easily, it's still a really nice synth for listening to music and creating it if you don't mind being limited to only the basic XG tones.
It's pretty impressive for the time considering it sounds on par with Yamaha's actual XG modules like the MU50/80 they released a few years prior, and not compressed, unlike Roland's weird Virtual Sound Canvas thing.

https://youtu.be/cIBz46Ld4uQ

>>5075994
>from vgmusic.com by Jace
That explains the quality; he does some really good stuff. https://youtu.be/EDc1-2BD9Hg

https://youtu.be/COxd6_AJe6A

https://youtu.be/j3eFtGVwndY

https://youtu.be/MnVIANXl4rU

https://youtu.be/jOGxSDL6_bk

in a fairly recent thread here on /vr/ some anon shared some software-synths.
look it up.

I've got one of these.

Best source of original .mid video game music? A lot of the stuff I've found so far is pretty janky recreated stuff.

>>5076520
Thanks for the tip anon.
>>5076704
Nice find! I've been intrigued by those things, though I don't really have much of a use for one.
mirsoft.info has a whole bunch of ripped files and MIDI albums, like from Falcom and Konami. A lot of them should work fine with the MT-80s since it's GM/GS compatible.

>>5075921
i use virtualmidisynth using various sound fonts (timbres of heaven is my main soundfont i like to use).

>>5076704
>I've got one of these.
wow. not very common. nice.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fr-84mjV3CI

>>5077130
hey gois! phil back here with another bideo. Today we will be looking at some shit some random chinese/ebay seller gave me.

>>5077259
Aye, he's a good lad is Phil

>>5077282
He does some good videos, maybe not the best if you're already really into the hobby (I rarely find anything new out from his videos), but they can be good for linking to people when a friend wants to know more about a part.
I like his MIDI comparison videos too, wish he did more of them. https://youtu.be/DqLDSt-Jz_Q

>>5077673
I really liked the Super Socket 7 benchmark video series he did, even if the conclusion was the Voodoo 3 like people have been saying for years.
What's the recommended MIDI/sound card solution for Duke Nukem 3D? I've heard so many different conflicting things over what the original composing hardware was and bugged implementations across sound cards that I lost track of it all. I hear Duke Nukem I & II have some sound oddities as well, though that's not MIDI-related.

>>5078186
Duke's a bit messy. From what I heard, Lee Jackson wrote some of his music on a Roland RAP-10 (GM-only ISA version of the SC-55), some of it on a GUS Max, and Grabbag on the SC-88, but the in game version is SC-55 compatible. Bobby Prince wrote all of his music on the SC-55.
So, the SC-55 is probably the safest bet if you want the most accurate experience without constantly changing hardware out, but I think the SC-88 and SC-88 Pro sound the best. I like playing the game with my Yamaha MU1000EX in GS mode though.

>>5077282
i have the sudden urge to get a 4k monitor for my retro pc

Don't mind me, just reposting what some kind anon shared a few weeks ago in a similar thread while adding a few corrections. This is how to install the Roland Sound Canvas VA on your PC. Thanks to the original anon for posting this, and if I missed something please don't be afraid to point it out.

1. Download and install loopMIDI. Don't launch it yet.
https://www.tobias-erichsen.de/software/loopmidi.html

2. Download and install VST MIDI Driver. Don't launch it yet.
https://kode54.net/vstmididrv.exe

3. Launch loopMIDI first and go to Setup tab, if there are no ports by default, press the little + icon in the bottom left to add a new port. Then right click the loopMIDI icon in taskbar and make sure "Autostart" is enabled then you can just minimize it to taskbar by pressing the X, this is all you'll ever need to do in loopMIDI and you can safely ignore it from now on since it will autostart with Windows. This is necessary so the port is actually working as it's needed for the synth.

4. Go to Start -> Programs -> Configure VST MIDI Driver, open it and go to Advanced tab and in the Default MIDI Synth list, pick the loopMIDI port you just created in the step above and press Apply, you can now close this too and never need to use it again.
This will basically force Windows to always use the loopMIDI port you created as its default MIDI port instead of using the default shitty General MIDI built into Windows.

5. Download Roland Sound Canvas VA and Roland Cloud Emulator, you can either grab it from here:
https://my.mixtape.moe/evodtl.7z
Or from RuTracker if you don't trust the link:
https://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=5599316
Then install both (doesn't matter which order), follow the included instructions readme how to set up the Cloud Emulator (basically it's a crack that emulates Roland's cloud authentication service since the real thing has Always Online DRM).

(cont. in next post)

>>5081431

6. Download SAVIHost here:
http://www.hermannseib.com/programs/savihostnkx64.zip
Now go to where you installed your Roland, the path should be "C:\ProgramData\Roland Cloud\Sound Canvas VA". You should have the Roland .dlls in that folder.

7. Now take the SAVIHost you downloaded and put it in the same folder as those .dlls from Step 6 AND rename it to have the same filename as the main Roland .dll, so seeing as its "SOUND Canvas VA.dll" you need to rename your "SAVIHost.exe" to "SOUND Canvas VA.exe". Then you can just run that exe and it will (finally) boot up Roland Sound Canvas VA.

If it asks for registration, just write a fictitious mail and pass. It will "activate" it and it will stop bothering you.

8. Once you boot up SOUND Canvas VA, make sure to go to Devices -> MIDI and set "Input Port 1" to your loopMIDI port. Leave the rest of the fields untouched.

And that's it!

To switch between SC-55, SC-88, SC-88 Pro and SC-8820 modes you need to open Option -> System in Roland and you'll have a window with various functions including "Map Mode". Just click on the field next to Map Mode where currently selected mode is and change to the one you want to use, then press the "Reset" button at the bottom.

Just remember that you can't change modes when a song is playing, or rather you can but it won't sound proper until the song itself is reloaded as well so it's best to select your mode BEFORE you start a game rather than during gameplay.

You will need to start SOUND Canvas VA.exe every time you want to actually use the synth so if you want a fire-and-forget solution I suggest just adding it to Windows' autostart.

If I happened to miss something, here are the original posts where I got it.

>>5036910
>>5036928
>>5037440

>>5081431
>>5081438
vst midi driver doesn't work in windows 10

>>5081450
How? I have loopMIDI running fine on my Win10 system.
>inb4 Works on my machine

>>5081479
I wasn't talking about loopmidi

Finished up a video review on the SC-88 Pro I've been working on for a while. I tried to go over basically everything relating to the device, including compatibility modes, demos, editing, etc etc. https://youtu.be/GL1onh_c3mE

>>5081438
Thanks for the (re)posts anon! SCVA is a very nice option for people who can't get a hold of the physical hardware despite a few inaccuracies.

https://youtu.be/_OgvSW0O5Bk?t=953

>vst midi driver githubs are kill
welp

>>5083298
I don't think it's even necessary to use that specific program, since all >>5081431 says to do with it is use it to set loopMIDI as the default port. Assuming you're on Windows 8/10, CoolSoft's VirtualMIDISynth has the same port changing functions so you could give that a shot instead. You can use BASSMIDI if you're on Windows 7 if you want instead, but all that does is change the port on the Windows MIDI Mapper, which was removed from 8 and beyond for some reason. VMS replaces the mapper for those newer OSes.

https://youtu.be/2DjpufBPXNg

http://veg.by/en/projects/syxg50/

For that Yamaha XG fix.

>>5085376

Thanks!

Worthless Question here: If MS GS Synth, which is cheap SC-55 knock-off is more than a nostalgia for you, then why is it?

>>5075921
I suppose nobody here has any tech experience with any synthesizer, right? I asked a few times on repair threads but sadly no answer.
If anybody owned a MT-32 for quite some time and used it extensively, they would know they're basically time bombs waiting to blow up. I do not mean that literally, but one thing is for sure, they will eventually stop functioning properly, and by that I mostly mean missing notes and sometimes making the instrument not sound as they're supposed to. What they really mean is that available partial slots die out, but most people who didn't screw with librarians don't know what a partial is; protip: the "32" in "MT-32" refers to available partials.

My theory to why this happens is due to overheating and constant use, so the solution would be reflowing the whole thing, which is a pretty messy operation for something I'm not 100% sure of, since I wouldn't even know what to reflow, and doing it with the whole board seems like a short in the making. That is why I'm asking if anybody has an idea about what me (and countless other people) should do.

>>5088647
So either SC-55 and SC-88 would be in sometime later, too?

>>5089342
Heck if I know. Probably not in a way that would hinder their usage, unless you played midis with a lot of notes, but even that's doubtful because the MT-32 is old as fuck when compared to the SC-55/88 so they might have improved resilience of their units over time and took precautions against overheating. Sadly there is not a reliable self-test for those in any unit as far as I know.

>>5076775
I used to do that too but realized that it fucks up some soundtracks pretty hard (Arachno's is the best example of this with their guitar volumes), now I only use an SC-55 recreation which is OK I guess

>>5088647
Reflowing the whole thing by sticking it in a toaster oven is only going to damage components.

Giving it to a professional repair shop and when got ask what he did, he eye rolls and tells you he reflowed it is fine.

>>5075921
Can you explain what retro MIDI is?

I have a general grasp of what a MIDI track is from using guitar pro,reaper,audacity.


>>5075927
But seeing stuff like this im just confused. Does it enhance the audio or what?

>>5089447
Normal audio stores a waveform so the played back audio is always roughly the same. MIDI only stores music notes so what you hear is dependent on what patchset (a collection of sounds associated with instruments) you use. It takes way less storage to only store note data so many retro games used them.

>>5089447
>Can you explain what retro MIDI is?
There's no such thing, and what >>5075927 is reffering to is some kind of software synth like the MS GS Wavetable.
>>5089359
>the MT-32 is old as fuck when compared to the SC-55
The MT32 is merely 4 years older than the SC55.

>>5083379
It's also possible to edit the registry manually to point to loopMIDI

>>5089447
>Can you explain what retro MIDI is?
They mean retro games that used MIDI output for their music, or the MIDI data from such games.

>>5089782
wow i thought people said it was impossible to change the default midi in windows 10

>>5088647
sounds a lot like FUD, tbqh.

>>5089784
>>5089573
>>5089590
So what you guys are doing is using stuff like in OP to change the MIDI notes?


How did the console back in the day play them? Did it have a built in ,uuuh, processor? Dont know what its called.


Thanks for the answers though

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klpTIJ9idt4&t=214s

>>5090393
>So what you guys are doing is using stuff like in OP to change the MIDI notes?
I use external modules or the soundcards MIDI synth. The notes are exactly the same, the way instruments sound is what changes.
MIDI is a standard that defines the bus used to transmit data between instruments, sequencers and drum machines, as well as a set of commands for these devices. With General MIDI there was a set of instruments that have been defined too, but the way those sound between 2 different modules is what actually changes.
>How did the console back in the day play them?
Consoles didn't use MIDI. The programmers made a music driver that read the sequences made by the musicians and play the notes accordingly. There might be some music drivers that did use MIDI sequences to play musics, but there was no MIDI bus in consoles. The processor that was meant to use the sound chipset (be it the CPU or a co-processor) is what runs said music driver.
On PC these softsynths are actually mapped on a virtual MIDI port and the software reading the sequence sends it to the softsynth through that port.

>>5089782
Why don't you try Coolsoft MIDI Mapper? Much Faster and easier than editing Registry every time.

>>5090548
does windows 10 automatically change it after an update or something? I'd rather not use borderline malware software just to get midi working.

>>5090301
Are you trying to tell me something?

>>5088647
You have any links to people talking about this? I can't seem to find anything on it, but that's kinda worrying.

>>5089342
The SC-55 operates in a very different way and uses totally different tech so I doubt it.

>>5089447
By retro MIDI, I'm referring to older MIDI devices like the Sound Canvas series and MT-32 that were used a lot for composing retro game music, or really anything from that era.
MIDI it self is a computer standard that aimed to streamline how music data was transferred between synthesizers. I did a whole video talking about the basics of it, particularly in relation to 90s PC gaming. https://youtu.be/yTRxrWnUomw

>>5090393
I use Sekaiju (pic related) to do MIDI sequencing, which allows for editing of... basically everything in a MIDI. It's pretty cool, and it also has built in instrument mappings for the SC-8850 so it works out of the box with that, and Sound Canvas VA.

>>5090548
>>5090801
Could export the registry key and double click it if needed again

>>5090465
>>5091253
Thanks guys. I learned something.

>>5091253
Also really cool channel. Subscribed.

>>5091253
>You have any links to people talking about this? I can't seem to find anything on it, but that's kinda worrying.

I don't think so, I vaguely remember a couple of posts on Vogons addressing some kind of issue but I'm not positive it was the same thing. I know it's all anedoctal evidence but I assure you if any other MT-32 owners who are fucking mental about their hardware come along they would back me up, and I could very well provide stress tests which never fail. It's NOT uncommon at all, in fact I bought a second unit from Japan because I was so dissatisfied with how poor my first one came to perform (also, I wanted to try a dual MT-32 combo but the dude didn't send me an AC adapter for his so I had to abort the idea). The result? The one from Japan sounded just *slightly* better than mine, to a point when I must have thought "this one sounds like mine from a year ago", in any way comparable to when I first bought said unit in 2005, I think half a decade earlier. That's when my naive self realized that buying these things had become a fucking Russian roulette, since I spent WAY more money buying the unit from Japan than my original one. I have sadly never had any proper MT-32 experience since like 2008/2009 when it first started showing signs of wearing down. Except emulators of course -- but those aren't perfect yet, and it's really defeating to think about how emulators can be more reliable than the real thing nowadays.

(1/2)

>>5091828
It is a wild guess when it will start to happen, I distinctly remember 2006 and such being happy times because it hardly ever skipped anything unless it went over his defined partials (and by the way, my original post is painful to read right now, sorry about that), but 2006 is also when this video was uploaded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fvO__ywTZg

Which is soul-crushing to listen to when you're used to the proper rendition. The critical parts you have to keep in mind are 0:34, 0:43, 0:58, 1:35, 1:42, 1:51 and 2:05; between all that's going on into that song, the hammond organ is a very "heavy" instrument because it is composed of 3 partials per note and chords from that instrument take close to a third of the MT-32's computing power. When the duration from those is protracted enough, supposedly the partials are pushed to other, low-priority partial slots that whoops, happen to be dead, therefore just muting the notes entirely. In some of the worst cases (like my first unit in current day) you may hear constant clicks or crackles, or similar unpleasant sounds coming from the output, with the absolute worst having like a flute that only plays the blowing PCM sound and not the actual synth/note, or the polar opposite. This is because the whoosh from the flutes and the actual flute note are two different partials and one of them is getting axed in that instant.

Like, take a listen to this emulated version to find out what notes have been missing from that earlier video; most notably the ones from the hammond organ, as mentioned before. That organ is actually one of the instrument which to this day still sounds fairly wrong on the current version of MUNT, although it's been improved a lot since this video was published. That might make it harder to catch, but when you do it's like night and day.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZOSY-a2wZzM

(2/2)

This is another dude with an actual unit, in similar worn out shape, just to hammer the point this is not an uncommon thing even further:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zbtXOIs0_ho

Actually scratch that, the guy from the first video also uploaded a video of the theme from the first Monkey Island:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3dB0qEcG20

There's also another one in a less then stellar condition:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJ2NhCRLOtk

I can point to many instances where it sounds wrong, but the most noticeable of all happens at 1:07, and believe me, it could get worse. Once again, here's how it's ideally supposed to sound, but keep in mind this is 2013 MUNT we're talking about:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BAcXzljDy0

I realize these may sound like petty issues but it's because I cannot find too many standalone tracks to be drawing comparisons, people only do the most important thing like main themes and such. If you want I could give you much clearer comparisons and/or provide stress tests (would take no more than a few minutes to record the MIDIs on DOSBox).

>>5091828
>and it's really defeating to think

I meant disheartening, it's getting late.

>>5088647
>>5091828
>>5091830
so what is it, failing caps or something else?

>>5091707
Thank you! I'm trying to keep it informative without dumbing down everything or being misleading and so far people seem to enjoy it.

>>5091830
>>5091850
Interesting posts, thank you! I'm hoping it's something simple like >>5092143 mentioned.
>supposedly the partials are pushed to other, low-priority partial slots[...]
Is this result reproducible? Because I've had some 'dead' notes occasionally pop up on mine but it's totally random if they'll happen or not. I can play the same section of a tune 10 times and get 10 different results. It's actually really, really annoying.
The only way I think to actually verify that it's partials dying in a reproducible way, would be to write a test file that runs a sustaining 1-partial instrument over 32 notes and see what notes die, otherwise it could just be some really shoddy channel allocation. Either way I appreciate the posts, because I wanted to do a video covering at the MT-32 at some point and this is good to know.

I don't know what to think about all this dying MT32 talk -- I've been using mine for quite a few years and there's still no sign of dying partials, despite my unit being a 1st generation one.

>>5092143
>so what is it, failing caps or something else?

Shit, I didn't even think about this, you might not be on the wrong track. Someday I'll open my unit and post pics.

>>5092347
>Is this result reproducible?
It is very reproducible on mine, at least for the most part.

>The only way I think to actually verify that it's partials dying in a reproducible way, would be to write a test file that runs a sustaining 1-partial instrument over 32 notes and see what notes die, otherwise it could just be some really shoddy channel allocation.

Channel allocation and priority is based on a 2 bit value that can be edited by sending sysex so what gets moved depending on its duration/age kinda depends on that value. If what actually plays on yours is random even after a cold boot, it would give the broken capacitor theory a lot more credit.

>because I wanted to do a video covering at the MT-32 at some point and this is good to know

Aww, me too. :(

>>5092930
I'm going to make some stress test midis from Monkey 2 which I know are parts which most commonly break on defective units. Maybe if your MT-32 is in top shape it can be used as reference without having to bother MUNT. Wait for them.

>>5093270
>If what actually plays on yours is random even after a cold boot,
I haven't tested after a cold boot; I end up replaying the same segment of music repeatedly when working on composition. I should give that a shot if you get the stress test MIDIs done though.

>Aww, me too. :(
Really? What's your channel? Very curious to see people besides me and a few others making videos on these older digital synths.

>>5092930
>>5093303
Here you go:

https://files.catbox.moe/ajyfle.7z

I want to be clear, it's not that these are the only instances when this occurs, the module is going to continuously miss notes anyway, but in these the end result is very clear, and thus jarring to listen to.

Here are the timecodes you need to look out for

monkey2_002: 41 seconds in, the pipe organ explosion
monkey2_004: basically any chord play from the hammond, starting at 00:25
monkey2_006: 13 seconds, another hammond explosion

Make sure you play these in an external midi software and not WMP if you're on Windows 10, just to make sure everything gets sent (also since these were recorded on DOSBox without a proper MPU401 implementation it's really likely it will give buffer overflows so it's good to have better software behind the transfer). Another thing, instead of closing the game in order for it to flush the MT-32's RAM like a smart person would, I always cut the recording in the middle, which means that the unit may act strangely if these files are run back to back without a proper reset inbetween. Just in case someone testing this doesn't know, you can soft reset the MT-32's RAM by pressing Master Volume + Rhythm and then hit [1].

>>5093303
>Really? What's your channel? Very curious to see people besides me and a few others making videos on these older digital synths.

Eh, it's not really a channel focusing on that, in fact it's not much of a "channel" right now but I plan to make tons of interesting videos soon enough which will space many subjects discussed in full detail. It has been a simple "stupid and less stupid things I like" place for many years and now I feel the time has come to ramp up on the production values. I don't know the extent of what you're going to talk about the thing, but I'm focusing on everything technical wise gathered from years of experience with the MT-32, the difference between versions, how to configure it to make your own instruments, how to make sick animations with the LCD display etc. Basically a very long tribute. Wish I had gotten a GM synth like the Sound Canvas back when it was cheap so I could also make a video on that though.
If you really want to know who I am I guess I'll post something but if you want to post something from your channel I could get in contact with you like that.

>>5093589
Alright, thanks! I'll get back to you tomorrow with some audio recordings if I can - I'm not super savvy with these things, even in the 'bad' examples you posted I didn't notice anything SUPER wrong. But I also only really got into the MT-32 a few months back, so I can't say I'm an expert as I haven't taken the time to really explore every aspect of it.

>>5093591
>I don't know the extent of what you're going to talk about the thing,[...]
I had actually planned something similar, haha. My goal was to cover some history behind it (like how it helped set the stage for the desktop music market), music creation, instrument editing, usability as a 'vintage' sounding synth today, etc.
I wouldn't be able to talk about anything like version revisions beyond a cursory glance though, since I only own an old model MT-32 and the other models are too pricey for me - the Sound Canvas series is the only one where I can really indulge since I own three of the major revisions by sheer luck (55 from a thrift shop, 88 Pro that I bought when it was listed for cheap, and an as-is 8850 from Reverb for cheap).

>Wish I had gotten a GM synth like the Sound Canvas back when it was cheap
You could still pick up a Yamaha MU if you want a GM type synth. The lower end models aren't super pricey, it's only once you start getting into the last revisions like the 128 and 1000 that you start having to pay a lot of cash.

>but if you want to post something from your channel I could get in contact with you like that.
I'm the anon that posted >>5081876 so you can find my content there and the kind of thing I'm going for. Just drop a comment I guess.

anyone interested in some various silent hill MIDIs that i've made?

>>5094512
yes

>>5093589
Took me an extra day but I got the MIDIs recorded. I

>>5094512
Post em!

>>5093589
I got the MIDI files recorded. I didn't immediately notice anything wrong but maybe you'll hear something I don't.
I recorded monkey2_004 a few times - twice on a single boot, and once after rebooting to see if the broken partials change between plays and/or rebooting. https://my.mixtape.moe/jahebb.zip

bümp

>>5097369
Dude here, sorry but I couldn't post for a while, bumping not to let thread die.

Short answer for now: your MT-32 is in very similar condition to mine, just a little better. Which means it's also on its way to decay. Sorry.

>>5091253
>channel
Break's over but I'm looking forward to checking it out after work, looks interesting. Thanks for sharing.

New SC-8850 wip, Stage 2 from ChoRenSha. Trying to learn the ropes of this thing and use some of the new instruments. I actually got the USB on it to work; I had some static issues before but those turned out to be a ground loop issue since I had the audio on it hooked up to my 88 Pro... which had its audio connected to my USB audio interface. Oops.
https://instaud.io/private/545c786af39f00c7f10528bdc125de041f5b8563

>>5100803
Aww man...

>>5100803
>Which means it's also on its way to decay.
F

small bump for interest

last bump

>>5101417
Aaand done. MIDI should work in SCVA; don't know how accurate the playback will be but it should be pretty close. https://soundcloud.com/speedyfm/crs68k-stage2-8850

>>5105280
Thanks anon.

Does anyone know of any good shops in Tokyo where they would have MIDI modules like these? Seems like the country to be in if there were any

>>5105741
I've read about some people finding them in recycle shops and places like Hard-Off. You'll probably want to try outside of popular, touristy cities in Japan though since those places are likely to price closer to online prices. I'm not an expert so I can't tell you exactly where to go, but all I've heard is to stay away from Akihabara and Tokyo unless you wanna pay 4x the price.

Bump for MUNT

>>5078528
some duke 3d tracks sounds great on a GUS. Wish there was more recordings on youtube

I'm in the club now. Felt great playing shuusou gyoku with it

>>5109646
Very nice! Shuusou's soundtrack is really good on the 88 Pro despite not taking much advantage of the hardware. I recommend checking out Ys II Eternal and Touhou 6 if you want some good examples of games that use some more advanced features.
I've heard there's some other doujin games that use it as well, but I never got any names and a quick google.co.jp search didn't turn up anything obvious.

>>5109889
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AAoRox3QJ4Y
Sounds like its using the SC-88?

>>5109895
There's a reason I said Eternal instead of Complete. Complete cut out the SC-88 Pro soundtrack and gave us a completely new SC-88 soundtrack alongside the CD audio. Eternal has both SC-88 and SC-88 Pro support - as far as I can tell, some of Eternal's 88 Pro MIDIs are older versions of the CD tracks with no FM instruments, and some of them are completely new remixes. https://youtu.be/s45zmMcnYAU

bump

Does anyone have a good sekaiju tutorial? Having trouble figuring out how to use non-capital tones and things like vibrato that the SC-88 pro has

>>5111273
There's no tutorials out there that I know of, but I can at least try to help you out.
First off, make sure you have the SC-8850 instrument map selected in Sekaiju. If you go into Setup, then MIDI Device and Instrument, then MIDI Inst Def (Normal), you can select the 8850 map for whatever port you're using (probably Out Port01). There'll be some errors, but it's close enough.

Non-capital tones have to be selected using Bank Select MSB (CC #0). Right click on a channel select "Show this track's Event list window," and insert a new Control Change event ABOVE the Program Change, then set Value1 to 0 and Value2 to what tone you want. If you're using the SC-8850 instrument map, then some of the choices will be invalid cause they don't exist on the 88 Pro, but it'll still work so as long as you move past the invalid choices. You could also add another CC, "CC #32 - Bank Select MSB" and set that to 3, which forces it into 88 Pro mapping.

As for vibrato, go to the Piano Roll, and at the bottom of it you'll see a graph window with a bunch of boxes next to it. The boxes (where my cursor is) allow you to select what you want to edit. Velocity should be selected by default, so uncheck that and check "CC#1 - Modulation." Then you can draw in the graph with the Pen tool - higher values mean more vibrato, lower values mean less vibrato, and 0 disables it (default).

If you haven't already, I recommend getting GS Advanced Editor 4 from archive.org because it simplifies the process of editing parameters and handles all of the SysEx for you. It's still good to know at least the basics, but it saves a lot of effort.

ive been playing around with the roland VA vst, pretty good stuff. DOOM sounds great, as well as other games. One of my favorite perks of these vsts is plugging in my keyboard and using the VST sounds instead of my built in keyboard sound (which are shit) so I can pretend im playing on a nicer synth. and with ASIO its latency-free

Can you guys help me, please?

I have a MT-32 which I can use just fine with Dosbox, but I can't seem to use it with ScummVM...
The best I could do was get a "ScummVM v.xxx" on the display screen.

What do?
Also, I fear it might be the game itself, do you know where I can download a good version of Monkey Island?

>>5111779
did you buy a MT-32 just to play sierra dos games?

>>5111829
yes

>>5111829
Mostly, but I'd like to use it with as many games that sound good with it (fuck you Tyrian) as possible; I also use my old synth with it.

>>5111779
It's a game problem; you probably downloaded a version of the game without the Roland music file. You can find a ZIP containing an updater here: http://www.worldofmi.com/features/download/patches/
It's monkeyup.zip - just extract it, then open the EXE inside with 7zip or whatever you use (it's a self-extracting archive for DOS), and put the DISC09.LEC file in your Monkey Island directory.

>>5111954
Thanks, it's definitely a game problem; it must be badly fucked up version because the problem remains (while it works if I don't use the mt-32).
It works flawlessly with another version, so all is good.
it's not, I want to play the german version, not the functionnal english one

>>5111556
You're the man, thanks so much

Is it possible to use a MT-32 or a SC-55/88 with a pc-98 emulator, for the games that support it?

>>5112708
Yep. Neko Project 2 has MIDI passthrough support, I've used it before to play Night Slave and Touhou 2

https://clyp.it/smdgmc4y

Anyone have recommendations for MT-32 games besides the obvious? Looking more for titles that actually make new instruments and really take advantage of all the features.

https://my.mixtape.moe/iltmyt.mid
Early draft of something for a touhou fangame

>>5116487
Ultima Underworld and Prince of Persia use it for sound effects and it sounds pretty good.

>>5116487
Star Trek 25th Anniversary uses MT-32 primarily. Star Trek Rites also uses it to some extent but was reworked to be mainly GM.

>>5116698
I'd turn the vibrato down a bit and use it sparingly - I usually use it to accentuate notes or add some flair, but putting it everywhere sounds a bit jank, especially on Pianos which naturally don't have vibrato (I know ZUN did it with the EoSD 88Pro soundtrack but as a piano player it angers me). Other than that, I really like where this is going.

>>5116867
>>5117192
I forgot about Prince of Persia and Star Trek 25th, thanks! Though I don't think Ultima Underworld will work correctly since it uses sound effects that only exist on the CM-32L; an MT-32 will sound a bit off.

>>5111829
I did too. Also any other game that supports it well.

>>5113276

Thanks, I'm surprised it worked so easily.

>>5095940
>>5097369
Huh, I just assumed the thread died. If it's still up by the time I get home from work, I'll post what I have done.

Could I use a Roland MT or similar hardware on a Windows 10 machine to play midi and programs that use midi sounds like anvil studio and tab it?

>>5120942
Yes, midi is a thing that still has uses outside of retro vidya and still exists in modern OSes. You'd just need an interface to provide the ports, like a usb midi adapter.

complete midi noob here; I received a Roland Super Quartet MKS-7 for nothing from a friend, wondering if i'd be able to configure it as a general midi device in an older version of windows? Would I also need the corresponding MPU-401 module to even make it work? Or is the device incompatible with windows/DOS games for whatever reason (aside from the fact that it's obviously not an SC-55/MT-32 device)?

pardon my ignorance as i've never really dabbled in sound hardware myself, and there doesn't seem to be much about it online. haven't ordered the cables for it yet (may even need repair) but i might just pass on it if it can't be used outside of composing music. I'm not really into composing synth music myself and i assume that's what this module's intended purpose really is.

>>5121089
Sorry, the MKS-7 isn't GM compatible at all. It's an old professional analog synth meant for making music. Sounds fantastic but I don't think there's any way to use it for playing games, so you may be best off handing it to someone who could use it or selling it as-is/untested on a site like Reverb. They are worth a decent amount though - since it's untested and you don't know what shape it's in you could probably get $300~400 for it.

>>5121515
ah, good to know, saved me the effort of being inevitably disappointed. Might actually track down the cables and see if it works, assuming it has perceivable value to it like you said. Not afraid of opening it up if something needs to be repaired on it.

ty anon