I tried dxdiag in XP against my USB MIDI device with Roland attached and sounds are heard.

So what you're doing should work in theory. Unfortunately, my only weak question is this: Since that cable you showed in the picture has two MIDI plugs, have you tried using the other one in the MIDI IN port on your MT-32?

Yeah I tried it just now with both cables, in "in", "out" and "through". Unless I'm supposed to reboot computer and MT-32 between each switch, it's not doing anything.

The PC end has two plugs as well but only one of them is male so I don't see how the other one would do me any good.

EDIT: I should mention that I ran the test mode and that all the tests except for the one that sends midi through one port and in through another work just fine, and that one most likely fails simply because I don't have a din<->din cable to try it with.

he asked you to try one din in midi in, and then the other din in midi in.

just to be sure, you know how to connect the cables right?

pc midi-out -> mt-32 midi-in
pc midi-in -> mt-32 midi-out

robertmo: Yeah I tried both dins in midi in on the mt-32

keropi: my sb card doesn't have a midi in port but if you mean did I loop back the mt-32 stereo outputs to my card line in, then no, I connected it through to my amplifier.

I realize this means I wont get any sound effects in my final output, but I'm just trying to breathe life into the mt-32 at this point.

I appreciate the ideas 😀

I ran colonization on my 486 through the SB16 to the MT-32 and that works perfectly, which is a huge relief 😁 Means at least there's nothing wrong with the unit itself.

I've still no idea what I'm doing wrong when connected to the Windows machine however. Maybe it's a jumper setting on the SB PCI 128. Will investigate.

Another question though. Colonization seemed to output sound effects through the MT-32, for instance the fight noise in combat, but will all games do this or do I need to route it back through the soundcard to get sound effects in other instances?

Did you select the correct MIDI output from Windows' MIDI mapper? With Windows XP and Live! it looks like "SB Live! MIDI Port" instead of "SB Live! Synth A" under MIDI Music Playback under Control Panel's Sounds and Audio Devices.

Another guess: MT-32 doesn't generate sound because the MIDI messages from that test app you're using are on the wrong MIDI channel(s).

Another question though. Colonization seemed to output sound effects through the MT-32, for instance the fight noise in combat, but will all games do this or do I need to route it back through the soundcard to get sound effects in other instances?

Many games have separate options for effects and music. For example if you want to hear Foster talk in Beneath a Steel Sky and enjoy the MT-32 music simultaneously, you'll have to route MT-32's output to your sound card's line-in (or use an external mixer).

Thirst wrote:

Another question though. Colonization seemed to output sound effects through the MT-32, for instance the fight noise in combat, but will all games do this or do I need to route it back through the soundcard to get sound effects in other instances?

you have to run game's setup to configure sound. For colonization too, as it also has sound blaster's digital sound effects that obviously cannot be played by mt32.

Are you sure you can get any midi message out from your pc, through your Creative's PCI-128 card? How's the IRQ and MIDI port of the PCI-128 card like?

I have never tried connecting the MT-32 or SC-55 to a PCI soundcard yet, so I cannot really comment on this setup.

Anyway, make sure the label on the midi cable near the header is labelled "OUT", which goes to the MIDI "IN" of the MT-32.