Spikey wrote:From what I remember Serge, the IC's used were different? I forget the technical details. Something like 13 or 14 bit sound versus 16 bit, also.
Unfortunately, none of MT-32 compatible modules produce 16 bit sound. Well, there is a ton of differences between the "old" and the "new" MT-32, in fact. But I'd better shut up and redirect you to Wikipedia 😉
OK, I am going to pose a much more specific question. The game Larry 5, which was composed using a CM-32L (to the best of our knowledge). If one recorded its' output on a 2nd gen MT-32 and a CM-32L device, would the output be identical, aside from any CM-exclusive sound effects that may be present?
If nit-picking, of course, you'll get output somewhat different, since we can only reliably compare digital captures. After all these years, real modules really start sounding quite differently (not mentioning those differences in the schematic we told above). But if we compared digital captures, I'm pretty sure they would be nearly identical for the MT-32 supported timbres. Again, even digital captures are never 100% identical because of non-deterministic factors that affect synthesis (e.g. MCU-LA32 interrupt times, reverb noise, etc.). For example, the attached two captures are slightly different though sound similar.
As for the PCM waves, the lower PCM bank of CM-32L is bit-identical to the MT-32 PCM ROM. All the PCM wave definitions and related timbres are also identical in the control ROM tables. So, the differences in sounding are ought to be very minor.