Oh, I'm sure somebody does (or will, sooner or later). I mean, there were some (crappy, not really schematics) schematics on getting the MT-32 ROM floating around somewhere online at one point. 😀

KingGuppy must have it, otherwise he may have had difficulty integrating the newer ROM into the emulator. Also, how else could he provide an md5 hash?

" And it takes remarkably little effort for me to say that it's irrelevant since nobody has those ROMs"

That is why some smart people should create ROM similar to original one. I agree with Moe, there is better any emulation than none.

It's true. The emulator is a useless pile of binary without being able to do anything thanks to the fact that so few of us have a MT-32 to extract the ROM from (and if we did, why the heck would we be using an emulator that wastes CPU cycles when we have the real thing for flawless 100% emulation of MT-32 at no waste?)

Somebody has to do something, because we are all completely stuck here. There's no legal way to get the darned thing, and no one has even revealed an ILLEGAL way to do it either even (can't even find anything searching on google.) So just what are those of us who'd just like to get an idea what MT32 was like in those classic games that made good use of it when back in those days we had merely a plain wavetable card like AWE supposed to do here? We can't all go and buy MT-32s. First of all, some of us are broke (I mean really, I'm not still using barton because the name sounds pretty) and even if we had all the money that would take, there aren't that many working MT-32s left out there anymore. What the heck is wrong with Roland, all they have to do is sell the roms! Heck, if they're REALLY serious, learn from the code, write their own little emulator and build the rom into the thing, then sell that. Oh, but, that only applies if they legally own that rom of course..... Funny how no one is even sure if they legally have the right to say don't distribute, yet, no one anywhere distributes, yet, I see little kids get online and download the latest full version of photoshop all the time...

We need a fake rom since no one will provide a real one whether or not it is actually legal. Here in reality, it's the only real solution. Frankly, I don't even care if it doesn't sound that close to the original as long as it sounds good enough to be better than that god-awful FM synthesis that I thought I'd left behind me at last when I first bought a stinking AWE card (yes yes, I should have gotten something better like a SW60XG, but, too late to worry about that a decade or so later.)

Well, since it is possibly illegal to distribute those files, only a mule or similar animal would help you get them...

This is why it's my point that we need one that IS legal. A fake rom that's made to be kind of like it would be legal.

Or just put it up for download on a web server in Sweden...

Well, I for one wouldn't complain to have the original however I got it, but, at this point, I just want SOMETHING. I'm sick of MT-32 emulation being useless for those of us not blessed with a real MT-32 and 1337 electronics skills -- especially in light of the fact that if you have a real MT-32 you have no need for an emulator unless you just feel like Prime95 isn't good enough for wasting power.

Right now, I'd take MT-32 emulation that sounds nothing like the original, just as long as it sounds halfway decent.

One thing I'm wondering about here. Supposedly the Yamaha XG cards supported some of the sysex commands and such and could work with an MT-32 emulation kind of thing -- only not crashing on practically all games like the creative cards do -- so I'm kind of wondering if maybe they aren't useless for this sort of purpose. The reason I single that out is because they have a nice little software synthesis (though I think it's discontinued, I still have a copy that I've been using on my copy of windows because, IMO, it actually DOES sound a little better than my 32MB of soundfonts for most songs) and if it supports the same sort of capabilities, then it might also be a possible. Then again, it may not. For that matter, the actual hardware (eg the SW60XG and such) may not really do any better at MT-32 than the AWE, just better quality synthesis at what it does do (those of us not blessed with the then uber expensive 32MB memory upgrades will NEVER get their AWEs to sound one tenth as good as the software synthesis even.)

Either way, we need SOMETHING. Just SOMETHING. I'm sorry, but, what good is an emulator that can never be used? *sigh* I really want to hear those games that were written specifically for the MT-32. Besides, many of them use custom patches anyway.

Right now, I'd take MT-32 emulation that sounds nothing like the original, just as long as it sounds halfway decent.

The current version of Munt sounds "halfway decent" already. Using something other than Roland ROMs would make it sound "less decent" and hinder efforts to develop a truly accurate emulator.

We can't all go and buy MT-32s. First of all, some of us are broke and even if we had all the money that would take, there aren't that many working MT-32s left out there anymore.

If you truly want it, you will find a way. $60 on eBay can get you a working MT-32. Roland can repair MT-32s.

Funny how no one is even sure if they legally have the right to say don't distribute, yet, no one anywhere distributes, yet, I see little kids get online and download the latest full version of photoshop all the time...

That is because the MT-32 is rather obscure to begin with and those who do know about the MT-32 emulation project do not want to draw the wrath of Roland down on them. Moreover, the rules of this board prohibit us from revealing the location of the ROMs, should we know where to find them. However, there are clues.

Great Hierophant wrote:

Using something other than Roland ROMs would make it sound "less decent" and hinder efforts to develop a truly accurate emulator.

Well, I consider NO rom to be something other than Roland roms too. Percentage-wise, a fake rom is closer to the original roland roms than no rom whatsoever. And there's no rule that says you can't simply replace the fake rom with a real one some time down the road, right? It's not set in stone is it? I mean, unless you have to custom build every peice of it into the emulator itself so that the actual rom file is only used for checking purposes, it just makes sense that all you have to do is swap out the file itself. It cannot be said enough, less than perfect emulation is better than none whatsoever.

If you truly want it, you will find a way. $60 on eBay can get you a working MT-32. Roland can repair MT-32s.

Don't forget shipping. However, my main point was that there are a limited num ber of MT-32s in the world, and over time they break down enough that they can't be repaired surely. These aren't like cars where you can basically replace the whole thing and, while it may not be the same car anymore once you have a different engine & etc, at least it works and has some of the same look and feel. This is digital enough that once they stopped production of certain things like some of the chips, it became impossible to fix them. Besides, on the matter of money, each of those repairs will cost ungodly amounts surely because you have to pay to ship it there and back, the cost of the parts used (which will probably be like radioshack prices) and the cost of labor. See, I'm willing to bet that these things are out of the initial warantee where they do repairs free and you only had to pay shipping.

Anyway, once again, the point isn't really whether or not you can get a MT-32, but, the fact that if you can, it defeats the whole purpose of

Moreover, the rules of this board prohibit us from revealing the location of the ROMs, should we know where to find them. However, there are clues.

There are no clues. I've spent days searching, not minutes, I assure you. I wouldn't expect someone here to reveal any locations though, I never did. It's been made over-abundantly clear that people here are completely against the idea 110% that anyone should do this.

Well, one thing I'd like to know once and for all. Does Roland own them or not? Every message I see says that they actually quite simply do not with no question, yet it's treated as if it's illegal nonetheless. If this is true, I'm a little dissapointed that everyone is so scared of a legal battle that they let roland just have their way and ruin the project for those of us without MT-32s to begin with (aka the people who need emulation.) I think someone needs to just figure out definitively once and for all, and if it is legal, hire a good lawyer, and countersue roland for frivolous lawsuits or whatever if they try something. If it's illegal, just say so once and for all (and I don't mean literaly simply say it's illegal, I mean as in WHY it's illegal, because so far the legal evidence is against this) and someone come up with a fake rom already that is legal (I do know that while roland WILL fuss at the thought of a fake rom, they can do nothing if you create it yourself and don't reuse any of their samples or such.)

From what I understand, it's legal to distribute them, but Roland really doesn't want us to. Nothing is stopping someone from putting them up on a site somewhere, but it's not going to be the Munt people because they don't want to risk pissing off Roland's lawyers enough to make them find a way to shut the project down. I can't blame them for that.

Either way I think it's necessary for SOMEONE, not necessarily them to provide SOMETHING for people. Even if it weren't as hard as it seems to be to find the original rom, it's still hard enough that it warrants someone out there somewhere providing SOMETHING without an uphill battle just so people can even TRY the emulation.

Provide them a monetary reason for doing so and I'm sure they'll do it......in other words (and I'm not trying to sound like an ass)...put up or shut up.

I highly doubt Roland would want some 3rd party emulator playing around with "their" ROM when it quite possibly isn't emulating the original device to it's fullest potential. Why officially support something (or allow something) that may misrepresent the actual hardware?

You want it so bad? Then your gonna have to do the things you mentioned yourself. Most people back when DOS was popular didn't have an MT32.....why should they have one now (physical or emulated)? Is it our RIGHT to have an MT32? Do we DESERVE IT? NO and NO. It's another option to play the games that we bought.

Huh? Firstly, provide a monetary reason? Is someone providing a monetary reason for the MT-32 emulation project people to do it? It kind of defeats the point of such projects to try to make a required component commercial. Secondly, if no one actually legally owns the ROM, then no one can actually sell it (well, I think it's legal to sell it, but, people would be able to get it free elsewhere so that you get nothing but people fussing at you.)

As for roland, that argument is nullified by the proof to the contrary. I'll say one word: Roland. I think that says it all. Also, what I said was that if they honestly believed the project would hurt them in some manner, they could read over the code, learn from it, and write their own (essentially "rewording it" so it's legally their code to copyright and sell, not really doing any serious work -- I know this is more than rewording it per se, but, you get the idea, it's not THAT much work) with the rom built into it or something. Stamp about 500 warnings that it's not fully supported, but is provided "for fans" (aka to make a few extra bucks selling something online to the people who'd take it, never bothering to spend money on producing cds or anything like that.) There may still be SOME support necessary even then, but, they can get away with blaming everything from the age of the hardware being emulated to the fact that it's just not important enough to develope the code any further.

You want it so bad? Then your gonna have to do the things you mentioned yourself. Most people back when DOS was popular didn't have an MT32.....why should they have one now (physical or emulated)? Is it our RIGHT to have an MT32? Do we DESERVE IT? NO and NO. It's another option to play the games that we bought.

Ah, I get you. So, the people who didn't have a computer back in the dos days because they were too young or poor have no right to use Dosbox and must delete it immediately. If they have VDMSound installed, they must immediately uninstall it as well, because they have no right to use all those emulated things from SB16 hardware capabilities and such since their cards probably don't actually support it (even the creative labs cards with their emulation are tricky to get working in dos sometimes, and all the others emulate sbpro in pure dos at best usually.) You know what? I never had a 0086, so I guess I have no right to use the functionality my processor provides specific to it.

What a lovely argument. You never had one then, so you can't now. Oh, and the yelling really helped too. Anyway, irregardless, if you really feel that way, why are you here in these forums where people develope such projects WITHOUT the intention of earning money?

Huh? Firstly, provide a monetary reason?

Yeah, you know. MONEY. Something companies like to make lots of....

Is someone providing a monetary reason for the MT-32 emulation project people to do it?

No. What's that got to do with my point on "if you want ROLAND to allow you to use their ROM you provide a way for them to get $$$ from it"?

It kind of defeats the point of such projects to try to make a required component commercial.

I suppose the author/authors did it for their own amusement, to have emulation that could be used that had the original hardware/ROM, or for future historical purposes when this would be legal.

As for roland, that argument is nullified by the proof to the contrary. I'll say one word: Roland. I think that says it all. Also, what I said was that if they honestly believed the project would hurt them in some manner, they could read over the code, learn from it, and write their own (essentially "rewording it" so it's legally their code to copyright and sell, not really doing any serious work -- I know this is more than rewording it per se, but, you get the idea, it's not THAT much work) with the rom built into it or something. Stamp about 500 warnings that it's not fully supported, but is provided "for fans" (aka to make a few extra bucks selling something online to the people who'd take it, never bothering to spend money on producing cds or anything like that.) There may still be SOME support necessary even then, but, they can get away with blaming everything from the age of the hardware being emulated to the fact that it's just not important enough to develope the code any further.

Why support something they didn't write? Why bother wasting their employees time, studying, re-working, supporting code that gives them no $$$ whatsoever? They going to do this out of the kindness of their hearts? You think by doing this that the community will throw a big party and shower Roland with lots of $$$ and gratitude? NO. The common person doesn't care about sound quality. They barely know the diff between PC Speaker and MIDI for older games except that one beeps and the other has intruments.....why do all this for monetary gain and the 1% gratitude they will receive?

Ah, I get you. So, the people who didn't have a computer back in the dos days because they were too young or poor have no right to use Dosbox and must delete it immediately. If they have VDMSound installed, they must immediately uninstall it as well, because they have no right to use all those emulated things from SB16 hardware capabilities and such since their cards probably don't actually support it (even the creative labs cards with their emulation are tricky to get working in dos sometimes, and all the others emulate sbpro in pure dos at best usually.) You know what? I never had a 0086, so I guess I have no right to use the functionality my processor provides specific to it.

What a lovely argument. You never had one then, so you can't now. Oh, and the yelling really helped too. Anyway, irregardless, if you really feel that way, why are you here in these forums where people develope such projects WITHOUT the intention of earning money?

That was not my argument. I'm talking about you wanting MT32 so bad. You seem to think that it's your god given right to have a legal MT32 ROM. I suppose you should also have the source code to SECUROM/SAFEDISC too? Perhaps the source code for all Console's ever released...heck Companies should just give away this stuff for free right? RIGHT? They only spent millions developing it....why not?

Uhm, are we on the same subject? Last I checked, the MT-32 emulation team and related fans aren't really companies. I don't know, maybe I'm mistaken there.

As to how roland could make money, I've said it twice that I think of off the top of my head, possibly more. It's called "selling." That's how they can make money. If they don't legally own the rom, they can't sell it, of course, but, neither can they stop people from using it... Well, nonetheless, I already mentioned the other way they could legally make money from this. Simply put, the only thing they have to do is NOT get microsoft involved and they're ok. And didn't I say they wouldn't officially support it? All they have to do is explain things like the age of the hardware/etc as convenient excuses and set up a self-help forum. No one can fault them for not doing more, and I personally wouldn't fault them for not even doing that. I just fault them for assaulting projects designed to make such things accessable while not bothering to provide any solutions.

BTW, read what I said earlier. I didn't say it's my "god given right" to own the rom. I said people should make one that people can use if the legality truly is a question so that this issue doesn't even have to come up. I'm also mainly just pointing out that if the means of using the emulation are unaccessable to the people who would wish to use it, it defeats the purpose of the emulator. If you require the hardware to legally emulate it, you don't need an emulator.

Uhm, are we on the same subject? Last I checked, the MT-32 emulation team and related fans aren't really companies. I don't know, maybe I'm mistaken there.

I'm not referring to the fans. I'm referring to the people that may or may not own the rights to the ROM.

As to how roland could make money, I've said it twice that I think of off the top of my head, possibly more. It's called "selling." That's how they can make money.

They already did...(and mabye the still do?) sell the ROM. It's in the hardware. WTF would they sell the ROM seperatly from the hardware? So people can use the emulator for free and not use their hardware? That's a sound business plan (well in the way that companies think anyway), us fans being much smarter can think of many ways to make money from selling the ROMS or at least allowing them to be distributed.

BTW, read what I said earlier. I didn't say it's my "god given right" to own the rom. I said people should make one that people can use if the legality truly is a question so that this issue doesn't even have to come up.

I never said that you said it was your "god given right". That's just the impression I've gotten from your posts. I personally don't believe some half-assed ROM should be distributed if it's not the original....it should be the original or not at all. Why give a person inferior emulation and thereby provide the wrong impression? In that case none is definetly better than some, IMO.

Wow, this discussion has really gone off into the weeds. I think you guys are getting way too worked up over things that you can't change:

- Roland may or may not be able to defend copyright/ownership of the MT-32 ROMs.
- Roland does not want the ROMs to be distributed. This can be construed to mean that they will actively seek to shut down anyone who tries.
- The people working on MT-32 emulators, DOSBox, VOGONS, etc. do not want to draw Roland's wrath and have thus decided not to distribute them. Note that I don't speak for these people, so this is only my observation.
- I haven't yet seen any interest in the idea of making clone ROMs. My main issue with those is that no matter what you might think, this will create a situation in which people will judge Munt and any other MT-32 emulation projects based at least in part on the quality of the clone ROMs and not of the emulators themselves. It could potentially be a support nightmare.
- The bottom line is that someone who is interested is going to have to take the initiative in creating a set of clone ROMs. I hate making these kinds of statements, but: if you're not willing to be that person, then you don't have much right to expect someone else to do it for you. Munt, DOSBox, VOGONS, etc. are done for free as hobbies and shared with us out of the kindness of their creators' hearts and it's unreasonable to expect them to provide anything beyond what they feel like doing.

There are no clues. I've spent days searching, not minutes, I assure you. I wouldn't expect someone here to reveal any locations though, I never did. It's been made over-abundantly clear that people here are completely against the idea 110% that anyone should do this.

Well, that is the problem. If some of knew where on the Internet you could find the file(s), we could probably be breaking the rules by revealing that information on this forum. On another forum, it may be possible to do so, but not only do we risk breaking those rules but limiting our audience, thereby making it not worth it. Moreover, once something is posted it often cannot be retracted. Revealing the location of the file could put the person who revealed it in jeopardy of being listed as a contributory infringer. Finally, revealing the location could bring unwanted attention to the hosting entity. After all, there is always a malicious informer hanging about just waiting to report such to the authorities.

There is little difficulty in someone providing the files to another who could prove that he or she owned one of the following Roland devices:
MT-32
MT-100
CM-32L
LAPC-I
CM-64
CM-500
D-10/20/110
These are the only devices that can reproduce 100% the Multi-Timbral LA Synthesis of the Roland MT-32.

For those who followed this project from the beginning, it was much easier for them years ago to obtain the files than newcomers. But it is not impossible.

These are also MT-32 compatible, in the off chance that someone may own one:

CM-32LN
LAPC-N
E-10/20
PRO-E
RA-50

I'm curious, but which ROMs are required to use the emulator - control, tone, or both? If it's simply the control ROMs, the modified Blue Ridge versions can be downloaded from the net.