VOGONS

Common searches


Reply 20 of 29, by zorach

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Well, TiMIDIty is a software wavetable synthesis program. What you want is a software FM synthesis program...something that basically does an OPL2 in software...now where do we have something that does that....?

That might be a kinda fun project, to pull the OPL2 emulation out of DOSBox and craft a standalone tool around it.

Reply 21 of 29, by HunterZ

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

Just for the record: DOSBox's OPLx emulation code is from the MAME arcade emulator.

It would be interesting to have an "OPL player" that would use that emulation engine to play back logged dumps of OPL commands recorded from games running in DOSBox.

Reply 24 of 29, by 3803

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Me again, I'm the one who posted under guest a few post ago.
Yay...I'm using the plugin right now, listening to some old hexen midi's. It doesn't get close to the real thing but hey, it's FM.

I probably sounds bad because I'm using midi songs instead of the real hexen soundfiles.

But i love it.

And thanks, oneirotekt, for clearing that up. I knew that it was different but not in way that midi was in no way suitable to replace opl2. Too bad...

Don't mind the English, it's not my native language, you know.

Reply 25 of 29, by HunterZ

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

If the MIDI files are ripped straight from the game then it should sound the same, but only if you are able to program the emulator with the specific OPL instrument banks that the game programs the chip with. I doubt anyone has thought to rip these, and I haven't used the emulator and thus don't know if it could make use of them.

Reply 26 of 29, by 3803

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

They are not ripped directly from the game i think.

2 years ago or so I've read that games from hexen, and probably any other doom engine based game used snd files for ingame tunes.
A converter had been written to convert the snd files to midi, so the original opl data probably goes lost.

Then again, the snd files are probably just the files that are used when selecting general midi or roland in the setup of these games.

Maybe snd files are a special format that both can be used for midi and opl (for example, when midi, instrument is played, when opl, the instrument in the opl bank is played)

I'm just guessing here, but anyhow, I strongly doubt that the midi files that you can find all over the internet are representative for the opl ingame music of doom engine games...midi(snd) and opl soundfiles in doomgames are possibly not the same files, and if even if they are, keep in mind that the music has been converted to another format which could mean loss of essential data for correct playback with adplay or so.

Reply 28 of 29, by HunterZ

User metadata
Rank l33t++
Rank
l33t++

I remember finding data in the game WAD files that closely resembled that stored in BNK (and similar format) files (http://www.wotsit.org/search.asp?s=bnk), which are used to program the OPL chip with custom instrument sounds. It would probably be possible to extract this data and convert it to BNK format. I don't know if adplug or whatever can make use of those or not though.

Reply 29 of 29, by 93143

User metadata
Rank Newbie
Rank
Newbie

Try searching for a DOS-based MIDI player. Most won't address the FM synth, but MIDIER (for instance) is one that does. It uses a driver called SBMIDI.EXE, and it runs in DOSBox just fine.

Or you could use AdPlug/AdPlay...