dnewhous wrote:

Does the Roland mt-32 use the same hot pin on a MIDI cable as a Yamaha FB-01?

Well, electrically speaking, both devices comply with the MIDI electrical standards and MIDI link-layer protocol. So if your question is related to pin-outs for cabling, then yes they would be identical in that regard.

Functionally, however, they are quite different. The Yamaha FB-01 is a much (much) more limited machine than the MT-32; it is an FM synthesis tone generator, not very different (if at all) than an OPL-3 found on a standard sound card (or, clone thereof). It doesn't have very many voice, polyphony, or tone options. The MT-32, on the other hand, uses PCM samples to derive tone generation, has many voices and polyphony (comparatively) and is specifically supported by many many DOS game titles. As far as I can tell the Yamaha FB-01 is (was?) mainly used in music production or performance of a single instrument.

the mt32 is far better, however the fb-01 is still far better than the opl3 synth. the opl3 supports 9 voices, each voice can only be generated through 2 sin wave operations, which results in low sound quality. the fb-01 on the other hand supports 8 voices, but each voice is generated through 4 sin wave operations, thereby providing better sound quality making it a much higher-end model than the opl3.

yamaha even released an upgraded version of fb-01, the fs1r, which supports 32 fm voices each generated through 16 sin wave operations and, more importantly, allows you to define how to use sin waves operations to generate any instruments you want, making it very expensive.