The GM/GS playback of Roland's XV-5080 is an interesting alternative to that of the SC-55(mkII). I would never suggest purchasing or using one (or any high-end synth) just for gaming though - what an incredible waste that would be.

Quest for Glory IV

Dr. Cranium's Laboratory - SC-55mkII
Dr. Cranium's Laboratory - XV-5080

The Leshy - SC-55mkII
The Leshy - XV-5080

Meeting with Katrina - SC-55mkII
Meeting with Katrina - XV-5080

Erana's Garden - SC-55mkII
Erana's Garden - XV-5080

Hotel Mordavia - SC-55mkII
Hotel Mordavia - XV-5080

Hexapod Battle - SC-55mkII
Hexapod Battle - XV-5080

Erana's Staff - SC-55mkII
Erana's Staff - XV-5080

Finale - SC-55mkII
Finale - XV-5080

Well, I'm getting the thing for free. The wife will be using it for some synth projects she's working on as she prefers the real hardware to soft synths. But hey...if it's going to be in the same room as my DOS machines...

I can't really find any information on whether or not this Korg unit even supports GM. I know it's pretty popular for the stuff it's got built in but who knows what it'll sound like playing DOOM?

The Korg Wavestaion Sr do not support GM so it is useless for games... sorry 😒

I have a couple of what could be called "non-gaming synths", as long it supports GM so should it sound ok with GM games.

I have an Alesis S4 Plus (Quadra synth) and while it do support GM so does it suck at games because the program change is so slow. I also have an Ensoniq MR Rack wich i like a lot, it is sjust too bad the GM choir sounds are at so low volume and standard kit is a bit too weak other wise it would been my favourite after Roland and Yamaha.
And last i have an Korg Triton wich is pretty good at GM

I had (and still do) a Korg AG-10 (Audio Gallery). At first I just used it for playing with a MIDI keyboard, as I did not have a MIDI adapter. Later on I got a Gravis MIDI adapter some time later than GUS. It did sound great with GM compatible games, but at the same time sometimes quite bad when games used MT-32 instead of GM. Compatibility with games was great when used with SB16 as the digital effects and AG-10 for music, as SB16 had MPU compatible midi uart.

As long as it supports Midi 1.0, you will get some music out of it while playing, the result might be interesting though.
Sometimes I'm using a Korg digital piano to output the music, it does 8 voices polyphony with only 16 intruments, so it's not GM compatible to say the least, but still, listening to the Doom soundtrack played on a single instrument is nice...

I'd like to see what would happen if someone hooked a Minimoog up to their PC using a MIDI/CV-Gate converter and tried using it for Doom's music. Obviously since the Minimoog is an analog instrument it wouldn't support any GM patches, but wouldn't it be cool to fiddle with the knobs on that thing and make like an electronic remix of the Map01 or E1M1 theme?

Stefan_L wrote:

The Korg Wavestaion Sr do not support GM so it is useless for games... sorry 😒

That's true, not out of the box. But you could reprogram it and map the internal RAM banks so that you at least get the right sounds. It shouldn't be too hard..but a boring task for sure.

Many years ago I had a Wavestation on long time loan from a friend, I remember playing around with a sysex editor on my PC made specifically for the Wavestation, you could back up your sounds, transfer new ones to the RAM banks etc. I found lots of of sound banks online and built a library for my friend who was happy to get his "new" synth back full of fresh sounds.

IIRC there was even some rudimentary support for programming sounds too. Unfortunately I don't remember the name of this editor.

Who knows, maybe there's a GM bank for the WaveStation somewhere online..?

I remember reading somewhere that the famous Mac startup sound was made on a Korg Wavestation. For whatever reason it doesn't sound all that great on a Mac, but it's breathtaking played through a PC with decent speakers. 🤣

The Seinfeld theme has many sounds from the Wavestation, including the characteristic slap-bass.

I read an interview with a musician in the advertising business lamenting the fact that he could never use that sound in anything because it would make people immediately think of Seinfeld.