VOGONS


First post, by PhilsComputerLab

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Roland MT-32, CM-32L and General MIDI for $50!

Apologies, for the catchy title. I just wanted to grab you attention because I am very excited about this project 😀. I am showing how to build a MIDI box for your Retro Gaming PC that will substitute Roland MT-32, CM-32L and General MIDI.

Instead of having to buy this:

DJYL9KRl.jpg

You can build something like this:

VzJyMXwl.jpg

Please note that a spare notebook or desktop is required, but it doesn't have to be very fast. I'm using a 1.7 GHz Celeron notebook.

The main ingredient of this MIDI Box is the Roland UM-ONE mk2 USB MIDI adapter, which you have to purchase for around $50. I've tried a cheap one from eBay, but sometimes instruments sound wrong. So here it pays to invest a little bit more. Other branded products should also work, but I have only tested it with the Roland UM-ONE mk2.

The video shows step-by-step instructions of how to build your MIDI Box, and how to set it up for MT-32, CM-32L and General MIDI operation. Recordings of Monkey Island 2, Space Quest III, Ultima Underworld,

Parts needed:

ISA soundcard with MPU401 MIDI interface (UART mode, use SoftMPU for intelligent mode) and line-in
MIDI cable for you soundcard
MIDI joiner if necessary (female on both ends)
Roland UM-ONE mk2 USB MIDI interface
Spare desktop PC or notebook
Audio cable (headphone jack to headphone jack)

Software needed:

SoftMPU
Munt
MT-32 and CM-32L ROM files
BASSMIDI
Soundfonts
MIDI-OX

Specifications of Retro Gaming PC used in the video:

Gigabyte GA-5AX
AMD K6-III+ running at 133 MHz
64 MB PC100 SDRAM
3dfx Voodoo3 3500
2 GB CF card
GOTEK floppy emulator
CD-ROM drive
MS-DOS 6.22
Creative AWE64

Specifications of notebook used in the video:

Intel Celeron B820
8 GB RAM
120 GB SSD

Links:

Link to SoftMPU: http://bjt42.github.io/softmpu/

Link to Munt: http://sourceforge.net/projects/munt/

Link to BASSMIDI: https://kode54.net/bassmididrv/bassmididrv.exe

Link to soundfonts: http://www.philscomputerlab.com/general-midi- … soundfonts.html

Link to more soundfonts: http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidi … ynth#soundfonts

Last edited by PhilsComputerLab on 2016-03-01, 10:04. Edited 3 times in total.

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Reply 1 of 192, by dreamblaster

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nice!

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Reply 4 of 192, by Great Hierophant

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Nice video Phil, yours is a very straightforward explanation and will really help people who are trying to get in this hobby but just do not have $125 for an MT-32 or SC-55 or $250 for a CM-32L that people who follow the market rates expect.

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Reply 5 of 192, by brostenen

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Cool setup and nice idea. Looking forward to see the video.
On one hand, it is a great idea to get midi this way.
On the other, this seem like a lot of work to me.

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Reply 6 of 192, by Dominus

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space vs spare?
Great idea, but unfortunately the space below my desktop looks like the first picture 😀

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Reply 7 of 192, by ReeseRiverson

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Wow, this is pretty cool. I may have to fiddle with this for fun. 😀

By the way, does the Roland UM-ONE mk2 work well from a modern machine to a MT-32 and etc? My cheapie USB Midi device doesn't seem to work well with the MT-32 and misses instruments or values up when I feed my SC-88 with it.

Reply 8 of 192, by PhilsComputerLab

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Snayperskaya wrote:

Very cool indeed! Have you done some side-by-side comparisons already?

I've done a few Munt vs. "real thing" comparisons and the general consensus was that it's very hard to tell a difference. Munt has really come a long way. As for General MIDI, rather than trying to sound as close to SC-55 as possible, I see soundfonts as a way to achieve a "better" / different sound beyond SC-55. The Arancho soundfont sounds really nice in Doom for example.

PeterLI wrote:

Might be cheap but too much hassle IMO. 😀

No worries 😀

Great Hierophant wrote:

Nice video Phil, yours is a very straightforward explanation and will really help people who are trying to get in this hobby but just do not have $125 for an MT-32 or SC-55 or $250 for a CM-32L that people who follow the market rates expect.

Thanks 😀 One area I'm working to improve is that my videos are. not necessarily just shorter, but straight to the point without too much unnecessary bla bla.

brostenen wrote:

Cool setup and nice idea. Looking forward to see the video.
On one hand, it is a great idea to get midi this way.
On the other, this seem like a lot of work to me.

It's really not much work. Instead of connecting a MT-32 for example, you connect another desktop or notebook. That's the basic principle really. You also avoid having to buy an audio switch box or external mixer if you have several MIDI devices. And less cables. And the option to try out soundfonts...

Dominus wrote:

space vs spare?
Great idea, but unfortunately the space below my desktop looks like the first picture 😀

Oh dear. Fixed 😊

ReeseRiverson wrote:

Wow, this is pretty cool. I may have to fiddle with this for fun. 😀

By the way, does the Roland UM-ONE mk2 work well from a modern machine to a MT-32 and etc? My cheapie USB Midi device doesn't seem to work well with the MT-32 and misses instruments or values up when I feed my SC-88 with it.

Yes it works well with modern machines. For example you could connect your SC-88 and use it with DOSBox, ScummVM or various Doom ports. I also found that the cheap MIDI devices work ok, but every now and then an instrument can sound wrong.

Last edited by PhilsComputerLab on 2015-05-28, 04:08. Edited 1 time in total.

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Reply 9 of 192, by alexanrs

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I started something similar with an old Pentium M 1.7GHz laptop. Debian + MUNT works quite well (once I remembered to compile Munt with optimizations activated, aka /O3), reaching at about 30% CPU usage.
Also, I tried MUNT on a Raspberry Pi 2 @ 1GHz (and 500MHz core, I think). Again, once I realized you have to set it to use /O3 (as it is not on by default), it works fine enough... unfortunately the analog output of the RPi is garbage. But with an USB audio interface I bet the RPi could be the "ultimate" MUNT machine... Don't know how it would work with BASSMIDI.

Btw, is there ANY legal way to aquire the ROM files? Besides buying an used CM32-L from ebay, that is.

Reply 10 of 192, by PhilsComputerLab

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alexanrs wrote:

I started something similar with an old Pentium M 1.7GHz laptop. Debian + MUNT works quite well (once I remembered to compile Munt with optimizations activated, aka /O3), reaching at about 30% CPU usage.
Also, I tried MUNT on a Raspberry Pi 2 @ 1GHz (and 500MHz core, I think). Again, once I realized you have to set it to use /O3 (as it is not on by default), it works fine enough... unfortunately the analog output of the RPi is garbage. But with an USB audio interface I bet the RPi could be the "ultimate" MUNT machine... Don't know how it would work with BASSMIDI.

Btw, is there ANY legal way to aquire the ROM files? Besides buying an used CM32-L from ebay, that is.

That's cool project idea, running this on a RPi. I didn't know about CPU optimizations for MUNT. I believe MUNT is more demanding than BASSMIDI, but I've never really tested it.

I don't think there is a legal way to get these ROMs. Roland doesn't sell them, so what can one do? I know that the MT-32 ROMs can be found on the WCNEWS website (a google search will find it) and they don't seem to have any issues.

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Reply 13 of 192, by PhilsComputerLab

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ratfink wrote:

I haven't watched the video yet - but does this mean you can just use your main machine to run MIDI emulators as MIDI devices for your retro box?

That's exactly what it is 😀

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Reply 14 of 192, by alexanrs

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Just checked. The RPi2 needs to be somewhat overclocked (1GHz proc, 600MHz core, 487MHz RAM) to be able to keep up with munt, and a reasonably large buffer (500ms) to play well enough. Maybe the next iteration will be good enough, but as of now, I consider the RPi2 to be a bit on the weak side for this.

Reply 15 of 192, by PhilsComputerLab

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alexanrs wrote:

Just checked. The RPi2 needs to be somewhat overclocked (1GHz proc, 600MHz core, 487MHz RAM) to be able to keep up with munt, and a reasonably large buffer (500ms) to play well enough. Maybe the next iteration will be good enough, but as of now, I consider the RPi2 to be a bit on the weak side for this.

Cool, thanks for testing rhis. What about BASSMIDI or a General MIDI virtual synth? This should be easier on the processor.

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Reply 16 of 192, by alexanrs

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I tested it yesterday too. Timidity (with the fluidsynth-gm soundfont) works fine on the OCed RPi2. I think CPU usage was under 50% most of the time. AFAIK Munt would also work fine on the RPi2 (maybe even not OCed) if it was multithreaded. As it stands, it only uses 1 CPU.

Also, the original RPi cannot keep up with munt for the life of it. Even OCed to 1GHz it plays in slow motion, dropping notes like crazy.

Reply 17 of 192, by SquallStrife

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Robin4 wrote:

Nice idea, but `s old notebook consumes more power than` s loose sound module

Not sure how that's relevant.

Old notebooks aren't gold-plated unobtanium like Roland synths are these days.

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Reply 18 of 192, by jxhicks

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alexanrs wrote:

Just checked. The RPi2 needs to be somewhat overclocked (1GHz proc, 600MHz core, 487MHz RAM) to be able to keep up with munt, and a reasonably large buffer (500ms) to play well enough. Maybe the next iteration will be good enough, but as of now, I consider the RPi2 to be a bit on the weak side for this.

I wonder if something like the Odroid C1 would be enough. It comes stock clocked at 1.5 Ghz. It doesn't have analog audio out though, so a usb soundcard would be needed.

Reply 19 of 192, by alexanrs

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Given how bad the analog out of the RPi is, an USB soundcard is needed anyways. Unfortunately I do not have an Odroid to test it, but it does sound more capable.