Cool, so he confirms exactly what I said about game composers on PC: they compose the MIDI/MT-32 version first, then try to 'port' it to FM. And he was already complaining about the lack of voices there, imagine porting the music to PCjr/Tandy or PC speaker 😀

Fun fact: Rob Hubbard explained that he actually did use MIDI for an AdLib song... That song is the Ski or Die title tune. The MIDI he used was a co-worker who had a MIDI guitar. He played the guitar solo on his guitar, and they recorded it as MIDI data. Hubbard then reworked that data into the AdLib sound track: https://youtu.be/I4Er2m8QR4U

clueless1 wrote:

Wow, Paul already had an opportunity to answer our questions! Before we get to the questions and answers, though, I have this for appiah4 😀

Thumbs up for doing this - I really enjoyed reading his answers as they shed some light on the art of midi composing and what was happening at the time.

Really cool thread, very interesting. Thanks to all involved.

Scali: It's long been known that at Sierra, games were composed for MT-32 or GM and then 'dumbed down' for other devices. There were a lot of games composed for FM though.

I am a bit interested in Cloudschatze's timeline. Seems like a lot of MT-32 games for 1993, and very few GM.

Spikey wrote:

Scali: It's long been known that at Sierra, games were composed for MT-32 or GM and then 'dumbed down' for other devices.

Sure, but other game companies apparently did this as well. Which is what I claimed earlier: this was par for the course on PC (leading to many sub-par AdLib soundtracks). This composer has confirmed this.

Spikey wrote:

There were a lot of games composed for FM though.

Were there? I can count the ones I know on one hand.

Scali wrote:

Were there? I can count the ones I know on one hand.

That might be an interesting list. Which ones do you recall? Here are a couple I think were composed for FM:
Inca
Gods

The intro for Gods was composed on the Amiga as far as I know, in game music is only available on PC MT32 version and console ports.

Wasn't the Dune soundtrack composed on an Adlib Gold?

lvader wrote:

The intro for Gods was composed on the Amiga as far as I know, in game music is only available on PC MT32 version and console ports.

Now that you say that, I agree with you. My mind was thinking of incredibly good sounding FM games, and the intro in Gods popped into mind.

Thanks clueless1 and Paul!

TheMobRules wrote:

Wasn't the Dune soundtrack composed on an Adlib Gold?

Well, the OPL music is (I think) stronger than the Roland version, so maybe!

Just to start with, all the Apogee games were composed for FM synthesis.. Bobby Prince has a claim he composed some on a SC-55, but the tracks he released sound far worse than the Adlib versions in almost all cases (IMO). I doubt it's correct, or if it is, it's weird.

These games were certainly composed for Adlib:
Boppin.
Hocus Pocus (later translated to GM in final release).
Xargon.

Will add more if I think of it.

Might be a good thread on its own, btw.

Tyrian was composed in OPL AFAIK and sounds rather assy with an MT-32.

gdjacobs wrote:

TheMobRules wrote:

Wasn't the Dune soundtrack composed on an Adlib Gold?

Well, the OPL music is (I think) stronger than the Roland version, so maybe!

They developed their own HERAD music system specifically for OPL2/OPL3 music, so yes, it's very much made for AdLib.

Spikey wrote:

Just to start with, all the Apogee games were composed for FM synthesis.. Bobby Prince has a claim he composed some on a SC-55, but the tracks he released sound far worse than the Adlib versions in almost all cases (IMO). I doubt it's correct, or if it is, it's weird.

The Apogee/ID games use a MIDI-based file format though. They don't sound particularly good in my opinion.
So perhaps they were composed specifically for AdLib, but they didn't use very advanced tools to get good sounds from AdLib, unlike eg the HERAD system from Dune, or the LDS (Loudness Sound System) AdLib tracker used for Tyrian.

NewRisingSun wrote:

As for Distinctive Software being the only one to do FM + PCM, I'm pretty sure they're not.

I meant real programmers, not demo groups. 😎

HMI SOS library can make use of PCM drums along with MIDI music.