Cool setup!

Not as impressive as your's, mate, with you being the one with 3 x MT-32s (2x Old and one New), 2x CM-64s, a CM-32L, CM-500, SC-55, SC-55mkII, MT-100 and an SC-88ST (I think). But thanks for your advice for the Roland synths. 😉

Life is tough with so many Midi modules. They all want my attention and there is only so much time I can devote to each of them 🤣

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

http://img201.imageshack.us/img201/1945/dsc01822hl.jpg […]
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No wonder there's a deficiency of Roland Dos-buddy modules on ebay - almost every one of 'em landed up in Australia!! 🤣

After the "Escape from Monkey Island" (tm) incident, everyone should take care of their goodies from anyone remotely from Australia calling for some sort of insult competition! 🤣

Btw, nice collection! 😀

wocko1 wrote:

Here is my DOS rig so far... I'm waiting on the SC-55mkII atm […]
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Here is my DOS rig so far... I'm waiting on the SC-55mkII atm

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That MT-100 alone has painted 999 words on it! Nice!

wocko1 wrote:

Here is my DOS rig so far... I'm waiting on the SC-55mkII atm […]
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Here is my DOS rig so far... I'm waiting on the SC-55mkII atm

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Cool. My PII-550 has a Samsung SyncMaster as well - they're really nice. The only thing mine doesn't do that would be nice is auto-adjust.

Any particular reason why the subwoofer is on the desk instead of under it though?

Well I haven't bothered putting it under the desk yet, plus it's easier to access the volume knob as well! 😁 I chose an old CRT screen because, well CRTs were top dog back in the DOS days, plus I got that screen for free!

Not to worry, that MT-100 is having it's younger brother arrive soon, an SC-55mkII

Cool! Doom is my recommendation for you very first Sound Canvas Game. You will find that the music in the first level just doesn't sound 100% right on anything but a Sound Canvas...

Well you can bet your life that Doom will be on that. I loved Doom, especially when butchering all the pig demons on E1M8 with the chainsaw!!!
"A chainsaw! Find some meat..." 😁

My brother wants to give X-COM and Rise of the Dragon a go once this thing is done!

Well the SC-55mkII arrived today, and gee it absolutely EATS the Audigy synth for breakfast! It really sounds BRILLIANT!

Thanks so much, especially you, Mau1wurf1977!!!

Good you are happy 🤣

Sure these Roland modules cost a bit, but nothing beats the original! You will have a joy with that unit, that's for sure...

Apart from Doom I can also recommend Privateer. Fantastic GM music...

Is SC-55mkII a good choice for Ultima8? I think it supports MT-32 as well, but as more of an afterthought.

Not familiar with this Game, but the SC-55MKII is a very good choice for any game using General Midi.

MobyGames lists Ultima 8 as General MIDI and Roland RAP-10 compatible. The RAP-10 is in the Sound Canvas family, so the SC-55MkII should be quite close.

Ultima VIII will sound fine with either GM or Sound Canvas music... they both sound almost the same...
One warning though, if you have your GM at port 300 then select "waveblaster" from the setup, it will give you the p300 option

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

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Request please. Can you take a (single) photo of the rear socket connection area of the 1G MT-32, 2G MT-32 and the CM-32L. Thanks a lot if possible.

Hi wocko1, it's more complicated - if you want the mainstream, yet a slightly boring and synthy sound - then go for a Roland Sound Canvas. It has a big advantage - most games will sound decent and relatively balanced with it. Even purely orchestral, even strange pop/rock style sountracks will sound generally reasonable. I would call it gray, uninsiprative sound mainstream. A bit like commercial Hollywood Cinematography - not bad, and probably great for masses of undemanding beholder. However if you are more demanding person, you'll be disappointed by it quickly. Especially because a lot of important orchestral instruments sound almost terrible on a SC-55, and I will be concrete - most woodwinds are disaster, namely english horn, oboe, basson, clarinet or piccolo for example. Brass is also so-so, for example trumpet has so thin sound, that it is practically unable to play forte passages in forte. And I could continue. But I don't want to go to further details, it would be suitable for other topic. Simply said, if you are more musicaly ambitious about namely orchestral music - you'll soon find Roland performaces average and unsatisfying. Especially the general synthy, metalic, stoney sound of most instruments is very unpleasant. So what to do with it?

There are in fact two MIDI cards that kick the Roland's ass considerably - Wave Blaster 1 (that one with genuine E-mu Proteus technology onboard) and AVM Summit (shipped with incredible Kurzweil sound technology). But it applies almost exclusively to orchestral and properly orchestrated game music only, not as a general game music device. Why only for properly orchestrated music? By far not all game soundtracks are composed by good or skilled composers. Many of such musics "hide" orchestration and arrangement deficiencies behing some distinct or very specifically souding patches (pads, percussive elements etc.), resulting in fragile balance and sound coherence. They are then absolutely vassal to the sounds used - it sounds good or average only on the synth it was composed for (it's usually Sound Cavnas SC-55), and on other MIDI synths it sounds crappy, the coherence is broken, no matter how good these other synths are.
On the contrary - when the music is composed by a really good and skilled composer (and I mean masters like Bajakin/McConnel/Land, Sanger/Wheston Phelan/McDermott or Heberling for example) who really knows what they're doing - then it often becomes less dependent on the original synth used - the music then sounds as much good as the synth capabilities allow, no matter what was the original synth. And now becomes the time when synths like E-mu Proteus or Kurzweil really shines and beats the Sound Canvas. Let's make some very simple example - let's assume there's a very emotional, lyrical passage played by oboe and english horn in a MIDI computer game. We know how these instruments sound in a real orchestra - just adequate for such type musical parts. But when played (and even possibly composed) on a Roland SC-55, namely the oboe and english horn sound so awfully and un-emotional, that no matter how is it "balanced" or sequenced to death for the Sound Canvas - it may sound at best like great, lyrical, emotional composition, but devoided of emotionality and impressiveness because of horrible metallic sounding oboe and english horn SC-55 patches. And there's nothing can be done - yes, some modulation expression here and there, some fake LFO vibrato - but still, it won't save it. On the contrary - Wave Blaster 1 and AVM both have great sounding oboes and english horns, and voi-la, now this composition sounds really great, truly rightly, with the required expressiveness. These synths have just much more rich and different sound colors of different instruments than Roland.

Of course there are many false rumours floating around on the internet - especially about the Wave Blaster. Don't belive a word of them - they are totally worthless and false. They usually originate from people without musical ear, who often judge quality of the sound not on the basis of musicality, but on the basis of spaceousness of the reverb and glibness of the random sounds. And such people typically loaded Sound Canvas Piano (which sound very good, unlike most of other orch. instruments) and some other patches, load some MIDIs or game musics and say: "Wow, that's great! That's best game MIDI in the world!" Unfortunately they don't hear that poorness of many other orchestral sounds etc. Then, they load up Wave Blaster, which has no reverb available at all and: "Oh my god! That's so terrible, oh... no real space, that's awful." They load up a game, and they don't hear the space image they're used to hear, so they claims: "Worst MIDI ever!" They don't hear all these great subtle qualities like very good natural vibrato of many instruments, sweeteness of the sounds allowing very intimate and lyrical musical passages, yet the powder when needed (trumpet), great emotivity and purity of many instruments, perfect blending into the mix, perfect tuning, some ultra-realistic samples (nylon guitar), etc. etc., they just don't hear any of it at all (and even don't want to hear, because their way of judging is very simple). And that's it. Sad, absurd, but true. Then they write passionate articles to various forums and dicscussions of great, famous heavenly Roland, and terrible shameful Wave Blaster. And that's it, as it is very rare synth, most people can't verify it personally, they just belive this untruth. Or someone makes totally pointless demos from totally pointless (often badly converted) MIDI files just for showing how Wave Blaster sounds "bad". So this is the way the false rumors spread into the Internet. And what is the real world and the reality of Wave Blaster?

Musicians all over the world know the famous series of E-mu Proteus 1-Pop, Proteus 2-Orchestral, Proteus 3-World. They are legendary synths today. They were very popular, often used, and highly acclaimed in its time. Not only that - but for many years - the sampled sounds from these synths are (and still today!) being sucessfully sold in various formats (not only SF2 but also Kontakt, Reason Refill, EXS sampler..), how's it possible? It's because Proteus sounds are so good, magic, inspiring and usefull, that even today people buy it in formats of today's modern samplers. Just google Proteus Soundfonts to find the company that sells it. Why on the earth would all of this existed, why the sounds would have been recreated, converted to so many sound formats and sold, if they would be so "incredibly bad" as some internet forum "gamers" say? Of course, the sounds are great, the real musicians are right, the pompous "I know everything" gamers without musical knowledge are wrong. Just ask some musician what were the E-mu Proteus modules - most of them will be speaking of it with respect. And what has this all to do with the Wave Blaster? It's simple - Wave Blaster 1 is a General MIDI synth with sound selected from Proteus 1, Proteus 2 and Proteus 3 (about 90%), plus some brand new post-Proteus sounds (for example the famous oboe). So, no more no less, the Wave Blaster 1 has the sound body of these famous Proteus modules. Just don't belive the Wave Blaster detractors - hear it for yourself in carefully chosen examples. Especially check the Wave Blaster vs Roland section which is very instructive, and which has made some unnamed discussion forum members seeing red, when they found out the truth:
http://sites.google.com/site/waveblastergm

It's simple, with not many examples yet, but I'll be expand it when I have more time. I'm also preparing one really complex and direct head-to-head Wave Blaster vs Roland test of many orchestral instruments, and that will be hard moments for Rolanders when it's out. Or check out my sneak peak into my upcoming Wave Blaster inspired GM soundfont (not exactly WB sounds, but close), now I'm showing two patches - french horns and violin. Try playing them on a MIDI keyboard, and I guess maybe you'll be cured from Roland obsession (or maybe not):
French Horns:
http://sites.google.com/site/waveblastergm2/W … chHornsdemo.rar
Violin:
http://sites.google.com/site/waveblastergm2/W … ndemo.part1.rar
http://sites.google.com/site/waveblastergm2/W … ndemo.part2.rar

As to AWM Summit - this card brought almost no attention or interest from the gamers, or rather Roland hard-line gamers, almost everyone ignores it, there were some very few disucssion and examples, passed by without much interest, and that's all. And that despite of the fact that this card is real treasure! Not only it has the Kurzweil K1200/2000 technology in it - Kurzweil synthesizers are generally ranked among musicians as absolutely top line of all synthesizers - they were used in 90's for everything, from pop-music, TV, commercials to solid film music - but it has also "Orchestral" patches from the acclaimed Kurzweil add-on card, which has one of the best ROM synthesizer orchestral sounds ever created. Such incredible gem, yet particular sort, or more precisely - the mainstream of gamers prefers the Sound Canvas above all 😀. As one member of again unnamed forum said: "No thanks, we are happy with our Rolands." It speaks for itself very clearly 🙄 . OK, well, then 😀

Hope this post was at least a bit helpful in seeing also other perspectives than boringly repeated mainstream assentation to the Roland, difussed in so many forums, not bringing anything new or inspirational at all.

ZMOG so much text 🤣

So...

wocko1 wrote:

I'm looking at getting a good quality General MIDI synth for my DOS games.

What do you recommend?

WBman wrote:

..............

I've tried Sam & Max on my Yamaha DB50XG and it sounds similar to the Waveblaster;

the SC-55 sounds ok for my standards, but you are right, it seems that the waveblaster instruments are better suited for those kind of melody..

PMFJI,

copados33 wrote:

I've tried Sam & Max on my Yamaha DB50XG

Check this thread here (DB50XG related) -> Yamaha S-YXG50 and DB50XG

Shoutout to WBMan, Hiya!

(we now return you to our regular programing...)