Hey folks,
I was listening to a GM MIDI file which was supposed to be for SC-55 GM, but it had a SysEx attached to it which was the SC-88 and higher "Delay Macro change- to Delay to Reverb".
Thoughts? I have a few, like the author/recorder was using a SC-88 or higher, and accidentally put that SysEx in there.
(If anyone's curious, it's actually QuestStudios' KQ6 GM MIDI soundtrack.)
From my experience a lot of music programmers from that time were simply ignorant of the differences between GM and GS. Remember the original SC-55s didn't even understand a GM Reset, they would only preform a GS Reset. Everyone says Duke Nukem 3D uses GM, but official GM spec is only 1 drum kit, while Duke uses the Power Kit, which is really part of GS. In those days, I'm sure most composers simply just made music on what they had available and called it a day.
Everyone on this forum always says that if a game has a General MIDI and a Sound Canvas option that they will sound exactly the same, and this is true on an SC-55 due to it's sysex limitations. But a module like the Korg NS5R which uses different sound banks for it's GM and GS modes may sound quite different, depending on the actual sysex sent by the game.
Modules: CM-64, CM-500, SC-55MkII, SC-88 Pro, SY22, TG100, MU2000EX, PLG100-SG, PLG150-DR, PLG150-AN, SG01k, NS5R, GZ-50M, SN-U110-07, SN-U110-10, Pocket Studio 5, DreamBlaster S2, X2, McFly, E-Wave, QWave, CrystalBlaster C2, Yucatan FX, BeepBlaster
Hey Super,
Thanks for your response.
However, I was not looking at GM versus GS, although I agree with you, there are many "GM" soundtracks that are really GS or at least SC-55 optimised GM.
I was talking about music composed for the SC-55, where there are SysEx strings attached that are only functional (if I understand correctly) on higher level Sound Canvas modules (88 and up).
In this case it was not a music programmer, but someone who recorded the MIDI, edited it very nicely, and optimised each track for the Sound Canvas even more than the original composer- some tracks have Hall 1 reverb, and some have higher level reverb than others. But the Delay macro change has me stumped- it seems to be used on the QuestStudios' KQ6 Soundtrack CD:
http://www.midimusicadventures.com/queststudi … oundtracks/kq6/
(See tracks such as Nightingale, Cave, Catacombs, which all have the delay enabled, and compare to a SC-55 playing the same tracks, ignoring the MT-32 instruments used in some of the CD tracks.)
However that delay section is not present on the SC-55 and its' variants. This makes me think the MIDI was edited on, say, a SC-88, in a SC-55 map (but using SC-88 SysEx) or maybe it was a SC-55 and the SysEx was simply a mistake, wrong manual or some such.
Anyway, enough information from me.
