OIC thanks for clarifying the input cable sizes. My only concern is i hook up the cables from guitar center from the MT-32 and how do i plug in those cables as well as my desktop speaker cables onto the on board sound?

Most integrated and separate or discrete sound cards will feature both a Line-in port and the Line-out. The line-out or headphone jack is what your computer speakers connect to. The Line-in is where you plug the MT-32 into. That way programs can use the sound card's normal audio or they can use the MT-32 as it will be mixed through the sound card and still be heard through the computer speakers from the sound card.

That is exactly what I'm doing on my system.

CrossBow777 wrote:

Most integrated and separate or discrete sound cards will feature both a Line-in port and the Line-out. The line-out or headphone jack is what your computer speakers connect to. The Line-in is where you plug the MT-32 into. That way programs can use the sound card's normal audio or they can use the MT-32 as it will be mixed through the sound card and still be heard through the computer speakers from the sound card.

That is exactly what I'm doing on my system.

Got it thanks ! I am using on board sound and will be testing the MT-32 on dos box /win 10 on my Z370 mobo

CrossBow777 wrote:

The cable listed above should be good to connect the MT-32 to your SB card. […]
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So far i only have the UM-one mk2 and i have the older revision of the roland without the headphone jack , so i have 2 mono 1/8i […]
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So far i only have the UM-one mk2 and i have the older revision of the roland without the headphone jack , so i have 2 mono 1/8inch . I do not understand how o r what cables i need to hook up to my 1/4 headphone jack using my on board sound.

Can you or someone help me find these cables on ebay as well as tell me what i would need to hook up the MT-32 to a real DOS computer using a sound blaster AWE 64 GOLD or Sound blaster pro 2.0?

In order for my 2.1 sound system on my computer to output sound i need to plug in a standard headphone jack . So i am assuming i need some sort of adapter or adapters with 1/8th inch from the mt-32 to 1/4?
Please help guys
thanks!

The cable listed above should be good to connect the MT-32 to your SB card.

These are the cables I actually purchased locally from my guitar center that I use from the MT-32 into my sound card's line in jack:

https://www.guitarcenter.com/Hosa/CMP-159-Ste … 4-Mono-Males.gc

I actually have both my MT-200 and the MT-32 connected up. I use a simple AV switch box and just have the audio inputs from each of the modules going into the switchbox and then the RCA to 1/8 inch headphone cable from it to the sound card. This way both modules are powered up and I can switch between them easily with the push of a button. So you actually have your sizes mixed up. The MT-32 has 1/4 left/right output jacks on it and your PC uses a 1/8 headphone like jack.

T

Crossbow,
Should I buy the MP401 or the add on card? Is this need or is there a better alternative? I think i am almost there , about to check out on ebay

Unrealcpu wrote:

Crossbow,
Should I buy the MP401 or the add on card? Is this need or is there a better alternative? I think i am almost there , about to check out on ebay

This question has been asked and answered here many times.

Options:

- Original Roland 8b ISA MIF-IPC card and MPU-401 : most original, supports everything, but very hard to find (with all relevant cables...) and shockingly expensive.
- Later Roland MPU-401AT card with built-in MPU-401 : almost as original, supports everything, but just as hard to find and almost as expensive.
- Vintage MPU-401 clone card (such as the MusicQuest) : not original, does support everything, hard to find and expensive.
- Modern MPU-401 clone such as Keropi's PC-MIDI : not original, does support everything (more than MPU-401 even - has a daughterboard header, volume controls etc...), easy to find (sold on AmiBay) and moderately priced.
- Pretty much any sound card with UART MIDI without nasty bugs (i.e any decent SoundBlaster Pro clone by Aztech, ESS etc), combined with SoftMPU to provide Intelligent Mode services : not original, requires >=386 and a TSR. However dirt cheap and easy to find - you may already have the hardware, and the software is free.
- Sound card with MIDI bugs (most ISA Creative Soundblasters) : just don't...

Tbh, just get started with a decent SBPro clone and SoftMPU if you intend to use the MT-32 with 486 or later. Only bother with hardware MPU-401 if you want to run the MT-32 with an older system or you have memory limitations in your build - or you just have money to burn (or you encounter a stupidly cheap MusicQuest card like I did a few months back 😉 )

Thanks for the reply ,
would i be missing alot if i did not get a MPU-401 ?

A real MPU-401? Only the joy of having a very solid beige steel box hanging onto the back of your PC. Note once again that an MPU-401 is useless without the correct interface card (MIF-IPC).

The important bit with MT-32 is that you need to have support for MPU-401 Intelligent Mode commands (not for everything, but a lot of the old MT-32 specific titles require it). You can get that using any of the methods listed, including using the SoftMPU software with a simple UART MIDI interface on a cheap sound card. The reason you might want to have a hardware-based solution (i.e. an MPU-401 clone) is that SoftMPU costs a small amount of RAM and CPU cycles, and only works on a 386 or newer. Also some sound cards (Creative...) have buggy MIDI implementations with hanging notes and other such fun. But a decent SBPro2 clone is much, much cheaper than any hardware-based MPU-401 clone - and the overhead of SoftMPU is not normally an issue on a 486 or newer.

All of the above is assuming you are using true DOS or older windows software. But I was under the impression you are wanting to use the MT-32 with DosBox or ScummVM under Windows 10? If that is the case, then the UM-MRK II you have will do fine. Just have to set the MPU mode to intelligent in the DOSBox config file and make sure you have the midi config set to the right device number that matches the UM One from the /Listmidi command.

I can tell you that I've found with older Sierra titles I usually drop my cycles in Dosbox to about 3200 or I have had the MT-32 still not quite load all the sysex data properly and sound odd or causing hanging notes. But dropping the cycles seems to correct that for me.