Another in favor of clicks for Descent. It gives a sharp, wood percussion feel that does an awesome job setting you up for the next segment of some type of '''techno funk'''. Plus it keeps constantly panning left-right-left. Really enjoyed that clip, but wonder how it feels in-game?

Breath noise has this weird distorted gas. Doesn't add any useful texture imo.

I think Descent 2 also has a breath noise hit - have to inspect. Will wait for more opinions on Descent.

tikalat wrote:

In that case........ it would be harder to tell who used what unit then. Both SC-55 mk1 have CTF ability, so it's down to the skill of trained audiophiles around here. 😉

Are you actually sure that the GM SC-55 supports CTF? Not familiar with the unit, but if it's anything like the SC-55mkII it must have seperate GM and GS modes, which I will assume since it supports both standards. CTF functionality is only present in GM mode on SC-55mkII and up. Naturally this mode is not useful in many cases as it won't play variation tones.

Or, just try setting your VSC to GM mode and see how it plays MIDIs with variation tones. After switches to inexistent variation tones in regular GS mode it should actually just stay on the last instrument from what I've heard...

VSC (GS or GM2 only) just plays last instrument in either mode so far when that instrument doesn't exist. I get all sorts of funny noises in bad tracks. 😀

Doom switching to GM1 auto-bumps VSC to GM2. 🤣

I thought CTF = Capital Tone Fallback? As in Xeen games - when you play a melodic instrument that doesn't exist (say Bank 120), it falls back to Bank 0 and plays that one. Which I've heard only happens with any of the SC-55 mk1 models.

Then again, I wouldn't qualify to take a GED in field of Professional Music Devices. So whatever I say needs verification --and-- certification 😉

I'll get to checking Descent II soon'ish. 😎

edit:
Oh wait a minnute.

CTF functionality is only present in GM mode on SC-55mkII and up. Naturally this mode is not useful in many cases as it won't play variation tones.

Never mind. I think I get it now. GM mode = no bank controller ==> always plays (capital, bank 00) tones.

edit2:
I think as NewRisingSun put it once, I need more precision in my blabbing. 😀

I should've mentioned SC-55 mk1 GS mode having the precious Capital Tone Fallback feature. Still I've ...heard... it affects all mk1 models. But maybe that doesn't make sense either. 😉

I'd better clam up and just focus on the actual MIDIs and not the hardware devices. Advanced Newbie needs to learn more. Don't want to end up confusing anyone who's at my skill level. 😈

edit3:
Okay. I think I know what's confusing me now.

There's these models?
- SC-55 mkI GS-only
- SC-55 mkI GM-compatible
- SC-55 mkII

It's the first 2 I keep un-skilled-ly (sp?) swapping around. But I'm assuming both have GS CTF ability. Which maybe they don't? 😮

Most people who investigated the issue years ago probably didn't even know about the differences between non-GM and GM SC-55 units. 😀 As we ourselves are only exploring the details gradually.

I wasn't able to find any mention of manually sending GM resets on a GM SC-55 in the respective manual. Since it has the GM logo naturally it should accept GM resets as such, but as I don't have the module I can't test it out and therefore can't say if it supports CTF or not. Fortunately with your patches the significance of this isn't really there anymore, as I recently tried Xeen on my SC-88 and it played just fine 😀

tikalat wrote:

GM mode = no bank controller ==> always plays variation tones.

...capital tones? 😉

To put the confusion to rest, here are the images of the respective SC-55 models (not mkII):
http://medias.audiofanzine.com/images/normal/ … sc-55-15449.jpg
http://media.soundonsound.com/sos/jan05/image … and21sc55.l.jpg
http://analogrelics.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/sc-55-1.jpg

as you see, only the last one has a GM logo and that is what we are talking about. For the first two so far it is said that the difference is only cosmetical.

I was going to ninja-edit that. But you beat me! 😊 🤣

edit:
Thanks for clarifying.

edit2:
Many Thank you for the pictures. That helps!

Here's Descent II - Game03.mid from here:
http://www.planetdescent.net/index.php?action … tpmod;dl=item56

1:05 is where Breath Noise vs Fl. Keyclick fight happens. Note stereo pan effect.

keyclick definitely sounds way better for me in "Descent II - Game03.mid" , breath noise is obviously not calibrated for that part... the difference is night and day 😲

ps. my SC-55 is the one with the GS logo on it, nothing else (no "standard" or GM , like the one on the 1st picture that d1stortion posted), if you think I can aid somewhere just tell me what tests to run

No tests to run for this one, we know the specifics of that model for now. The (a bit unimportant, but I'm always curious about this stuff 😀) question for me is whether the SC-55 from the 3rd pic does support CTF or not.

http://www.rinkworks.com/apogee/s/2.8.14.1.shtml

Lee Jackson wrote:

One night, after a long session listening to these CDs, I sat down at my home computer, fired up Cakewalk and my Roland RAP-10, and tried working on a piece that incorporated some of the things I'd learned from these songs.

Lee Jackson wrote:

I knew that George wouldn't let me change the MIDI file of Grabbag within the game, especially since it used Roland's GS extensions, which the game's MIDI engine couldn't support.

http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/board.pl?act … info&user=22417

Lee Jackson wrote:

I know I only had a Roland RAP-10 when I wrote Grabbag, but I don't think that would cut it for writing music in this century.

So RAP-10 is what Lee Jackson used, while Bobby Prince presumably used a non-GM SC-55. This could be the explanation why only Bobby Prince tracks have GS resets.

Still, even though he says the engine "doesn't support GS" we have lots of (pseudo-)GS percussion usage in this game, plus ALFREDH (by Lee Jackson) has SynStrings3...? 😉

More trivia: he wound up selling the sound cards he was using for the Grabbag recording...

Any progress on patching the Fl. Key Click instead of Breath Noise?
It became more interesting to me since a non-GM sc-55 I have now has the Breath Noise instead of Fl. Key Click... :\

Wouldn't there be a Fl. Key Click/Breath Noise issue for any DOS game Robert Prince composed music for and supported General MIDI devices? This includes DOOM (inc. Ultimate DOOM), DOOM 2, Duke Nukem 3D (inc. Atomic Edition), Rise of the Triad, Raptor : Call of the Shadows, Pickle Wars, Zorro, Realms of Chaos.

@keropi
Sorry - been away a long time and not following up with PMs, board messages. Incredible amount of busy work, projects.

I think I had Descent I+II hacked up awhile ago but not tested at all - could be crash-worthy. Will try to get on this soon'ish. Or just release and have someone else test. 😉

@d1stortion
Awesome find detective!!!

@Great Hierophant
Purportedly you would be correct. Was going to check Raptor + Doom I + II but some high important stuff got in my way (and still is torturing me).

I think Duke Nukem 3D (+ Atomic) is cleared of Click / Noise problems.

@tikalat
no worries my friend, it was a genuine question out of pure curiosity , hope your other projects/work go well!
Whenever you get back on this we'll be here 😀

So far I've checked
- Blood = probably Breath Noise (note held on for some time; it's just 1 use near the start)
- Duke Nukem 3D / Atomic = should be fixed
- Hi-Octane = no
- Hocus Pocus = no
- Rise of the Triad = no
- Shadow Warrior = no

Going to work on Doom MUS analysis tool.

I'm not sure if anoyone else posted this, but in the goodies\midi subdirectory of my Duke Nukem 3D CD (v1.3), all the MIDI tracks are available in MID format. A text file accompanying the midi files tells you whether Lee Jackson or Robert Prince composed the track. When playing Prince's tracks on a MIDI module with an LCD screen, this text <Music Copr. 1995 Robt. Prince> will scroll across the LCD when first playing one of his midi files. Pretty neat!

^ nice, thanks for the tip, just checked ... I had downloaded the midi soundtrack and I thought that some songs sounded weird... time to cross-check 😀

bah, same !(@#&^$ , Gotham.mid sounds like it's pausing/skipping or something, does it play OK in your setup GH?

So that's where these mirsoft MIDIs came from... they are on my Atomic Edition disc as well. They sound different (wrong) compared to the actual game driver anyway. Was already discussed in one of the driver hacking threads.

^ ah, thanks for that! and I was beginning to think that I was imagining things... they do state this at the readme:

All MIDI files in the game use the Apogee/3D Realms EMIDI format, designed
by Jim Dose' and Lee Jackson.

I wonder if there is a way to get more accurate versions?