there is no "best" imho, it's all personal preference.

but the music was originally composed on a Roland SC-55, so if you want to listen to the originally intended music that would be your choice.

Yes thats why Sound Canvas SC-55 mode sounds the most closer to me as how it should.

Btw im not agree at 100% with "there is no "best" imho, it's all personal preference", i mean AdLib is not going to give you the same quality as Sound Canvas SC-55, so if we are objetcives, SC-55 is better than AdLib, other things is, if you like it or not from your subjective point of view.

So i ask from an objective pov 😀

Thank you very much for your reply.

Axel Moore wrote on 2021-04-08, 01:54:

i mean AdLib is not going to give you the same quality as Sound Canvas SC-55, so if we are objetcives, SC-55 is better than AdLib, other things is, if you like it or not from your subjective point of view.

it is not the same quality, yes, it is a different quality, that wholly depends on what you mean by "best" do you mean highest bitrate? highest fidelity? something that is measurable? not everything can be objectively quantified as being better than the other without there being clear guidelines as to "best in what?"

in the end, audio stays a very subjective thing though. some people might have a lot more nostalgia for how something sounds with FM synthesis for example, even if it objectively has a much lower fidelity.

so the question remains, what do you mean by best?

the most accurate to the original composition? that would be a SC-55 as that was what the music was made on.

the absolute highest fidelity and "sound quality"... probably some multi thousand-$ sampler/rompler or high end samples on a computer.... or rather even an orchestra playing the song with real instrument recorded by the best microphones... you see where I'm going with this? ^^

"best" is not so easily defined when talking about a subjective thing like audio.

for me best is what makes most fun to listen to, that could be a specific MIDI module for one game, FM for another, or even just PC speaker sound.

Hahaha im totally agree with you, i forgot to specify what i mean with the best, and thats the basic thing to have an objetive answer to my question.

Best for me would be, the most closer to the original sound adding improvements that doesnt kills the essence of the original sound via software.

For example in the video i posted before, im running MT-32 and Sound Canvs SC-55 at same time and some VSTi pluggins. With that "combo" i have the best results atm from what i understand as "the best".

I get you ^^
I've dabbled in mixing multiple sound modules together, and sometimes they do indeed complement each other nicely, filling out instruments that might be weaker on one or the other, I also use a spectral enhancer to make it... well... sound better ^^ (subjectively)
I do all this in hardware though.

I can't give specific advice to doom though as I haven't played around with that enough yet.

Yes, that is, the second module (in this case mt-32) adds the deep/enveloping in Doom and other GM games. Would be nice to have a thread showing examples about how far an old game could go mixing modules and effects from software and hardware.

Thanks for the info, would be amazing to heard your results.

i disagree there's always a "most optimal" if we define best as most optimal. However there are several ways to get there, so best for the person might just mean easiest way for them to achieve the most optimal performance or in this case sound, or something that is close enough that its in distinguishable by the average person to be the "best"

As example to get SC55, you might use a real SC55, Munt, Audigy 2 ZS with a SC55 sound font, Maybe a Dreamblaster. etc To the average person these all might sound the same, and could all be defined as most optimal.

I mix the yamaha mu80 emulator with scva using multiple instances of fsmp on the same pc and it sounds great, after balancing the volume between them. That being said i think the Korg is best for games.

Get a professional band of virtuoso musicians + a skilled producer + high quality equipment.

Have the band from a ring around you, in the middle of an acoustically perfect space.

As you complete each level, the band moves on to the next track.

Then, an outer ring of rednecks holding a variety of guns...

Warlord wrote on 2021-04-08, 03:53:

i disagree there's always a "most optimal" if we define best as most optimal. However there are several ways to get there, so best for the person might just mean easiest way for them to achieve the most optimal performance or in this case sound, or something that is close enough that its in distinguishable by the average person to be the "best"

As example to get SC55, you might use a real SC55, Munt, Audigy 2 ZS with a SC55 sound font, Maybe a Dreamblaster. etc To the average person these all might sound the same, and could all be defined as most optimal.

I think i explained what is "best" for me, and i ask for this in this thread. When you talk about "best for a person" or "average person" thats something that cant be count as real, bc we dont have real data to prove that afirmation, is only an idea based in your perception of the reality, but doesnt means that is true. I dont wanna sound rude, is not my intention. I only wanna go somewhere.

For example, based in my definition of "best" i would like to know if someone can achieve better results than me, using only software, bc i wanna know if i missing something that could give me better results.

Thanks for your reply.

Shreddoc wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:22:

Get a professional band of virtuoso musicians + a skilled producer + high quality equipment. […]
Show full quote

Get a professional band of virtuoso musicians + a skilled producer + high quality equipment.

Have the band from a ring around you, in the middle of an acoustically perfect space.

As you complete each level, the band moves on to the next track.

Then, an outer ring of rednecks holding a variety of guns...

This kind of reply was necessary? Is my first day in the forum, i offended you in some way to get this reply?

kolderman wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:13:

I mix the yamaha mu80 emulator with scva using multiple instances of fsmp on the same pc and it sounds great, after balancing the volume between them. That being said i think the Korg is best for games.

Thank you very much for this reply! Could you share some video/audio showing your results? Im going to search this mu80 emu, thanks again 😀

Axel Moore wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:28:

kolderman wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:13:

I mix the yamaha mu80 emulator with scva using multiple instances of fsmp on the same pc and it sounds great, after balancing the volume between them. That being said i think the Korg is best for games.

Thank you very much for this reply! Could you share some video/audio showing your results? Im going to search this mu80 emu, thanks again 😀

Maybe over the weekend. And I meant the Korg is best for DOOM, not all games.

Axel Moore wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:24:

I think i explained what is "best" for me, and i ask for this in this thread. When you talk about "best for a person" or "average person" thats something that cant be count as real, bc we dont have real data to prove that afirmation, is only an idea based in your perception of the reality, but doesnt means that is true. I dont wanna sound rude, is not my intention. I only wanna go somewhere.

The Nyquist frequency is very real, and there is plenty of data to back up that the the maximum frequency the average person can hear tops out at around 20 kHz. I don't mean to sound rude or to call you and average person, but in principle the average person cannot tell the difference between a SC-55 and for example the Microsoft GS sound font in windows XP. 🤣 In fact the sound font actually might sound better than a SC-55 if you have a high fidelity sound card driving it with high quality DACs.

Warlord wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:43:

Axel Moore wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:24:

I think i explained what is "best" for me, and i ask for this in this thread. When you talk about "best for a person" or "average person" thats something that cant be count as real, bc we dont have real data to prove that afirmation, is only an idea based in your perception of the reality, but doesnt means that is true. I dont wanna sound rude, is not my intention. I only wanna go somewhere.

The Nyquist frequency is very real, and there is plenty of data to back up that the the maximum frequency the average person can hear tops out at around 20 kHz. I don't mean to sound rude or to call you and average person, but in principle the average person cannot tell the difference between a SC-55 and for example the Microsoft GS sound font in windows XP. 🤣 In fact the sound font actually might sound better than a SC-55 if you have a high fidelity sound card driving it with high quality DACs.

I were testing about 100 soundfonts and none of them cant achieve the quality of SC-55, may be is bc my setup. Im using a old sound blaster x-fi elite pro + yamaha-rx-v659 5.1 connected with spdif cable.

I must say that best soundfonts in doom, for me, are:

Shadow 1.0.sf2
Timbres Of Heaven GM_GS_XG_SFX V 2.0.2.sf2
Reality_GMGS_falcomod.sf2

But the sound that gives me MT-32 running in GM mode with Sound Canvas SC-55 is miles away .

Axel Moore wrote on 2021-04-08, 05:03:

I were testing about 100 soundfonts and none of them cant achieve the quality of SC-55, may be is bc my setup.

Did you try Patch93's SC-55 soundfont?

Here's how it sounds on my SBLive.

Since doom was composed for general midi you can use an sc-55 imitation font like patch93 and it will sound great. I have experimented with the patch93 sound font a little bit, using Doom tracks to compare to recordings of the real thing, and it sound really good. Spot on.

Personally I use the roland SVA sound plugin with falcosoft. It is great for those few games that actually make proper use of the sound canvas GM modes. Like the MT32 bios for MUNT though, there is no practical way to obtain it, so you might be forced to get creative about how you obtain it.

kolderman wrote on 2021-04-08, 04:13:

I mix the yamaha mu80 emulator with scva using multiple instances of fsmp on the same pc and it sounds great, after balancing the volume between them. That being said i think the Korg is best for games.

Where can i get the m80 emulator? I cant find it 🙁 Thanks!

GUS version has its moments. And Adlib/SB music brings the best nostalgia and is pretty good. Nobody had a SC-55 back in the day, that we started to play DooM.