the dreamblaster replaces the 4mb sample rom on the awe32 with its own basically. its for midi music. it changes the instrument samples from e-mu samples to whoever dream sourced the rom from. it has 8mb inside it. is it worth the leap? thats up to you. will it sound amazingly better? a tiny bit. its just variations of the same thing.

its only useful for midi.

I use a SB32 (lower cost AWE32) with both the S2 and the X2. Since the SB32 doesn't have the wavetable connector, I use a Phil&Chill adapter and attach them to the external MIDI/joystick port.
You use them with anything that can use a MPU-401 port. Many DOS games do, listed as either MPU-401, Roland, LAPC-1 or similar. They are useful for playing MIDI music, either in games or other applications. They will not do sound effects, digitized sounds like speech etc. The X2 sounds much much better than the S2, and the price difference shows that.

BloodyCactus wrote on 2024-09-18, 16:35:

the dreamblaster replaces the 4mb sample rom on the awe32 with its own basically. its for midi music. it changes the instrument samples from e-mu samples to whoever dream sourced the rom from. it has 8mb inside it. is it worth the leap? thats up to you. will it sound amazingly better? a tiny bit. its just variations of the same thing.

its only useful for midi.

Thank you, that's exactly what I needed to know. I'm not a hard core audiophile (actually I'm starting to lose some of my hearing) so if it doesn't make a huge difference in games then it's not worth it to me.

stamasd wrote on 2024-09-18, 16:42:

I use a SB32 (lower cost AWE32) with both the S2 and the X2. Since the SB32 doesn't have the wavetable connector, I use a Phil&Chill adapter and attach them to the external MIDI/joystick port.
You use them with anything that can use a MPU-401 port. Many DOS games do, listed as either MPU-401, Roland, LAPC-1 or similar. They are useful for playing MIDI music, either in games or other applications. They will not do sound effects, digitized sounds like speech etc. The X2 sounds much much better than the S2, and the price difference shows that.

I have an MT-32 hooked up to my AWE32. Will the DreamBlaster compliment that or is it redundant?

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-18, 16:49:

I have an MT-32 hooked up to my AWE32. Will the DreamBlaster compliment that or is it redundant?

If you install a DreamBlaster on the AWE32, any MIDI music sent to "MPU-401 @ 330h" or however the application calls it will be sent both to the DreamBlaster and the MT32. You can turn off the MT32 in case you want to hear music from the DreamBlaster, and you can use a mixer utility to turn down the "music" volume to 0 if you want to hear MT32 music, but this might get tedious.

Regarding synthesis capabilities, the MT-32 and the DreamBlaster will complement each other. The MT-32 is an early MIDI synthesizer that comes with a set of 128 pre-programmed instruments, and can be reconfigured using MT-32 specific configuration commands ("SysEx messages") to sound completely different than the pre-programmed instruments. The custom sounds generated by the MT-32 can not be generated by any other synthesizer, as the way of configuration is very specific to the MT32. Any application that uses MT-32 custom sounds will not sound good on any other kind of MIDI synthesizer. Games around 1989 to 1992 often include MT-32 music, and some of those games also use the capability of generating custom sounds for sound effects.

Later, the "General MIDI" standard was introduced. It codifies the association of the 128 "program numbers" of MIDI to the kind of instrument that is to be emulated. Most games starting at 1994 will assume that the synthesizer interprets the instrument numbers according to this standard. The DreamBlaster conforms to the General MIDI assignment. A program that assumes a "General MIDI" capable synthesizer will sound wrong on the MT-32. You might be able to re-program the MT-32 to comply to the general MIDI standard by configuring custom instruments in spirit of the General MIDI assignment, but I don't know whether this is "easier said than done". Many General MIDI capable synthesizers can be put into an "MT-32 emulation mode". That mode does not contain the capability of reconfiguration, and any application that sends MT-32 commands assuming that there is a configurable MT-32 connected will sound very wrong on a General MIDI synthesizer, even in MT-32 emulation mode.

With both MT-32 and General MIDI covered, you would have a good (not perfect!) way of playing music in any kind of DOS games. There are some limits of different General MIDI synthesizers, for example regarding how many sounds can be played at the same time, and whether some extension variants of instruments are implemented (like a "Ukulele" as variant of "Guitar"), and some MIDI files sound better on synthesizers that support the extension "GS" by Roland or "XG" by Yamaha, but this is a completely different can of worms that should not be opened in this thread.

Good writeup. Frankly, better than the combo MT-32 and wavetable, I prefer a MT32-Pi. It offers the best of both worlds at the press of a button: MT-32 emulation (with switchable ROMs) and soundfont synthesis through Fluidsynth, with switchable soundfonts. And depending on the soundfonts you load it with, it can sound better than any wavetable addon card. Plus the cost is far less than a combo MT-32 plus good wavetable card.

Shame there isn't an easy way to turn off the Dreamblaster music when you want MT-32 music. Is this done through the command line using a utility? If so then I guess I could make a batch file to do it.

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-18, 17:59:

Shame there isn't an easy way to turn off the Dreamblaster music when you want MT-32 music. Is this done through the command line using a utility? If so then I guess I could make a batch file to do it.

You can solve this by having 2 sound cards in the system, with the MPU-401 address set to different values.
The internal wavetable header and the external MIDI port are essentially hardwired together, you cannot turn one off and leave the other on on the same card.
I use 2 sound cards in my system: the SB32, with 32MB (28MB usable) of soundfont RAM, which I use for SB and AWE32 sounds and has its MPU-401 set to 0x300; and a PicoGus which I use mostly in AdLib mode, has its emulated MPU401 set to 0x330 and used with either a wavetable attached internally or with an external MT32-Pi. Depending on which MPU401 I use I get MIDI sound either from the AWE, or from the device attached to the PicoGus.

Also, with the PicoGUS you can attach both an internal wavetable and an external sound module at the same time, and you select the sound you want by attaching the speakers either to the PGus' sound output, which gets you what the wavetable generates, or to the external module directly which gets you what the module generates.

Can you write a batch file that turns the mixer 'music' volume to 0? So when I want MT-32 only music I can just run MT32.Bat or something like that?

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-18, 22:15:

Can you write a batch file that turns the mixer 'music' volume to 0? So when I want MT-32 only music I can just run MT32.Bat or something like that?

No need to play with mixer with stamasd's solution. If you've selected the right MPU port, only one MIDI device will play...

But if you meant while connecting both MIDI devices on a single card, you can't; it's seen as single "output" (at least on every Sound Blaster that I know).

Again, you can't control the 2 MIDI outputs of the same card (wavetable and midi/joystick) separately. They are connected in parallel in the hardware. Whatever outputs on one will at the same time output on the other, and there is nothing that any software can do about it. To have 2 separate midi outputs from the same computer, you need 2 separate sound cards. There's no way around it.
If you have a wavetable card connected to the header and a MT32 connected to the external port on the same card, both will receive the same midi data at the same time. It's how the hardware was designed.

stamasd wrote on 2024-09-19, 00:55:

Again, you can't control the 2 MIDI outputs of the same card (wavetable and midi/joystick) separately. They are connected in parallel in the hardware. Whatever outputs on one will at the same time output on the other, and there is nothing that any software can do about it. To have 2 separate midi outputs from the same computer, you need 2 separate sound cards. There's no way around it.
If you have a wavetable card connected to the header and a MT32 connected to the external port on the same card, both will receive the same midi data at the same time. It's how the hardware was designed.

Right and you said I could just mute one (or turn off one in the case of the MT-32) so they don't clash with each other. That's why I was asking if the mixer control for the wavetable add-on was a simple command line thing that could be put into a batch file.

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-18, 17:59:

Shame there isn't an easy way to turn off the Dreamblaster music when you want MT-32 music. Is this done through the command line using a utility? If so then I guess I could make a batch file to do it.

You can use the utility "MIXERSET" which is part of the Creative Labs DOS utilities for SoundBlaster cards. Run "MIXERSET /MI:0" to mute MIDI. This will mute the DreamBlaster (if installed), the OPL3 FM synthesizer and the AWE wavetable synthesizer at the same time, but I'd guess that any program you want to run with MT-32 music/sfx will not use OPL3 FM music or AWE32 music. You can not control the volume of the three MIDI sources independently on the AWE32 mixer chip.

mkarcher wrote on 2024-09-19, 16:22:

You can use the utility "MIXERSET" which is part of the Creative Labs DOS utilities for SoundBlaster cards. Run "MIXERSET /MI:0" to mute MIDI. This will mute the DreamBlaster (if installed), the OPL3 FM synthesizer and the AWE wavetable synthesizer at the same time, but I'd guess that any program you want to run with MT-32 music/sfx will not use OPL3 FM music or AWE32 music. You can not control the volume of the three MIDI sources independently on the AWE32 mixer chip.

That will work well enough for me. Like you said, MT-32 games aren't going to ue the OPL3, DB, or AWE32 wavetable anyway

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-19, 15:21:

stamasd wrote on 2024-09-19, 00:55:

Again, you can't control the 2 MIDI outputs of the same card (wavetable and midi/joystick) separately. They are connected in parallel in the hardware. Whatever outputs on one will at the same time output on the other, and there is nothing that any software can do about it. To have 2 separate midi outputs from the same computer, you need 2 separate sound cards. There's no way around it.
If you have a wavetable card connected to the header and a MT32 connected to the external port on the same card, both will receive the same midi data at the same time. It's how the hardware was designed.

Right and you said I could just mute one (or turn off one in the case of the MT-32) so they don't clash with each other. That's why I was asking if the mixer control for the wavetable add-on was a simple command line thing that could be put into a batch file.

I did not say that, in fact I said the exact opposite. You CAN'T mute just one.
You can turn the external MT-32 off yes. But you can't turn off the wavetable card unless you power off the computer and disconnect it from the header.
If you mute the MIDI, it will mute both devices simultaneously. Unless they are attached to different sound cards with different MPU-401 addresses, in which case you can mute them individually by muting the MIDI on one sound card or the other.

stamasd wrote on 2024-09-19, 17:37:

I did not say that, in fact I said the exact opposite. You CAN'T mute just one. You can turn the external MT-32 off yes. But you […]
Show full quote

Tempest wrote on 2024-09-19, 15:21:

Right and you said I could just mute one (or turn off one in the case of the MT-32) so they don't clash with each other. That's why I was asking if the mixer control for the wavetable add-on was a simple command line thing that could be put into a batch file.

I did not say that, in fact I said the exact opposite. You CAN'T mute just one.
You can turn the external MT-32 off yes. But you can't turn off the wavetable card unless you power off the computer and disconnect it from the header.
If you mute the MIDI, it will mute both devices simultaneously. Unless they are attached to different sound cards with different MPU-401 addresses, in which case you can mute them individually by muting the MIDI on one sound card or the other.

It was me who said you can mute the DreamBlaster. You are right you can not prevent all MIDI data to get to both the DreamBlaster and the MT32. If you tried to mute MIDI by interrupting the MIDI stream, both synthesizers would stop working. But the key point is: The output of the DreamBlaster is connected to two pins (L+R) on the wavetable header, and you can mute those pins, so the output of the DreamBlaster is not sent to the output of the sound card. Well, you can't mute the DreamBlaster in isolation, because the OPL3 output and the EMU8K output will be sent through the same mixer channel of the SB AWE32. Nevertheless, muting the "music" section of the sound card, while muting the DreamBlaster, will not affect sound produced by the MT-32, so you can mute the DreamBlaster without muting the MT32 - even if the MT32 is connected to Line In on the AWE32: Line In and "music" are different mixer channels.

For simple setups involving either the mentioned WaveBlaster + External MIDI scenario, or a MIDI-and-audio-chained SC-55 and MT-32 pairing, or a single CM-500 (in Mode A), I'd suggest just disabling the relevant device's MIDI part reception via SysEx.

There are several ways to go about this. I've written and use a pair of COM files and simply include the appropriate one in a game's batch file for completely hands-off device "switching." These weren't really meant for anyone but myself, but feel free to see if they'll suit your needs. The DreamBlaster S2 supports the GS SysEx involved and will respond appropriately.

Note that if your MPU device is configured with a base address other than 0x330, the second byte of each COM file will need to be manually changed to reflect the correct port (e.g. 01h: 30 03 -> 00 03 for 0x300).

Cloudschatze wrote on 2024-09-20, 02:04:

For simple setups involving either the mentioned WaveBlaster + External MIDI scenario, or a MIDI-and-audio-chained SC-55 and MT-32 pairing, or a single CM-500 (in Mode A), I'd suggest just disabling the relevant device's MIDI part reception via SysEx.

There are several ways to go about this. I've written and use a pair of COM files and simply include the appropriate one in a game's batch file for completely hands-off device "switching." These weren't really meant for anyone but myself, but feel free to see if they'll suit your needs. The DreamBlaster S2 supports the GS SysEx involved and will respond appropriately.

Note that if your MPU device is configured with a base address other than 0x330, the second byte of each COM file will need to be manually changed to reflect the correct port (e.g. 01h: 30 03 -> 00 03 for 0x300).

Thank you, I'll give those a try.

I've re-uploaded the zip file, yet again, after making a couple of changes to account for some additional MPU conditions/behaviors.

I've also now tested against an SB16 having both a DreamBlaster S2 installed on the WaveBlaster header and an MT-32 attached externally.