Not a chance. DOSBox does not emulate MIDI in which would be required to connect the MIDI keyboard.

radivx wrote:

Hi,
I was wondering if there is some way I could play my MIDI keyboard (as in piano keyboard, not the typewriter thing), and let DosBox output music through the speakers. It will probably need some kind of DOS software, but does it exist?

Think about playing your favorite music tunes with the near perfect soundings of a Roland SC-55 or maybe if possible create a virtual analogue synth out of the OPL chip in the Creative cards? Is this possible at all? If so, could the DosBox team create it?

DoxBox does not do MIDI - it emulates an MPU-401 which talks to MIDI devices. So if you want the Roland SC-55 sound from DosBox you will need to get an SCC-1 ISA adapter (if you have ISA slots), a Sound Blaster (if you have ISA slots) with the wave-blaster header for a Roland SCB-55 daughtercard, a PCI audio adapter with the "wave-blaster" header to attach a Roland SCB-55 daughter card (find on eBay as SCD-15). The software route would be to purchase the Roland Virtual Sound Canvas v3.23 softsynth (around $40) which will give you an very good approximation of all the Roland SC-55 samples. You may then configure DosBox to talk to the MIDI output device of your choice to get the Roland SC-55 sound that you desire from the Roland hardware/software synth that you have installed in your PC workstation.

I am not aware that anyone tried to use the OPL2/OPL3s on the Creative Sound Blaster sound cards to implement a DOS based virtual GM MIDI synth. (That would have been quite a TSR 😳 ) If you could find such a product from the 1990s then DosBox would probably allow it to function. DosBox does do an excellent job of emulating the OPL2 and OPL3 found on the Sound Blaster line of ISA adapters - so if you find an older DOS music application which uses the OPL2/OPL3 FM synthesis as instruments you are in luck...

Hope this helps,

dvwjr

I don't get why you guys are being so adament about being unable to. So what's needed for MIDI input? A physical connection for the MIDI keyboard, a device driver in order to select it as a MIDI device, and DOSBox's MPU401 emulation being complete, ie, able to accept MIDI input, and that the DOS software accepts MIDI input. The DOSBox GUS and FM emulation will play MIDI provided the DOS software supports them as output. If the DOS software also allows selecting seperate MIDI in & out devices, it's concievable one could select MPU401 for input and GUS or FM as output. To use the MPU401 as output, would have to setup a passthrough on the windows side, chaining the keyboard to the MIDI out device or vice versa. If you wanted to use a virtual synth(Windows built in GS synth, open source Timidity, roland/yamaha commercial virtual synths, etc) for MIDI output, you'd need to be able to setup a virtual passthrough(there's utilies that do this, though I find them confusing on how to set them up).

BTW, where are Bobby Prince and other professional musicians discussing DOSBox?

well googeling bobby prince dosbox you get http://www.bpmusic.com/

Shouldn't be hard to add MIDI input, especially not for the UART mode. Is anyone familiar with a good virtual MIDI keyboard (or virtual device that creates MIDI input)?

Regarding applications, I think I can dig Midisoft Session (Win3.1 app) somewhere 😀

I'm also not totally sure if/which applications support getting input from MPU-401 and sending it out at the same time on the same device. Splitting output and input from/to different devices should be possible to support in emulation though.