I only know the DOS enhanced CD like this. Maybe you remembered a different version. The floppy versions use OPL sounds for doors and the Amiga version plays some drum samples.
In the Ultimate Talkie Editions I replaced those low quality sounds with their higher quality counterparts of the SE.

No, it's definitely the exact same CD I used on a Windows 98 and 95. All the other sound effects play correctly as I remember them, it's just the door closing one that is jarringly different.

Well what do you know, there actually was a Windows 98 machine that I could access fairly easily. There was one at the school my mother works in. Long story short, I quickly recorded the same thing but with my phone from the speakers. Despite the obviously poor quality, it sounds more natural and comparing them in Audacity reveals that the sound is cut off far too early in DOSBox. The waveforms are zoomed a bit differently in the image, but get the idea.

Fascinating issue...

I have a a ton of real DOS hardware and happy to test it. But I don't have the CD version unfortunately for testing...

Which version of Dosbox? Can you try a svn build?

The closing sound, which I assume follows the opening sound, is very brief and barely audible in your Win98 recording. Certainly nothing like a "Ta-DUMM"...

Which version of Dosbox? Can you try a svn build?

Sorry that I forgot to mention, but it was a SVN build that I recorded in, r3841 from EmuCR. But the same issue is in 0.74 and Ykhwong's build.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

The closing sound, which I assume follows the opening sound, is very brief and barely audible in your Win98 recording. Certainly nothing like a "Ta-DUMM"...

Yes, it's the second one, and I have to admit that I did indeed somewhat misremember it and described it badly. But it's certainly not like the "pop" either, more like a proper door slam.

The door opening sound is 4500 samples long, but the closing sound is a mere 88 samples long. Can't cram much detail in such a short clip, and the wave cuts off abruptly rather than trailing off. So, the closing effect is understandably a bit pop-ish, and a better quality source clip would undoubtedly sound nicer, but it's not terrible.

I notice that the FM (AdLib/OPL2) sound effect for a closing door is something like "Ta-DUMM". Perhaps that has colored your memory. You can get FM sound effects in the CD version with settings of sbtype=none oplmode=opl2, or run MONKEY.EXE with an "a" parameter.

ripsaw8080 wrote:

The closing sound, which I assume follows the opening sound, is very brief and barely audible in your Win98 recording. Certainly nothing like a "Ta-DUMM"...

Yet, it clearly is indeed longer than I remember it on several machines. That's an odd issue indeed.
I'll try it on my Windows machine and also on ScummVM to see if it is the same. I suspect something's wrong with the game resources which triggers this bug on certain sound hardware. I'll also check, if I can find something wrong with the sound resource itself (since I have some experience on resource juggling from creating the Ultimate Talkie Editions).

ripsaw8080 wrote:

I notice that the FM (AdLib/OPL2) sound effect for a closing door is something like "Ta-DUMM". Perhaps that has colored your memory. You can get FM sound effects in the CD version with settings of sbtype=none oplmode=opl2, or run MONKEY.EXE with an "a" parameter.

Or, more likely, I was somewhat influenced by Monkey Island 2, which uses similar FM effects for doors (despite having a few actual sound samples in other situations) and is included in the same Monkey Island Madness CD.

I checked the multi-language CD on all languages. They're all have the same door close sounds. After this very short SOU resource follows the ADL resource. There is no more sample data in the resources. I even checked the Sega version, which also has the same short sample.
I wonder, is there a different version of the enhanced CD around there? How does your monkey.001 or monkey1.001 look like? Mine (English version) is 4779713 bytes and dated 3rd june 1992, 8:44 pm. md5: d074150de681d49ff350e8ad60ee4abd

Do you have a midi device on mpu401 playing the door sound, or a software wavetable with mpu401 emulation running by any chance? That would be an LAPC-I or CM-32L compatible one, I suppose, since even my SoundCanvas SC-155 does not play a door sound in Monkey Island (but a different sound instead).

Marek wrote:

I checked the multi-language CD on all languages. They're all have the same door close sounds. After this very short SOU resource follows the ADL resource. There is no more sample data in the resources. I even checked the Sega version, which also has the same short sample.
I wonder, is there a different version of the enhanced CD around there? How does your monkey.001 or monkey1.001 look like? Mine (English version) is 4779713 bytes and dated 3rd june 1992, 8:44 pm. md5: d074150de681d49ff350e8ad60ee4abd

My MONKEY.001 is 4 779 713 bytes. Date is the same except the time is ‏‎18:29:32. MD5 is D074150DE681D49FF350E8AD60EE4ABD. I used MD5checker, which used different capitalisation, but otherwise it seems to match.

Some files however are dated from 1997 and 1996, for example MONKEY.EXE and SOUNBLAS.IMS. Pressing Ctrl-V ingame states that it's "CD-ROM version 2.3b".

Marek wrote:

Do you have a midi device on mpu401 playing the door sound, or a software wavetable with mpu401 emulation running by any chance? That would be an LAPC-I or CM-32L compatible one, I suppose, since even my SoundCanvas SC-155 does not play a door sound in Monkey Island (but a different sound instead).

I'll have to arrange another session with the Win98 to check its hardware. It' an OPL2 compatible though, as MI2's AdLib soundtrack worked without a problem. I'll probably also bring by laptop and an AUX cable to do a much cleaner recording.

Laukku wrote:

I'll have to arrange another session with the Win98 to check its hardware. It' an OPL2 compatible though, as MI2's AdLib soundtrack worked without a problem. I'll probably also bring by laptop and an AUX cable to do a much cleaner recording.

While at it, record some other sounds as well like the seagull (in the Scumm Bar), the cable (at Hook), the piranha poodles (at the governor's mansion), the machine (during sword lessons) etc., so we could verify that it actually is a sample from the game resource. Or is it from a wavetable after all?

I've managed to get a cleaner recording from the speakers now.

Finally the answer has been revealed to us.

No longer shall we live in doubt.

Ladies and gentlemen...

*drumroll*

...my phone recording must simply have been bad. The sound must've echoed in the room or something. While the sound does trail off, it's (I think) due to how the hardware works, slowly resetting to zero.

Lesson learned: Be as thorough as possible in the first place, don't rush things. 🤣

Well, I hope at least nobody's time was wasted too much. The way the sound is cut off just seemed incredibly suspicious to me. Maybe the sound hardware I had back then reacted differently, creating a bass tone of some sort after the sound, which would explain my memory...

If the last sample is DC (non-zero), then yes, that would produce a "thump" sound, depending on the size of the DC blocking capacitors on the sound card.

Makes one wonder if this was used as intentional effect, to shave a few bytes off the sound file...

Where exactly can I test this door sound? At what part of the game, hopefully early on without having to play too much 😀

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Where exactly can I test this door sound? At what part of the game, hopefully early on without having to play too much 😀

You can open and close the front door of the SCUMM 😀 BAR right after starting a new game. Early on indeed.

jwt27 wrote:

Makes one wonder if this was used as intentional effect, to shave a few bytes off the sound file...

I wonder why'd they do that in a CD where you have lots of space...

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Where exactly can I test this door sound? At what part of the game, hopefully early on without having to play too much 😀

I always went straight to the shop (where you buy the sword and shovel) so there would be no background noise or music.