Oh OK! What technical term or phrase is used to describe the 2 MIDI ports area on the back of the Roland MPU-401AT card, and also the MIDI/joystick port on the back of Soundblaster cards? I wondered whether this area on these cards has something to do with things like "intelligent mode". Thanks.

Depends how technical you want to be 🤣

The MPU401 Owner's manuel refers to them as "Minicircular Connectors". In a document called "Knowing your Sound Blaster 16" Creatives calls it Joystick / Midi Connector.

MPU stands for Midi Processing Unit which can be in UART mode (SB16s and so on) or INTELLIGENT mode (Roland MPU401AT and others). Think of MPU401 as the "circuitry" behind the Midi connector...

INTELLIGENT mode had more "logic" so to speak and was useful for XT (slow) computers. Wasn't needed with fast machines anymore, but some games still won't load up without it.

You will find that most MT-32 games will work just fine with a MPU401 UART...

OK thanks. The area of confusion for me is that the joystick port on cards such as Soundblasters and clones is used to route MIDI data out of the card, and in to an external MIDI synth box. And so, the joystick port has nothing to do with "MPU 401". Also, the 2 MIDI ports on the back of the Roland MPU-401AT card has nothing to do with "MPU 401". Another lesson learnt. 😉 😀

The only difference is really the shape of the connectors on the soundcard.

Here my illustration of connecting:

- Roland MPU401AT clone to MT-32
- Sound card to MT-32
- USB to MT-32 for DOSBox

However there is one last peace to this puzzle. Before the MPU401AT, Roland sold you a ISA card + external break out box. These are quite old and don't work well with newer computers. Hence the AT for AT computer.

My MPU401AT clone card makes a point about this speed issue on the box...

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/3154/dsc01693m.jpg

@Swaaye
It wasn't easy but all midi recordings are fine now,
Did everything over again for all three DBs, and now included the Lufia song too.
http://rapidshare.com/files/436972686/Midi_re … ngs_GB_try2.zip

Somehow there was clipping at a certain stage, and I could only fix it by putting resistors between the DB output and the soundcard input, as to lower the signal strength.....

gerwin wrote:

Did everything over again for all three DBs, and now included the Lufia song too.
http://rapidshare.com/files/436972686/Midi_re … ngs_GB_try2.zip

It was worth downloading this .zip file, just to watch this guy. 😉 Seriously though, the GSWave recordings sounded really good.

@gerwin:

you have some mp3's named Lufia... did this rpg saw a DOS release or something??

retro games 100 wrote:

gerwin wrote:

Did everything over again for all three DBs, and now included the Lufia song too.
http://rapidshare.com/files/436972686/Midi_re … ngs_GB_try2.zip

It was worth downloading this .zip file, just to watch this guy. 😉 Seriously though, the GSWave recordings sounded really good.

Glad you enjoyed both of it. 😀
Me I like the GSWave too, and use it often. The sound is well balanced, but with a little more punch then the Sound Canvas.

retro games 100 wrote:

you have some mp3's named Lufia... did this rpg saw a DOS release or something??

No idea, just I noticed Elianda's recordings included this song, and I kinda liked it for comparing it with the other songs.

retro games 100 wrote:

It was worth downloading this .zip file, just to watch this guy.

What about this one 🤣

PS: I like the sound of the DREAM. Sounds great!

The TB disappoints a little. Sounds held back / damp. The Korg sits in the middle.

EDIT: Read this

4MB ROM that was ripped of the SoundCanvas, and caused them a lawsuit.

. Now it makes sense why the DREAM sounds good 🤣

gerwin wrote:

retro games 100 wrote:

you have some mp3's named Lufia... did this rpg saw a DOS release or something??

No idea, just I noticed Elianda's recordings included this song, and I kinda liked it for comparing it with the other songs.

I must admit, I got this Lufia Midi file somewhere from the internets. I really can not remember when and where I found it. In fact I also don't know this game and just took it because it sounded quite nice. Maybe someone that knows can tell if it is some kind of remake or resembles the original games soundtrack.

Anyway, I think I uploaded the source Midis to Swaaye too, but they seem to have vanished (in his mess 😉 ). I will make it available (once I am back home), so you can hear some comparison from other soundcards to the original file.
You might as well add recordings of it for completeness of Swaayes site.

PS: I like the sound of the DREAM. Sounds great!

There is a quite extensive thread about Dream based cards here:
SC8500 sound card - what does it do?

There was also some thread about the EWS64XL (mute bug solution), though I can't find it atm. Someone has this bookmarked?
(EWS64 is also based on the Dream DSP)

Just in case someone doesn't know. You can record MIDI files with DOSBox.

Just press CTRL+ALT+F8 and then launch the Game.

If the Game sends Sysex (MT-32) it's important that you start capturing before you launch the game. So you start the recording, start the game, load the savegame and then record whatever you want to record 😀

If you are good with a MIDI editor you can then crop the file, but you need to be careful to keep all the Sysex and Patch changes and whatnot intact. It's quite a bit of work. General MIDI should be a lot easier...

Lufia appears to be only an SNES/GBC/GBA(/NDS?) series, so the MIDI is most likely a remix that someone composed (I haven't listened myself though).

Mau: What MIDI editor(s) do you use?

You mean what MIDI editor did I give up using 🤣

I had the most success with Sonar 8 I believe. It was a trial version. MT-32 MIDI dumps are a pain.

The experts use a DOS MIDI program and capture the MIDI data with a 2nd machine, not though DOSBox.

Haven't tested this yet. It sounds like which craft / an art / skill that isn't taught anymore 🤣

I've been using Cakewalk Music Creator on and off, which is similar to the Sonar series. I think both programs have an event view mode that makes it easier to crop MIDI data.

I'd like to hear of a free tool that can do this. I haven't played with any of the open-source MIDI sequencers that are available now, even though I know there are a few.

yeah, Lufia is a nice nintendo-console based rpg.... so it is just a .mid 🤣 ...one can hope 🤣
thanks

If I can figure out how to record it, I have a Yamaha YMF-724 PCI working under linux using the OPL3 synth as a midi device. 😁

@gerwin
I'll upload them to my site.

A lot of info has been exchanged in this thread regarding ESS AudioDrive cards, so I dare ask a question too 😀:

I have this card - http://stason.org/TULARC/pc/sound-cards-multi … ZAPPER-PRO.html - that I'm trying to set up on a 386 board. I guess the card is not PnP (and I'm pretty sure the mainboard isn't PnP either 😀), and ESSCFG.EXE says it can't find a 688, 1688 or 1788 chip - given these, is a "SET BLASTER=..." line enough (with parameters matching the jumper settings), or do I need some driver to make it work in pure 6.22 DOS?

If it's not PNP it should work without any drivers or TSRs. Just like a SBPro.

That card has configuration jumpers for the hardware resources so it's not PNP.

Just found this neat site, containing a neat OPL3 emulator Java applet.

http://opl3.cozendey.com/