That sounds pretty good! 😀

Both Dune and Dune II were among the few games that somehow sounded better, more suspenseful and more captivating on an Adlib (or any OPL2-based) sound card than it did on a Roland MT-32. Considering the capabilities of the MT-32 compared to the OPL2 chip that would seem absurd at first glance. But when listening to these games on an MT-32, it would just sound bland, with a lot of "generic" sounding instruments. It simply sounded as if the music for those games was initially composed with an Adlib card and later converted to the MT-32 in a rather lazy fashion. I'm not a composer, but I bet they probably didn't even deviate from the standard instrument set of the MT-32 while converting the music, even though the ability to program custom instruments was the MT-32's strength.

By contrast, most other games that supported the Roland MT-32 would originally be composed with a Roland MT-32, using it much closer to it's full potential, and then converted to Adlib to support game buyers who had Adlib or Sound Blaster cards. But it really seemed that the lesser capabilities of the OPL2 FM chips actually forced composers to make the best possible use of them, even when converting MT-32 music tracks to them. I guess in the case of games such as Dune and Dune II, the people doing the conversion may have been fooled by the assumption that everything would magically sound better on an MT-32 out of the box, without having to put any effort into it, since it was such a superior synthesizer.

All this is speculation on my part, but this would be my guess, based on how I experienced the difference in quality. Of course, having had a Sound Blaster clone in my mid teens when I played this game, the Adlib/OPL2 variant of the game sound tracks may have sounded more nostalgic to me, which could be a factor. But then again, that doesn't explain why the MT-32 sound tracks in Sierra adventures sound so much more impressive to me today, even though I didn't own an MT-32 until years later, when I bought a used one on-line as a collector's item.

That being said, your SC-55 arrangement sounds good. You obviously did put an effort into picking the most appropriate instruments for every part.

digger wrote:

[snip]

Yeah, Dune's usage of the MT-32 is kinda sorta really lazy when compared to what was done with the AdLib. It's the standard instrument set with zero changes which is especially unfit for Dune of all games considering the soundtrack is probably one of the most unique I've heard of any DOS game; lots of very interesting instrumentation in the AdLib version and great use of ethnic sounds & scales, neither of which transfer over well to the stock MT-32 patches.

Thanks! I was impressed at how well it turned out considering it's kind of hacky, especially with the drums just being the melodic tom with a stupidly large pitch bend range and long release (which keeps the tonal part of the drum dwelling on after the initial hit). I chose that tune in specific because it would be the hardest to replicate I think, the rest of them should be quite easy.

SpeedySPCFan wrote:

digger wrote:

[snip]

Yeah, Dune's usage of the MT-32 is kinda sorta really lazy when compared to what was done with the AdLib. It's the standard instrument set with zero changes which is especially unfit for Dune of all games considering the soundtrack is probably one of the most unique I've heard of any DOS game; lots of very interesting instrumentation in the AdLib version and great use of ethnic sounds & scales, neither of which transfer over well to the stock MT-32 patches.

Thanks! I was impressed at how well it turned out considering it's kind of hacky, especially with the drums just being the melodic tom with a stupidly large pitch bend range and long release (which keeps the tonal part of the drum dwelling on after the initial hit). I chose that tune in specific because it would be the hardest to replicate I think, the rest of them should be quite easy.

I'm looking forward to hearing your version of the other musical pieces in the game. 😀

It also makes me wonder what you could do with an MT-32 (or even an MT-32 emulator such as Munt). How well could a remastered MT-32 sound track sound if the appropriate effort was put into programming fitting instruments for it and using it to its full potential? If successful, a fan patch could then be written to patch such a redone high quality MT-32 treatment of the sound track back into the game, replacing the old disappointing MT-32 sound track and finally making the game sound as good as it originally should have sounded on that hardware. Would that sound like an interesting challenge to you? 😉

I'm down for that if someone can prove to me that modding the MIDI data is possible, and if I can find a good MT-32 editor! I'm sure it could sound pretty good with enough delicate programming.