When I used a SC-55 through the joystick port I don't remember changing anything. Would have been all default settings. But it's been a long time and I use the MPU401 AT for all my MIDI gear.

philscomputerlab wrote:

When I used a SC-55 through the joystick port I don't remember changing anything. Would have been all default settings. But it's been a long time and I use the MPU401 AT for all my MIDI gear.

Yeah, I would've thought The SYNTH would need to be changed to 2 and the MODE to 1 for that particular setup. Did you use SoftMPU with that setup?

Yes I did. Just for testing and producing a how-to video.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Yes I did. Just for testing and producing a how-to video.

Ok no worries. How do you find SoftMPU compared to using your MPU-401/AT?

Fine but it is a bit slow on a 386 equivalent machine. But worked great otherwise 😀

IIRC this variable used only by 1 program from the SB16 drivers package. And it is ignored by all others programs.

Gamecollector wrote:

IIRC this variable used only by 1 program from the SB16 drivers package. And it is ignored by all others programs.

If this were the case, why does creative put it in the manual as a variable that should be used when using midi devices? I usually have it in my AUTOEXEC.BAT each time anyway but I do seem to recall using my AWE32 with a DB50XG attached without the variable. I could be wrong though as that was a while back.

Most likely because Creative's own MIDI driver looks for that environment variable (but assumes defaults otherwise), and is, in-turn, used by their "Play" utility. If you don't use this utility though, specifying the MIDI variable is entirely optional, and I'd suggest freeing the environment space by omitting that line entirely.

Assuming you do use the Play utility though:

"SYNTH" specifies the playback target. Regarding the use of "SYNTH:1," I believe (but need to verify) that when a host features both FM and AWE synthesis, the internal destination is based on the presence/lack of an Exxx parameter in the SET BLASTER line.

SYNTH:1 (Internal FM or AWE synth)
SYNTH:2 (External MIDI port / WaveBlaster header)

The "MAP" designation more-or-less specifies which MIDI channels will sound. Some MIDI files contain both Basic (13-16) and Extended (1-10) arrangements, for which you wouldn't want all channels to play concurrently. If you know you're only dealing with General MIDI files, I'd set this to "G".

MAP:G (General MIDI, 1-16)
MAP:E (Extended MIDI, 1-10)
MAP:B (Basic MIDI, 13-16)

"MODE" is an AWE/SB32-specific addition, and is used to specify the respective SBK file that will be loaded for MIDI playback.

MODE:0 - GM (SYNTHGM.SBK)
MODE:1 - GS (SYNTHGS.SBK)
MODE:2 - MT-32 (SYNTHMT.SBK)

So, for example, if you have an AWE-based card, and want to play a GS MIDI file via the EMU8000 synth, you'd want to specify
SET MIDI=SYNTH:1 MAP:G MODE:1. Note that the "AWEUTIL /EM:xx" emulation does not need to be loaded when using the Play utility in this manner.

Awesome! Thanks heaps for clearing that up for me Cloudschatze 😀

Just 2 more questions for you though regarding the MAP designation. How would you tell if a midi file uses basic/general/extended midi? Can you give me an example of each?

Actually, 1 more question. So you're saying that when it comes to the MODE designation, selecting 0 would automatically load the SYNTHGM.SBK sound bank which would enable general midi to be selected within a games sound setup without having to load the sound bank using the AWEUTIL /EM:GM command? Or does this only apply to the PLAY utility?

borgie83 wrote:

Just 2 more questions for you though regarding the MAP designation. How would you tell if a midi file uses basic/general/extended midi? Can you give me an example of each?

The Basic/Extended concept was some wacky MPC idea, where "Basic" compliance might correspond to an OPL2-based synthesizer (using a GM voice set), and "Extended" compliance might correspond to an MT-32 (using a GM timbre set), or even an actual General MIDI compatible device. Other than the specific channel designations, I'm not aware of any particular identifier for whether a Standard MIDI File was authored in Basic/Extended format. MPC-compliance simply required an arrangement to be available in both formats, but not necessarily within the same MIDI file, so it's really only the cases where the two were combined that might cause trouble, which seems like it would be audibly cacophonous besides.

Actually, 1 more question. So you're saying that when it comes to the MODE designation, selecting 0 would automatically load the SYNTHGM.SBK sound bank which would enable general midi to be selected within a games sound setup without having to load the sound bank using the AWEUTIL /EM:GM command? Or does this only apply to the PLAY utility?

This just relates to the Play utility. Using the example variable string that I'd mentioned, you can correctly "Play" the SFX.MID demonstration tune with an AWE-based card, for whatever that's worth. 😀

Well I'm glad I understand the variable fully now so thanks again. From the looks of things though, the variable is pretty much useless for normal use. Might just leave it in there though as it doesn't use up any precious dos memory.