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Finally Decided to get Midi Working in DosBox ECE - MT32 / FluidSynth / TiMidity and more.. so many options?!

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First post, by jynks

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I am interested in getting DosBox to play more complex music. I never had midi as a kid so I'm keen to hear all the old games with midi sound....

In ScummVM I use FATBOY's soundFont and enjoy it and would like to get DosBox running with midi as well.

I was told ages ago to use the DosBox ECE fork as it has a lot of patches and stuff built in and it more "out of the box" experience for someone that is not hugely techy or interested in "exactly like the old days" emulation.

The thing is I am confused by all the options for sound. Google shows me that there is FludSynth, Timidity and ECE has its own MT32 Emulator built in.... there are probably other options... I am just confused

I downloaded LINK REMOVED bunch of MT32 Roms from a google drive[/url] that google search found. It has 5 Roms listed...

Now the problem is I have no idea how to use them, and also how to CHOOSE between them.

The [midi] section has a ton of options and text.... and the [gus] section also has a bunch of options (and this is where it says to use TiMidity++)

I know I need to put the roms (but which ones!) for the MT32 into a directory and point "mt32.romdir=" to it.... I also know I need to point "fluid.soundfont=" to the fatBoy's soundFont

The [gus] setting "ultradir =" needs midi patch files location.. "Patch sets used with Timidity should work fine." Are those patches in the TiMidity++ zip I downloaded?

  1. Do those dirs need to be mapped to directories on my host machine, or mapped to paths "inside" DosBox on the mounted Cdrive?
  2. Can I enable all three and just choose what to use in the sound options during game install?
  3. What setup do you recommend?
  4. I'd appreciate any comments on how to best set this up
  5. Is there a quick way to test the midi without installing a bunch of games?

Thanks for your time and with luck demystifying midi sound on DosBox ECE.

Last edited by DosFreak on 2021-10-30, 20:31. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 3, by _Rob

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MT-32 pre-dates General MIDI. The soundfont your using, is for use with a General Midi emulator like fluidsynth or timidity. The MT-32 emulator does not use a soundfont, but it does need those ROM files.

To emulate MT-32 you can either use the stand-alone Munt emulator and start it before DOSBox and then connect to it's virtual midi device, or you can use a dosbox build that has it integrated (-ECE, -X or -staging).

To select the integrated Munt MT-32 emulator you should only have to set midi=mt32 but it is important that it can find the roms during startup, if not, it will simply be ignored.

Reply 2 of 3, by jynks

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Thanks for the reply..

_Rob wrote on 2021-10-29, 11:42:

To select the integrated Munt MT-32 emulator you should only have to set midi=mt32 but it is important that it can find the roms during startup, if not, it will simply be ignored.

I get confused about paths in dosbox... like do I setup in the config a path through the host machine to the rom directory.. or are those roms meant ot be set to a path on the guest cdrive?

  • path=d:\retrogameing\dosbox\mt32Roms\
  • path=c:\m32Roms\ || (mount c = d:\retrogameing\dosbox\CDriveMount\)

Also, I'll just repost the questions from the main thread.

jynks wrote on 2021-10-28, 05:12:
[…]
Show full quote
  1. Do those dirs need to be mapped to directories on my host machine, or mapped to paths "inside" DosBox on the mounted Cdrive?
  2. Can I enable all three and just choose what to use in the sound options during game install?
  3. What setup do you recommend?
  4. I'd appreciate any comments on how to best set this up
  5. Is there a quick way to test the midi without installing a bunch of games?

Reply 3 of 3, by _Rob

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It has nothing to do with the path setting *inside* dosbox. Different DOSBox forks handle the location of the MT32 ROMs differently. But generally, if you put them into the same directory as the dosbox executable, or the directory with your config file, they will probably be found.

But you can also specify the location of your ROMs. For instance;

- DOSBox-ECE and DOSBox-X have a setting mt32.romdir= in the [midi] section
- While -staging has a romdir= setting in it's [mt32] section

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