It sounds off, and loads the wrong instruments on both machines I've tested. Using OPL3 on both.

I want to report the same issue. When I have attempted to use this program with an AWE32, Orpheus, and Pro Audio Spectrum 16 all in OPL3 FM and the music sounds off. Like Nitroraptor stated above. The instruments are off and sound completely different then what would sound in game.

Also tried on 2 different DOS era computers.

V

Vanessaira wrote on 2023-01-13, 02:35:

I want to report the same issue. When I have attempted to use this program with an AWE32, Orpheus, and Pro Audio Spectrum 16 all in OPL3 FM and the music sounds off. Like Nitroraptor stated above. The instruments are off and sound completely different then what would sound in game.

Also tried on 2 different DOS era computers.

V

I'm not sure if Mateusz is still here on Vogons at all so I try to answer your question instead of him:
The point is you should not expect OPL3 output to sound the same as in games. Most games that use FM synthesis (OPL2/3) for music do not use Midi at all for OPL music or have their own default instrument set.
DOSMid has its own default instrument set and you cannot expect it to be the same as your game has. But you can load another instrument set for DOSMid if you have the proper one for your game by using the /sbnk=FILE command line switch.
This can work for games that use Midi also for OPL music internally (such as Duke3D) but not for games that program the OPL directly for music (such as Dune).
The .MID files that you can download for the games from the internet are not made for OPL but for Roland MT-32/Roland SC-55 and similar GM devices.

PS:
If you want to hear the exact same OPL sound as games output it you should download VGM files instead of MID and use SBVGM for DOS:
SBVGM (DOS) VGM Player
VGM files preserve the exact commands sent to the sound chip so playback results in sample accurate sound.
You can download VGM files from here ( search for OPL2/3 also known as YM3812/YMF262 ):
https://vgmrips.net

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-01-13, 06:33:

I'm not sure if Mateusz is still here on Vogons at all so I try to answer your question instead of him: The point is you should […]
Show full quote

Vanessaira wrote on 2023-01-13, 02:35:

I want to report the same issue. When I have attempted to use this program with an AWE32, Orpheus, and Pro Audio Spectrum 16 all in OPL3 FM and the music sounds off. Like Nitroraptor stated above. The instruments are off and sound completely different then what would sound in game.

Also tried on 2 different DOS era computers.

V

I'm not sure if Mateusz is still here on Vogons at all so I try to answer your question instead of him:
The point is you should not expect OPL3 output to sound the same as in games. Most games that use FM synthesis (OPL2/3) for music do not use Midi at all for OPL music or have their own default instrument set.
DOSMid has its own default instrument set and you cannot expect it to be the same as your game has. But you can load another instrument set for DOSMid if you have the proper one for your game by using the /sbnk=FILE command line switch.
This can work for games that use Midi also for OPL music internally (such as Duke3D) but not for games that program the OPL directly for music (such as Dune).
The .MID files that you can download for the games from the internet are not made for OPL but for Roland MT-32/Roland SC-55 and similar GM devices.

PS:
If you want to hear the exact same OPL sound as games output it you should download VGM files instead of MID and use SBVGM for DOS:
SBVGM (DOS) VGM Player
VGM files preserve the exact commands sent to the sound chip so playback results in sample accurate sound.
You can download VGM files from here ( search for OPL2/3 also known as YM3812/YMF262 ):
https://vgmrips.net

Thank you for your time and responding Falconsoft! I appreciate the info as well as your software as well. Looks like VGMRIPs is down at the moment, but I will look into it. I have been trying to record different game music outputs and wanted to do OPL3 next. It is interesting that in say Windows 3.1. I can have proper FM play through these MIDI files but then a program like DOSMID96 does not. Just trying to figure it all out. Thank you again.

V

Vanessaira wrote on 2023-01-14, 07:44:

Thank you for your time and responding Falconsoft! I appreciate the info as well as your software as well. Looks like VGMRIPs is down at the moment, but I will look into it. I have been trying to record different game music outputs and wanted to do OPL3 next. It is interesting that in say Windows 3.1. I can have proper FM play through these MIDI files but then a program like DOSMID96 does not. Just trying to figure it all out. Thank you again.

V

FYI: The Windows 3.1/9x default OPL 2/3 driver uses the so called 'Fat-Man' instrument set. DosMid definitely does not use this. The Fat-Man set is the one older Windows users heard the most so it sounds as 'the normal' for most of us.
But if you listen carefully and compare in game sound in Doom, Duke3d etc. to Windows 3.1 playing the same game's Midi files you should definitely hear the differences.

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-01-14, 08:55:

Vanessaira wrote on 2023-01-14, 07:44:

Thank you for your time and responding Falconsoft! I appreciate the info as well as your software as well. Looks like VGMRIPs is down at the moment, but I will look into it. I have been trying to record different game music outputs and wanted to do OPL3 next. It is interesting that in say Windows 3.1. I can have proper FM play through these MIDI files but then a program like DOSMID96 does not. Just trying to figure it all out. Thank you again.

V

FYI: The Windows 3.1/9x default OPL 2/3 driver uses the so called 'Fat-Man' instrument set. DosMid definitely does not use this. The Fat-Man set is the one older Windows users heard the most so it sounds as 'the normal' for most of us.
But if you listen carefully and compare in game sound in Doom, Duke3d etc. to Windows 3.1 playing the same game's Midi files you should definitely hear the differences.

I will check it out when I can. Going to have to setup a 486 test bench soon as I am trying to get some captures off of a Pro Audio 16. Thank you again for all the insight. Always learn a ton when reading on here.

V

Falcosoft wrote on 2023-01-13, 06:33:

I'm not sure if Mateusz is still here on Vogons at all so I try to answer your question instead of him:

Thank you Falcosoft. I am not actively monitoring the Vogons forum, but I try to answer when I'm notified by the forum about some replies on "my" threads. It seems that I have missed this one, though. Thank you for providing very accurate explanations to Nitroraptor53 and Vanessaira, what you describe is indeed exactly how things work. For DOSMid to play MIDI files from games exactly like the games itself on OPL hardware would involve the user to feed DOSMid with an appropriate IBK sound bank, and such IBK bank would be different for every game. And even then, there could still be minor differences due to the details of how the given game programs the OPL chip vs how DOSMid does it.

Hi. Could I make a feature request? I want to be able to turn off the "too many errors" message. I am trying to play an m3u playlist with about 43,000 midi files with /random and /dontstop, but eventually it encounters too many incompatible midi files and closes. I don't care if it can't play them.

megatog615 wrote on 2023-07-04, 16:09:

Hi. Could I make a feature request? I want to be able to turn off the "too many errors" message. I am trying to play an m3u playlist with about 43,000 midi files with /random and /dontstop, but eventually it encounters too many incompatible midi files and closes. I don't care if it can't play them.

The "too many errors" message is a fail-safe to avoid that the user gets stuck in a never-ending flood of errors if all files in the playlist fail. I have removed this and replaced with detection of ESC at any time.

See attached. I didn't test it much, I hope it will work for you.

Cool! Thanks! Now I have a 486 jukebox.

sean1978 wrote on 2016-10-16, 01:19:

Question. Can I use this to play MIDI on the SoundBlaster and sequence it externally?
Could I play this with a MIDI keyboard?

I am aware that I answer to a post from 7 years ago, but this is still potentially interesting in my opinion: I recently played with a DOS tool called SBTIMBRE 3.50 (easy to find once you know the name), and I think it is able to do just what you describe: accept MIDI-IN notes and play them on an OPL chip using predefined instruments. I did not test this feature, but that's what I understand from the readme file attached with the program.

Hello,

DOSMid version 0.9.8 is ready to get out of the oven. I know that some of you like to listen to MIDI on OPL3. v0.9.8 comes with three major improvements on this front:
- OPL register operations are much faster now since I replaced C functions with inline assembly. This translates into less accidental noises.
- I changed the default OPL sound font. v0.9.7 used a (very loose) approximation of GM, while v0.9.8 uses the default bank from ADLMIDI. Sounds much, much better in my opinion with the majority of MIDI files
- DOSMid knows how to handle pitch wheeling (note bending) when outputting to OPL now. This made a lots of tunes more entertaining to listen to.

If interested, here is a beta "preview" of the 0.9.8 version:

http://mateusz.viste.fr/tmp/dosmid-peter/dosmid098beta.zip