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Is it possible to have a Roland MT-32 display an onscreen message while playing a MIDI song?

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First post, by wowbobwow

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Hi all,

I think this is a simple question with a (potentially) complex answer: I have a Roland MT-32 connected to my Windows 98 desktop PC via MPU-401 emulation on the sound card. It works great! I also stayed up too late last night figuring out the process for creating a Sysex file that will prompt the MT-32 to display a short text string on the display. For an absolute beginner like me this was a pretty dense process to figure out, so I'm quite pleased that I finally got it working.

As a final goal, I'd like to be able to play a MIDI file on the MT-32 while also having my short text message shown on the Roland's display, but I haven't been able to figure out the proper process for this. Trying to launch either command (Sysex or MIDI) while the other is in use just generates an error message stating that the MIDI device is already in use. Do I need to somehow embed the Sysex code into the MIDI file? If yes, how?

Thanks for any suggestions - I feel like I'm this close to making this work!

Huxley

Co-founder of The Retro Roadshow, the San Francisco Bay Area's premier pop-up museum of vintage technology!

Reply 1 of 3, by Spikey

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It's not possible to have the display permanently in use while a MIDI is playing (at least, to my knowledge), but what you can do is spam the display with embedded messages, which Ken Allen did with the late part of the Introduction to the game The Colonel's Bequest, where during playback it would repeatedly say: "MUSIC BY:", then "KEN ALLEN". The MIDI file should be available on QuestStudios, I'm not sure if it still contains the embedded text but I would guess so.

Reply 2 of 3, by SuperDeadite

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The X68000 game "Be Rain" makes heavy usage of the MT32 screen. The game is an action puzzle game, and each stage has a scrolling text box on the bottom of the screen that gives hints on how to trigger the exit. If you select "MIDI" on the config screen, it will display all these messages on the MT32 screen. Really neat touch. But, this game uses the Z-Music sound driver and sends data to MT32 in real time, there are no standard MIDI files...

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Reply 3 of 3, by Cloudschatze

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Spikey wrote on 2025-05-08, 12:52:

It's not possible to have the display permanently in use while a MIDI is playing (at least, to my knowledge)...

Depends on the MT-32 version. The behavior of the 2.0x ROM models is such that a displayed message will remain static unless/until:

  • Another SysEx display message is received, replacing the current one
  • Any of the panel buttons are pressed
  • A "display reset" SysEx message is received
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