"and give the user an amazing MIDI experience that was well out of reach for many of us back in the 1990’s,"
And still today!

If I was been picky you covered the main sound standards

PC Speaker,
Adlib
Sound Blaster
GUS
MT 32

But nothing about General Midi. You have it covered by the Qs700 but maybe just mention as while both are midi they are each their own thing?
Entirely up to you though! it's your page and I feel anyone reading pages on old hardware are at least semi knowledgeable on the topic already.

chinny22 wrote on 2025-10-04, 05:28:

"and give the user an amazing MIDI experience that was well out of reach for many of us back in the 1990’s," And still today! […]
Show full quote

"and give the user an amazing MIDI experience that was well out of reach for many of us back in the 1990’s,"
And still today!

If I was been picky you covered the main sound standards

PC Speaker,
Adlib
Sound Blaster
GUS
MT 32

But nothing about General Midi. You have it covered by the Qs700 but maybe just mention as while both are midi they are each their own thing?
Entirely up to you though! it's your page and I feel anyone reading pages on old hardware are at least semi knowledgeable on the topic already.

This is why I love extra brains looking over my stuff. 😀

Thank you pointing that out!

I didn't even think about making that mention, but I really should as they are their own things. Good catch!

EDIT: I added this to the post.

I should note that it can also emulate General MIDI. The General MIDI standard come out in 1991, while Roland MT-32 hit the market in 1987. For clarity, General MIDI "is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments", this is what the above mentioned QS700 on the OPTi card uses. It defines a standard 128 instruments and effects in a specific order. While MT-32 on the other hand uses Roland's own proprietary instruments and effects that most people argue are of a higher quality and sound better than General MIDI. In a nut shell, these are two different MIDI standards, one is a general standard for all to follow, as the name implies, while the other is proprietary.

Lol, that MT-32 box image is actually mine, but no worries! It makes me happy to see it there. You probably got it from DOSDays, right? Otherwise, someone must’ve taken it from there, and you got it from somewhere else. I collaborate with DOSDays from time to time.
Your blog looks great, very colorful! I’ll read through it and let you know. I have a few YT channels (see my signature below), one focused on PC games and software, and another on hardware, mods, and similar projects. No worries or hard feelings if you’re not interested or they’re not your thing.
This hobby of ours takes a lot of time, effort... and money! Keep it up!
I’ll leave my comments soon.

Here it is! Lol

Dusko wrote on 2025-10-12, 01:55:

Lol, that MT-32 box image is actually mine, but no worries! It makes me happy to see it there. You probably got it from DOSDays, […]
Show full quote

Lol, that MT-32 box image is actually mine, but no worries! It makes me happy to see it there. You probably got it from DOSDays, right? Otherwise, someone must’ve taken it from there, and you got it from somewhere else. I collaborate with DOSDays from time to time.
Your blog looks great, very colorful! I’ll read through it and let you know. I have a few YT channels (see my signature below), one focused on PC games and software, and another on hardware, mods, and similar projects. No worries or hard feelings if you’re not interested or they’re not your thing.
This hobby of ours takes a lot of time, effort... and money! Keep it up!
I’ll leave my comments soon.

Dusko wrote on 2025-10-12, 02:14:

Here it is! Lol

Haha, that's amazing! Would love a real MT-32/MPU-401, but had to settle for the much cheaper emulated option of the MT-32 Pi based Wavetable Pi.

I actually got it off Google Images, but it probably pulled it from DOSDays. I wanted to show some examples of the hardware I was talking about. Yours was the best, and really the only, quality box image I kept finding.

I've added links to your YT channels and back to you here on Vogons in the post right below your image! 😀

Yeah, it's definitely very time consuming, and can get costly, but it's so much fun! I was going for a "retro" website look with the blog. Lots of animated gifs and silliness. Simple layout. That sort of thing. I think I succeeded. 🤣

I love any and all feedback I can get. I'm just one old geek with hobbies and a love of retro and electronics, I make mistakes and overlook things all the time. 😀

What a nice article! I really enjoyed reading it. It’s always great to connect with other people who share the same nostalgia for those old computers. We were so privilege of witnessing how they evolved.

Funny enough, I remember back in the day, when I was installing a game and saw the Roland MT-32 option in the sound setup, I would just fantasize about what kind of “sound card” it could be and how much better it might sound compared to my PAS16. I had no idea what it really was back then, and I could’ve never imagined it was an external device with such amazing sound quality. I actually didn’t know there were any external devices other than a printer! 🤣

I didn’t know about the ground loop isolator. I’ll see if I can get one of the cheaper ones.

You have a broken link for the "CT4530" hyperlink:
https://www.dosdays.co.uk/topics/sb_awe32_64.php

This is the DOSDays article that covered my MT-32 box set, that's where Google got the image from:
https://dosdays.co.uk/topics/duskos_mt32_setup.php

Constructive feedback:

For the section "While MT-32, on the other hand, uses Roland's own proprietary instruments", I’m not entirely sure about that. I think it was more because, at that time, there was no MIDI “standard”, rather than it being an actual proprietary thing. You could still configure a MIDI controller to match the channels on an MT-32. I might be wrong, so don’t take my word for it.

You’ve got a super retro-looking tower, totally ’90s! Very cool MT-32 adaptation!

I need to make a YT video about that MT-32 box set and do a fake “unboxing".

Cheers!

Thanks for the info!

I've fixed that link, it was supposed to link to The Retro Web, not sure how I managed to mix that up. I've also edited the post to link to the DOS Days post about your setup, that was a great read! Love seeing the internals too, I'm a hardware guy at heart and love to see what's under the hood making everything tick.

As far as Roland's instruments being proprietary, I've just always seen them listed as such and assumed it to be correct. That idea was reinforced when I was looking at buying a modern wavetable board before deciding to go the DIY route. Specifically the Sedrashop X2GS SE says it's using a bank it got permission from Roland/Dream to use.

Perhaps I'm just misunderstanding, like I say on my blog, I'm no expert, I make mistakes, I'm just one geeky old guy. 🤣

You should do the "fake unboxing"! I would love to see that, as would others retro geeks like us. 😀

Thanks for the feedback on the blog and my DOS tower, I like how they both turned out! Doing these things is my "happy place", it's how I unwind and relax. I've got an post over on my blog about that build as well, two of them actually. Now I'm working on a post about my mini Win98 system. 😜

EDIT: Typo!

Dusko wrote on 2025-10-12, 04:39:

Constructive feedback:

For the section "While MT-32, on the other hand, uses Roland's own proprietary instruments", I’m not entirely sure about that. I think it was more because, at that time, there was no MIDI “standard”, rather than it being an actual proprietary thing. You could still configure a MIDI controller to match the channels on an MT-32. I might be wrong, so don’t take my word for it.

I think your both right!
MT-32 has instruments on different channels so to give an incorrect, exaggerated example:
lets say channel 1 on MT-32 is drum
but on a GM device Channel 1 is guitar

This means when your MT-32 game is using a GM device it'll play a guitar rather then a drum.
and visa versa.
in real life it's not too noticeable as majority of instruments do line up correctly or at least pretty close.

MT32 list
https://vgmpf.com/Wiki/index.php/MT-32

GM list
https://www.ccarh.org/courses/253/handout/gminstruments

General Midi was created to fix this issue, so no matter which brand your device was, the instruments would always be the same channel.
That said Roland is often considered to be the "gold standard" It least for gaming

Here's the video! Let me know what you think.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GiTjKu6JBPU