Open dosbox.conf in your DOSBox directory (with notepad) and set GUS=false.

Under which section?

Under the [GUS] section. What a surprising name.

GUS=false as stated above.

Ok. I did that. GUS=false under GUS heading. Still no sound.

The game should support an SB16 because it's from 1995, but if an SB16 can't be chosen from the game's setup, you may need to change the card type in DOSBox to match what you select in the game's setup.

In order to see if it all looks correct, please post the sound settings you're using in the game's setup and the SoundBlaster settings in DOSBox.

The game has lots of drivers, but the main .exe requires a C:\AUTOEXEC.BAT that contains a "SET BLASTER=" line.
It's very strange.

The SoundBlaster autodetect fails if the DOSBox cycles are too high, because the setup doesn't wait long enough for an interrupt to fire to identify the IRQ. So you'll have to configure it manually. All of the Sound Blaster options work.

GUS support requires that ULTRAMID TSR is present. So that won't work.

Start the game, in the options, the default is 0 volume for music and sounds. I couldn't get the music slider to work (might need CD, and I haven't tried the CVS DOSBox yet). The sound slider works, but the volume is still very low. Turn up your speaker volume and you'll get sound effects.

I'll try turning the volume way up. I thought I'd tried that, but maybe I was just trying the music slider and I didn't have the CD in. I don't remember. I'll put the CD in and try them both.

The weird thing is, I can get the test audio to play in the setup. It is kind of quiet and it only plays out of my left speaker, but it plays.

Actually, I just tried the setup again. I selected SB16 and it played at a pretty reasonable volume and in both sides of my headphones.

I couldn't get either the music or the sound slider to work in the game though. They wouldn't do anything.

Ok I got sound working by running tower.exe instead of tr.exe, but I still can't get music to work, even with the CD in. Music slider just won't move.

Yes, you need to run tower.bat because it loads the sound driver. :-)
I don't know why the music doesn't work. That will have to wait for another day.

I will await any possible solution to the music issue eagerly. I remember the music in this game being really good, creating a nice atmosphere. It's a good game.

GUS support works by running ULTRAMID.EXE inside DOSBox.
The music slider works if you imgmount a CD.

Glad to see you found a way to get it working.

What do you mean imgmount a CD? And what is ULTRAMID.EXE?

ULTRAMID.EXE is the GUS sound driver for DOS. It is required by some games such as Tower of Souls. It's freely available for download from lots of sites.
Other programmers just communicated directly with the GUS, which is why not everything requires the file.

IMGMount is a command in DOSBox that allows you to map an ISO file or BIN/CUE set to a drive, instead of using the actual CD.
The DOSBox readme explains how to use it.

So I need to make an image of my Tower of Souls CD and mount that in order to get music to work?

Unfortunately ULTRAMID.EXE does not appear to be as readily available as you suggest. I can't seem to find it anywhere without having to download something else with it (an entire pack of Mortal Kombat games or the Duke Nukem 3D Official Strategy Guide Companion CD, for example) and even then that stuff won't download. The Mortal Kombat pack has no seeders and you have to be a registered member of Demonoid to download that Duke Nukem CD.

http://cd.textfiles.com/dfeno1/GUSFIXES/UMID111.ZIP

Yes, you'll need an image of the CD to get the music working.

Thanks. I couldn't find that anywhere.

As for needing an image of the CD, that's a bit of a pain in the ass, but at least I know what works. Thanks for the help man. I'll get around to making that image eventually.

Actually. what did you use for an image? Did you just make an image out of the game files I sent you or were you using a different image? Those files I sent you were the full installed game, the game on the CD is only a few of those files. What exactly do I need to image?