VOGONS


Windows, Doom, Apogee OPL3 Synthesizer.

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Reply 80 of 204, by DracoNihil

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The original MIDI is in XMIDI format... I can't find a reliable tool to convert it back to a standard Mode0 MIDI file.

https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/45822870/ … yberbykesXMI.7z There's ALL the XMI data out of Cyberbykes.

“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων

Reply 81 of 204, by MaliceX

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I can safely say Winamp's MIDI plugin is probably at fault here, with the way it saves non-standard MIDI files to SMF. Using Markus Hein's XMI2MID via DOSBOX, this MIDI is produced (still not synced but certainly doesn't exhibit issues)
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/ROCKIT-F.MID

XMI2MID: ftp://ftp.cs.uu.nl/pub/MIDI/PROGRAMS/MSDOS/xmi2mid.zip

Anyway this is off-topic.

Reply 82 of 204, by DracoNihil

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I also have a on topic question, since this is a OPL3 and you're working on making 4-op... is there really any game that used the OPL3 as a MIDI device and actually used 4-op patches? Because when you have 4-op voices it reduces the polyphony and I gather they didn't do that because people would notice the lowered polyphony on MIDI soundtracks. Atleast I would notice depending on how fast paced the song be.

“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων

Reply 83 of 204, by leileilol

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This midi.

There's a hanging note in there somewhere, only tested in Media Player Classic Home Cinema so i'm not sure if it's the midi's end, mpc's end or the synth's end.

Also it sounds hilarious with the 2x2 driver.

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long live PCem

Reply 84 of 204, by MaliceX

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DracoNihil wrote:

is there really any game that used the OPL3 as a MIDI device and actually used 4-op patches?

Not MIDI per se, but certainly as a FM music driver. I've only ever seen games that use the PLAY5V music driver (pretty much anything by elf: Doukuyusei 1 and 2 etc.) that are known to use 4op patches. (Albeit in their games rather wastefully in my opinion).

Trivia: Even the Japan-only PC-9821 computers (486-based) used OPL3. Very few games though, namely those using the MSDRV4 driver. That made very good use of OPL3 channels and 4op.

DracoNihil wrote:

Because when you have 4-op voices it reduces the polyphony and I gather they didn't do that because people would notice the lowered polyphony on MIDI soundtracks. Atleast I would notice depending on how fast paced the song be.

That didn't stop Sega Megadrive music from sounding awesome. (eg: http://vgm.mdscene.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=579)

6x4op + 6x2op (OPL3) + separate wave PCM handler
vs
6x4op or 5x4op + 1xDAC + (3+1)xPSG (OPN2)

What's their excuse? 😜 OPL3 had more channels AND the SB16 to manage sound.
Oh right. Multi-channel sPCM tracker sample music took over. 🙁

leileilol wrote:

This midi.

There's a hanging note in there somewhere, only tested in Media Player Classic Home Cinema so i'm not sure if it's the midi's end, mpc's end or the synth's end.

Also it sounds hilarious with the 2x2 driver.

I'll check it out later. Also yes, the current state of the bank is pretty hilarious. There's a reason why it's a test bank 😜 (Granted I've already done more switching around of patches with the repo code if you can be bothered to compile it yourself hehe)

Reply 85 of 204, by DracoNihil

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I also wonder why the OPL3 only lets you have 6 rather getting 12 four op voices... or am I not reading something right? The wikipedia page for the OPL3 confuses me...

“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων

Reply 86 of 204, by MaliceX

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DracoNihil wrote:

I also wonder why the OPL3 only lets you have 6 rather getting 12 four op voices... or am I not reading something right? The wikipedia page for the OPL3 confuses me...

Probably to do with chip design at the time maybe. Remember, the OPL2 rhythm mode exists in OPL3 as well, and that requires 3x2op channels (in the OPL3's case, channels 7-9).

Reply 87 of 204, by Jepael

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An OPL3 has only 36 operators so theoretically it could ever have 36/4 or 9 channels in 4-op mode, not 12.

This is all speculation, but as it had to be OPL2 compatible, they made it look almost like dual OPL2, register-wise.

As the first half is completely OPL2 compatible, which had to be able to divide 9 2-op channels into 6 2-op channels and 6 rhythm operators, it was most likely easier to just be able to leave the rhythm operators alone so only the 6 standard 2-op channels were modified so that they can be set into 3 4-op channels.

Then if you just use copy-paste this to double the chip channels, but leave out the rhythm mode from the clone, you have an OPL3.
*12 2-op channels which can be comined freely up to 6 4-op channels
*3 2-op channels which can be set into rhythm mode
*3 2-op channels that are fixed

But hey, since this is an emulator, you have no hardware limits, and you are free to build an OPL3 emulator/synthesizer in steroids, like having any amount of simulated chips for any amount of 4-op channels.

Reply 88 of 204, by DracoNihil

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Well I want the emulator to be accurate to an actual chip. There's one thing that Bizquit made (which I still can't for the life of me get working on windows no matter how hard I try) called ADL-Midi that can provide a "perfect" FM synthesis.

Though thank you so much for finally clarifying how many operators the OPL3 actually has.

“I am the dragon without a name…”
― Κυνικός Δράκων

Reply 89 of 204, by MaliceX

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DracoNihil wrote:

Well I want the emulator to be accurate to an actual chip. There's one thing that Bizquit made (which I still can't for the life of me get working on windows no matter how hard I try) called ADL-Midi that can provide a "perfect" FM synthesis.

Though thank you so much for finally clarifying how many operators the OPL3 actually has.

Here's a compile I did of adlmidi a while back. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1287967/adlmidi-1.2.1.7z

Reply 90 of 204, by Jepael

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DracoNihil wrote:

Well I want the emulator to be accurate to an actual chip. There's one thing that Bizquit made (which I still can't for the life of me get working on windows no matter how hard I try) called ADL-Midi that can provide a "perfect" FM synthesis.

Doesn't Joel's adlmidi use dbopl.c from DosBox as the OPL3 chip emulation?

Reply 91 of 204, by MaliceX

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Jepael wrote:

Doesn't Joel's adlmidi use dbopl.c from DosBox as the OPL3 chip emulation?

It does, except it uses multiple instances of the emulated core, in order to facilitate more polyphony. It's ok for that since it's not designed to push register command to a real chip for playback anyway.

Reply 95 of 204, by MaliceX

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YoursTruly wrote:

Can someone create a driver with DOOM timbres?

When I have more free time Ifinal semester), I'll be finishing off my fork to support switchable patches. I've managed to work out how to get IPC to work with a driver instance among other things. There is a lot of cleanup to be done however.

Reply 97 of 204, by Synthoridity

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YoursTruly wrote:

Can someone create a driver with DOOM timbres?

That would be cool...by the way, DOOM 1 and DOOM 2 actually have very slightly different FM timbres. I prefer the FM timbre set from DOOM 1, since stuff like the Overdriven Guitar sounds better.

Reply 98 of 204, by ElectricMonk

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I just skimmed the thread (sorry!), but OPL versions varied wildly (Sega Genesis OPL2 vs Soundblaster OPL2). There's even an audio comparison on wikipedia. I think the majority of later PC sound cards used OPL3, with a few using OPL4.

/I'm no pro at this, so take it with a grain of salt.