a 55/88 cant replace a 32. the mt32 set in the 55/88 cant be patched. it was often patched in mt32 games.

get an mt32 + a 55 or 88 😀

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Yay, thank you. I got myself a SC-50, NIB (for a decent price, I think...). Now I'll see what games I can play with it. 😀

Here is some reading material (I asked the same questions some years ago, so I'd thought I'd provide a bit more info):
Roland MT-32 and compatibles: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT-32
Roland Sound Canvas (in general): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_Sound_Canvas
The SC-55: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_SC-55 (answers your first question)

Just some additional points to consider:

1. Just check when your particular game was released.
   As a general rule, most games released up to early 1992 were written on the MT-32 or CM-32L (some games released before 1992 and that originally supported the MT-32, had General MIDI drivers released for them afterwards).
   Bottom line, no General MIDI device (of which the Sound Canvas is one) can faithfully reproduce the sounds of an MT-32 (or one of its compatibles), especially where the game sends system exclusive messages to make use of custom sounds.
2. For MT-32 based games, you need an MT-32 (or one of its compatibles). There were different revisions of the MT-32, but you can read up more about it here on Vogons or on the Wikipedia page.
   For General MIDI compatible games, an SC-50, SC-55 or SC-88 will suffice (it all depends on what your budget is).
   The SC-50 is just a cheaper version of the SC-55mkII (it has less features), but from a gaming perspective, there isn't any difference.
   There were also different revisions of the SC-55 models (captial tone feedback, etc.), but there are already topics that covers this - Re: What module type, model and revision for GS/GM games?

If you're planning on playing your games on real hardware (i.e., not DOSBox), just take note that some MT-32 based games also requires an intelligent mode MPU-401 MIDI interface (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MPU-401). However, there is a software based solution available (SoftMPU) that allows you to emulate an intelligent mode MPU-401 MIDI interface on most sound cards (that has an UART mode MPU-401 MIDI interface).

General MIDI compatible games do not require an intelligent mode MPU-401 MIDI interface and can therefore interface directly via your sound card's UART mode MPU-401 MIDI interface (using a standard MIDI cable).
Just be aware of the so called MIDI hanging note bug on most Sound Blaster 16 (including some SB32/AWE32) sound cards - refer http://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/Hanging_note_bug.
Either get a sound card that hasn't got the bug, or use two sound cards (stay away from PCI based sound cards and stick to ISA based sound cards for better DOS game compatibility).

Thank you! That is a lot of good information. My SC-50 will come in few days and I am very excited 😀

Question: If I play MIDI songs, in Win95/98 via Media player is there a way to direct the output to General Midi and use the SC-50 attached to my Sound Blaster (instead of Sound Blaster's own OPL2/3 etc)?

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Thank you. My SC-50 finally came and I am having a blast with it.

As for playing MIDI in Win98 beside telling it in Control Panel/Multimedia to use Midi OUT as the MIDI device I also had to change a setting in the driver panel for the sound card to use external port.

Also, since I have about 4 computers that I want connected to the SC-50 I am thinking of purchasing something like this: MIDI merger. Has anyone experience with similar items? I will only be using one computer at a time so the fact that it is merging (instead of say switching ) is not a big deal.

A MIDI switcher will be better though....

roland mpu-104, input selector, hook 4 pcs, send its output to the sc50. look on ebay for a mpu-104

hello everyone,
i'm digging this topic out of its hibernation because i've also got a question related to the sound canvas familly:

Since it is a roland product, if i connect it with a serial cable to my windows 3.x computer, is there any chance it is gonna act like a full MPU-401 compatible midi interface for all programs/games that requires it ?

ultramars wrote on 2020-12-18, 06:48:

hello everyone,
i'm digging this topic out of its hibernation because i've also got a question related to the sound canvas familly:

Since it is a legit roland product, if i connect it with a serial cable to my windows 3.x computer, is there any chance it is gonna act like a full MPU-401 compatible midi interface for all programs/games that requires it ?

No, a serial interface will not replace an MPU-401 directly .

However, using the SoftMPU utility will let you emulate an MPU-401 over a serial interface.

This will not work with games that use a DOS extender, such as Doom 1 and 2 or Duke Nukem 3D, AFAIK

SoftMPU :

http://bjt42.github.io/softmpu/

P.S. This should be a new thread, IMHO.

EDIT: What motherboard are you using ?

darry wrote on 2020-12-18, 07:00:

However, using the SoftMPU utility will let you emulate an MPU-401 over a serial interface.

EDIT: What motherboard are you using ?

i found out about softMPU, but i'd like to make music with cakewalk pro for windows, that only accepts clever MPU-401 interface (or just the original one), and there isn't any softMPU for windows so far 😒
a sound canvas with serial interface is cheaper than the modern clone of the MPU-401, ( let alone the original card 🤣) so i was hoping to get a cheaper fix with a sound canvas + an interesting sound module.
It'd be interesting to figure how the serial midi inteface reports to windows (3.x or 9x) through its windows midi drivers: is there maybe a chance that it appears to the cakewalk as a valid clever MPU-401 ?

i will soon get a 80486 central unit from a friend, but i don't know the motherboard model yet.

Thanx for your reply ; i didn't get any email about it though: i'm gonna have a look about weather i can set up such email alerts in my profile

ultramars wrote on 2020-12-23, 09:53:

i found out about softMPU, but i'd like to make music with cakewalk pro for windows, that only accepts clever MPU-401 interface […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2020-12-18, 07:00:

However, using the SoftMPU utility will let you emulate an MPU-401 over a serial interface.

EDIT: What motherboard are you using ?

i found out about softMPU, but i'd like to make music with cakewalk pro for windows, that only accepts clever MPU-401 interface (or just the original one), and there isn't any softMPU for windows so far 😒
a sound canvas with serial interface is cheaper than the modern clone of the MPU-401, ( let alone the original card 🤣) so i was hoping to get a cheaper fix with a sound canvas + an interesting sound module.
It'd be interesting to figure how the serial midi inteface reports to windows (3.x or 9x) through its windows midi drivers: is there maybe a chance that it appears to the cakewalk as a valid clever MPU-401 ?

i will soon get a 80486 central unit from a friend, but i don't know the motherboard model yet.

Thanx for your reply ; i didn't get any email about it though: i'm gonna have a look about weather i can set up such email alerts in my profile

MPU-401 compatibility is only required for DOS applications.

Windows applications can use any MIDI port for which Windows has a driver installed . An MPU-401 compatible interface is not required for Windows .

To use a serial MIDI cable under Windows 3.1, the proper driver is required . The only Windows 3.1 driver package for Roland serial MIDI drvices that I have found is this . It contains drivers for both serial MIDI and MPU-401 . You must use the serial MIDI one, not the MPU-401 one . Contrary to what the file name says, this should not be SCC-1 specific and should work for all serial MIDI equipped Roland devices as far as I know. In fact, the serial MIDI part likely does not even apply to the SCC-1 as I has no serial port interface as far as I know .

EDIT : Source is http://www.houseofsynth.com/roland-scc-1-wind … ndows-95-driver

while reading again on the net about cakewalk, i realise that it might well be the DOS version that required intelligent MPU-401 until v. 4 , and not the windows version indeed: it seems that i misunderstood :p

darry wrote on 2020-12-23, 12:08:

To use a serial MIDI cable under Windows 3.1, the proper driver is required . The only Windows 3.1 driver package for Roland serial MIDI devices that I have found is this . It contains drivers for both serial MIDI and MPU-401 . You must use the serial MIDI one, not the MPU-401 one . Contrary to what the file name says, this should not be SCC-1 specific and should work for all serial MIDI equipped Roland devices as far as I know. In fact, the serial MIDI part likely does not even apply to the SCC-1 as I has no serial port interface as far as I know .

Roland-SCC-1-MPU401-Windows-Drivers.zip

EDIT : Source is http://www.houseofsynth.com/roland-scc-1-wind … ndows-95-driver

Nice one 😀
Now, i was thinking: as much as the softMPU TSR allows to send midi over serial port towards roland device equipied with serial midi fonctionality, as much i expect the roland windows drivers from your link to make windows to work with the "MPU-232" serial-to-midi interface that also works with softMPU, do i have it right?
i'm talking about this one:
https://www.serdashop.com/MPU-232

it would be too bad for me to buy a roland sound canvas just to have midi through the serial port of my commodore c386 sx-lt laptop, whenever serdashop is providing a cheaper & smaller hardware solution ...

ultramars wrote on 2022-01-28, 21:33:

Nice one :) Now, i was thinking: as much as the softMPU TSR allows to send midi over serial port towards roland device equipied […]
Show full quote

darry wrote on 2020-12-23, 12:08:

To use a serial MIDI cable under Windows 3.1, the proper driver is required . The only Windows 3.1 driver package for Roland serial MIDI devices that I have found is this . It contains drivers for both serial MIDI and MPU-401 . You must use the serial MIDI one, not the MPU-401 one . Contrary to what the file name says, this should not be SCC-1 specific and should work for all serial MIDI equipped Roland devices as far as I know. In fact, the serial MIDI part likely does not even apply to the SCC-1 as I has no serial port interface as far as I know .

Roland-SCC-1-MPU401-Windows-Drivers.zip

EDIT : Source is http://www.houseofsynth.com/roland-scc-1-wind … ndows-95-driver

Nice one 😀
Now, i was thinking: as much as the softMPU TSR allows to send midi over serial port towards roland device equipied with serial midi fonctionality, as much i expect the roland windows drivers from your link to make windows to work with the "MPU-232" serial-to-midi interface that also works with softMPU, do i have it right?
i'm talking about this one:
https://www.serdashop.com/MPU-232

it would be too bad for me to buy a roland sound canvas just to have midi through the serial port of my commodore c386 sx-lt laptop, whenever serdashop is providing a cheaper & smaller hardware solution ...

Well, if I still remember how transitive inference is supposed to work, these https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/Serial- … I-Cable-Pinouts work with SoftMPU and MPU-232 works SoftMPU as well, so it stands to reason that since https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/Serial- … I-Cable-Pinouts also work with the Windows driver, so should https://github.com/bjt42/softmpu/wiki/Serial- … I-Cable-Pinouts .

ultramars wrote on 2022-01-28, 21:33:

i was thinking: as much as the softMPU TSR allows to send midi over serial port towards roland device equipied with serial midi […]
Show full quote

i was thinking: as much as the softMPU TSR allows to send midi over serial port towards roland device equipied with serial midi fonctionality, as much i expect the roland windows drivers from your link to make windows to work with the "MPU-232" serial-to-midi interface that also works with softMPU, do i have it right?
i'm talking about this one:
https://www.serdashop.com/MPU-232

it would be too bad for me to buy a roland sound canvas just to have midi through the serial port of my commodore c386 sx-lt laptop, whenever serdashop is providing a cheaper & smaller hardware solution ...

i've got the answer from the seller of the MPU-232:

"
-it is compatible with roland serial midi drivers, but i dont see win 3.x here : https://www.roland.com/global/support/archive … _downloads_n-s/
- not full duplex, it is only midi out"

So, it should work under win 3.x with the roland driver pack linked above 😎