I'm not sure if this helps, but in DOSBox Sam and Max won't work unless cycles=5000 is set before starting the game.
https://www.dosbox.com/comp_list.php?showID=1443&letter=S

Apparently, the game is speed sensitive.

I remember there had been issues with MIDI, too.

Re: Sam and Max Hanging Notes SC-55

The patch for Sam&Max could be found on Lucas Arts website.

https://web.archive.org/web/19961223151245/ht … /tslibrary2.htm

I can confirm that it's one of the speed sensitive games.
I have to slowdown my machine. Otherwise GM sound is garbled in my case.

Here's a nice list of that speed sensitive games:
https://www.vogonswiki.com/index.php/List_of_ … sensitive_games

Thanks for the responses - I have tried using SETMUL to disable CPU cache on my machine, which does produce noticeable slowdown (and allow Titus the Fox, for example, to work with Adlib music), but no luck. Have not tried the patches yet, but patch description from the official site does not seem to match my problem. I guess, this is the game for me to run in DOSBox, then.

What chipset does your PC have?
Maybe Setmul is not the right tool in your case.
For example, I have an Aladdin Ali V chipset.
ALI5THT works better for me than Setmul.

I run a ICH7, and SetMul is definitely limited for me, in that I can't have precise control over the frequency. What id does well, however is switch off the CPU cache. I am not sure what other tools are available for Core 2, as the resident type "slowers" are not very reliable.

Uh, I have no experience with Core 2 for Retro systems.
I assume it's way too fast and new.

MoSlo is another popular Slowdown tool.
Also you can have a look at this list:
List of Slowdown Utilities (Beta)

I've had similar issues on my Pentium III 1GHz, and while using some slowdown utilities did bring the sound back at a certain point, it also made the animation waaaaaay slower than it should've been. But if I made it any faster I'd lose the sound again or the game would just crash. There is a windows port that works on Windows 98, but it doesn't scale properly on CRTs as its designed for flat-panel LCDs and doesn't change the screen mode, instead just scaling it to your desktop resolution.

If you find a solution to your issue, do let me know.

I am giving up on trying to run this game in DOS, the talkie version at least, as it seems it has been designed to be played with SCUMMVM from the start. 😉 Well, unless I end up getting period accurate hardware anyway.

Talking about Windows version, I was following this guide, and one can at least set it to work in 640x480 resolution with 2x builtin scaler, suppressing smoothing and aspect ratio correction and it would then run "letter-boxed". I imagine with a CRT one could use adjustment knobs to stretch the image vertically and make top/bottom bars disappear. 😀) Sound works quite well in the Windows version by the way.