So does that mean that you are listing all games that have either tracker-type music, Roland MT-32 MIDI music, or General MIDI music?

As others have noted, I think it is important to remember that with MT-32/General MIDI music, the game itself doesn't containt the instrument samples that e.g. AWE32 would utilize. For instance, Monkey Island 2 didn't support AWE32 (as a sample-based sound card), because AWE32 didn't even exist back when MI2 was released. It is just so that later it was possible to "retrofit" AWE32 to produce some kind of music with MI2, as well as other old Roland MT-32 games.

Monkey Island 2 originally supported only these sound "cards" (you can list them by giving the command "MONKEY2.EXE ?" in the command prompt):

Internal speaker
Adlib(tm) sounds
SoundBlaster(tm) sounds
Roland(tm) sounds

I think Adlib and Soundblaster options gave identical music and sounds in MI2 (only OPL-2 FM synthesized sounds for both music and sound effects; apparently they just offered them as two separate options so that neither Adlib nor Soundblaster owners would become confused or feel neglected, even if it didn't matter which one you chose), and "Roland" refers to Roland MT-32, and 100% compatibles.

Okay, admittedly I expressed myself badly. I didn't mean that it did not use samples for its synthesis, I meant that it could not play back WAV files and such.

Well, it boils down to what you define was "abandoned". The point is that it was a de facto standard for sound in PC games comparably briefly (very late 80's to early 90's) and the very same developers that had decided to make it a standard quickly decided to favour Ad Lib and General MIDI already in the early 90's simply because those were much more widespread. By the early mid-90's (like 1993/1994?) MT-32 soundtracks were often only included only for legacy support anymore and were in my experience usually just remapped versions of the General MIDI OST and sounded worse than both, the dedicated MT-32 OSTs before the Soundblaster era and the General MIDI versions. In my book that's already "abandoned".

True, true.

Anyhow, I tried suggest some titles for you but damn, your list already seems to cover all DOS games with tracker music I'm aware of.

@F4LLOUT:
Fair enough. I agree that from a bigger perspective it was fairly niche and short lived. But still, plenty of games you can use it with for some great music! Especially for that time.

The mirsoft page I discovered today seems pretty extensive, hehe. I'll be uploading some stuff from there that I couldn't find on YT I think, though it won't sound exactly like on a SB card I guess.

@timppu: No, still not MT-32. As I've said, there are already lists for (officially) MT-32 supported games and I've made my own as well to highlight the best use of it.

MT-32 isn't general midi? Later Roland cards (SC-55 onwards I think) had support for it though, and the MT-32 received limited support with an update, but since it had fewer channels it's not optimal to use.

Yes, this retrofitting is of interest here, provided it could be done back in the day. I dunno about these soundfonts people on YT have used for example.

Perhaps it is better to separate earlier SB cards (tracker/mod type music, and wav files?) from AWE32/64 here.

I'm confused. You are still listing MT-32 and General MIDI games like Monkey Island 1-2 (MT-32) and Doom (General MIDI). At least Monkey Island 1-2 did not support the AWE32 capability to upload (custom) sounds to its RAM. Those two games supported only the internal speaker, Adlib/Soundblaster and Roland MT-32.

If you don't want to list Roland MT-32 games (with which you can retrofit AWE32 to produce some kind of MIDI music), then you basically would have to list all Roland MT-32 games.

If you don't want to list such games, then you should remove e.g. Monkey Island 1-2 from the list (and other games which are specifically Roland MT-32 and General MIDI games, without specificially supporting e.g. AWE32's or GUS' ability to upload custom sampled sounds/instruments to their memory).

I know of one PC game which I think had that kind of extra support for AWE32: Final Fantasy 7. As far as I am aware, for the most part it utilized AWE32 as a generic General MIDI card for the music... but specifically for the end boss fight, it uploaded the song vocals to AWE32 memory.

I think AWE32 (and compatibles) were probably the only official way to get those "Sephiroth!" vocals in the end fight music, just like in the Playstation version. I played the game using e.g. Roland SCC-1, so I got only the instrumental version of the song (without vocals).

Note: I've never owned AWE32 nor played it with Final Fantasy 7, but that is what I recall reading about Final Fantasy 7 PC sound card support.

No it isn't. You can think of MT-32 (and MT-100, LAPC-1, CM-32L...) as kind of predecessors to the General MIDI standard. Then again the General MIDI standard doesn't offer ways to alter the default sounds the same way like MT-32 (LA) synths could do or add reverb effects to music and such, so in a way General MIDI wasn't as versatile as MT-32 was.

Roland Sound Canvas synths (SC-55, SCC-1 etc.) were fully General MIDI compliant. On top of that, they had Sound Canvas (GS) extensions on top of generic General MIDI, which offered extra effects (like reverb etc.), alternative drum sets to the generic one etc.

Some PC games supported these extra GS features, like Ultima 8, Wing Commander 3-4, Dune 2 etc. With generic General MIDI cards, the extra GS features would just go unnoticed (ie. it would only use the default drum set, not use reverb etc. effects...).


Also, SC-55/SCC-1 had a special "MT-32 mode", which basically just rearranged the General MIDI instruments to better correspond to the original default MT-32 instrument order. With MT-32 games that used mainly just default MT-32 instruments, this worked well and might even sound better on Sound Canvas than on the original MT-32 (because Sound Canvas had better quality instruments). But then if any MT-32 alterations were made, it would produce erratic effects, like in Ultima Underworld footstep sounds being replaced with piano sounds, the laser sounds in Wing Commander being replaced with something else etc.

I personally feel what you are describing here (getting MT-32 music on SB AWE-32/64, by uploading a special "MT-32 compliant" soundset to the sound card memory) is pretty much similar as the Sound Canvas' "MT-32 compatibility mode". It doesn't mean the game supports any special features of AWE32 (nor Sound Canvas), it just means those sound cards try to mimic a real MT-32 the best way they can.

But shouldn't you then list pretty much all MT-32 compatible games? The way they have made AWE32 to produce MIDI music in Monkey Island 2 (by mimicing a real MT-32), I'm pretty sure it works for all other MT-32 games as well. Sometimes it might sound wrong (because AWE32 can't mimic how to alter MT-32 sounds), but that's beside the point.

Also I feel it is useless to list also General MIDI games like Doom 1-2. They utilized AWE32 as a generic General MIDI card (plus using its DAC for the sound effect samples, of course). It wouldn't sound much different from using e.g. Roland SCC-1 for the General MIDI music in Doom, and a Sound Blaster 16 for the sampled sound effects (that was my setup to play Doom 1-2, and all General MIDI games for that matter).

That I absolutely agree with and I absolutely love firing up some old games that I could only play with Ad Lib music back in the day using MUNT now. It's like firing up an amazing remaster, only knowing that this is what the game was actually and without any doubt supposed to be like all along (and yeah, I'm aware that the emulation isn't perfectly accurate but after having listened to a number of comparisons of the real thing and MUNT and I'm satisfied with the latter).

Yeah i have a real Roland CM-32L, I bought all kinds of USB-MIDI adapters and shit for it so that I could use it also on modern PCs with DOSbox...

...but after a certain new version of Munt a couple of years ago, I stopped trying to use the real one. At least I couldn't hear the difference anymore, for all intents and purposes Munt was accurately emulating Roland MT-32/CM-32L, and all the games I tried with it sounded correct to me, just like I remembered them sounding on the real thing.

Yeah maybe there are differences you could hear with close comparison about reverb levels and whatnot, but pffffft. My CM-32L has been completely unused in the cupboard after that. After all, Munt is so easy to use too, no need to connect anything to anywhere with any USB-MIDI adapters etc.

Mind you, before that certain version, Munt was quite imperfect and I wasn't happy with its quality. Most games I tried sounded a bit off. But yeah, that certain version then changed everything.

I'll update the list in a sec with notes for all games using tracker (mod/amf/s3m/xm etc) music. Several I'm not sure about though.

@timppu:
"I'm confused. You are still listing MT-32 and General MIDI games like Monkey Island 1-2 (MT-32) and Doom (General MIDI). At least Monkey Island 1-2 did not support the AWE32 capability to upload (custom) sounds to its RAM. Those two games supported only the internal speaker, Adlib/Soundblaster and Roland MT-32. "

Yes, well when I started making the list I didn't realise they were being used on games not officially supporting them. But I thought some of them sounded really good, so I'd like to include such games as well. If you have to use modern tricks to do it, maybe I'll put those games in a separate list later.

"If you don't want to list Roland MT-32 games (with which you can retrofit AWE32 to produce some kind of MIDI music), then you basically would have to list all Roland MT-32 games."
That sentence doesn't make sense but I guess I am going to list all MT-32 games if there aren't any issues with doing that (some games not working with AWE32). I'm looking through one year at a time for this (or rather 250 most popular games per year on mobygames).

"If you don't want to list such games, then you should remove e.g. Monkey Island 1-2 from the list (and other games which are specifically Roland MT-32 and General MIDI games, without specificially supporting e.g. AWE32's or GUS' ability to upload custom sampled sounds/instruments to their memory). "
Does the awe32 setup sound just like GM on other cards in these cases? Then I guess I can remove them.

FF7 isn't a DOS game but I'll keep it in mind for later. Thanks.

"Some PC games supported these extra GS features, like Ultima 8, Wing Commander 3-4, Dune 2 etc. With generic General MIDI cards, the extra GS features would just go unnoticed (ie. it would only use the default drum set, not use reverb etc. effects...)."

Cool, I'll keep that info in mind if I get to making a GS list. I'm focusing on retro chips/cards here. The to do list looks like so:
SNES
Sound Blaster-SB AWE64
Sample-based arcade game OSTs
Wonderswan
GBA
32-bit era (including GM and GS), maybe!

Good info on MT-32 and SC-55, thanks. I dunno about AWE32 "just" emulating MT-32 in these examples, they sound different enough to have their own category to me. I'll try comparing to MT-32 Monkey Island again though.

"Also I feel it is useless to list also General MIDI games like Doom 1-2. They utilized AWE32 as a generic General MIDI card (plus using its DAC for the sound effect samples, of course). It wouldn't sound much different from using e.g. Roland SCC-1 for the General MIDI music in Doom, and a Sound Blaster 16 for the sampled sound effects (that was my setup to play Doom 1-2, and all General MIDI games for that matter)."

Maybe, I thought Doom sounded kinda meh until I heard an upload using a soundfont called Masterpiece. I'm not sure how that works?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uh0QIFQwKPc

In this comparison, AWE32 E-mu (?) with 8MB RAM sounds pretty cool, and both AWE32 recordings sound different to SC-55, though the first one moreso.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXFYWJ7dbz0

Edit: MT-32:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g0tSCOvUjCo&list=PL9gLkLElnDbxOk9aJjZDYSlvoJSVYBVgA&index=2

Another GUS upload, seemingly using pro patches but the drums sound much better.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=figScJtkQk8&t=4m59s

Sadly that's the case with a number of games that officially support these kinds of soundcards, I noticed it on large scale when I started looking for games with GUS support. From what I recall the vast majority of games would sound identical, regardless of whether the device I selected in the setup was GUS or General MIDI. My guess is that developers did that purely for the convenience of users, so those just had to know the name of their soundcard and nothing else. And presumably it's the same with the AWE soundcards.

Right, do you have any comparison example where they use the exact same instruments?

Going by some comparisons, GUS sounds a bit muffled but also slightly smoother and with a bit more bass. So there is that difference, on real hardware that is.

I tested a whole number of games back then which included Doom, Rise of the Triad, Dark Forces and Duke Nukem 3D, all of which listed the GUS as an individual music device in the setup program, and I think not a single one of those games would actually load custom samples onto the GUS. I guess there's a chance that at least in some cases it's caused by the digital releases of these games being incomplete but I doubt it. Should probably look for their reference cards online and see if those mention some programs that have to be run before the game to load custom soundbanks onto the card. But frankly one would rather expect that the games would do this on their own if GUS is selected as the music device.

I linked to this above.. Doom sounds different on all three (SB, GUS, SC-55) and even on same brand variants: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXFYWJ7dbz0

Best GUS ver. I could find:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=figScJtkQk8&t=4m59s

Doesn't mean you're not right about the others though, I'll have to look into that then.

Edit: DN3D also sounds different on all three: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFX63IGmbwY

To be fair that's a bad GUS example. This "pro patches" one is pretty cool: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdpk2JYQAKM

I'm not sure what you're getting at. I never said that GUS sounds like some other soundcard, I said that few games make use of GUS' ability to load custom samples onto it and as a result GUS uses the same sounds in various games while musicians could have included unique sounds with their game, just like in case of tracker music. Very few games seem to do that. And I think some games that do support this feature (Terminal Velocity? possibly Star Control II?) don't really utilise it because tracker music is used by the game either way, so the only advantage of using a GUS is that the samples can be loaded onto the soundcard, freeing up some RAM (well, or maybe the sample rate is a bit higher when using GUS, that's quite possible but I didn't notice it using DOSBox).

Ok so I edited what you replied to to "GM on other cards" at the same time as you were replying just to clarify there. I thought you had understood what I meant anyway. Nevermind.

There's a dozen or so games with hardware mixing for higher quality, no idea about custom instruments for GUS. I'm interested in learning more about that, what makes other versions of it (and AWE32/64) have different instruments, and about soundfonts.

Yeah that's true, it is a Windows game that used General MIDI for music (and also giving extra support for AWE32 for the end boss song). I merely used it as the only example where I know AWE32's ability to download custom sounds/instrucments to its RAM was utilized, instead of using it as a generic General MIDI sound card + DAC.

While I am not 100% sure how AWE32 has achieved being able to play Roland MT-32 music passably in MT-32 games like Monkey Island 1-2, I presume it is a similar setup as the SC-55/SCC-1 "MT-32 mode". That is, it is using rearramged General MIDI instruments to approximately play the music as a real MT-32 would play it. E.g. if MT-32 would play a piano sound, AWE32 (or SC-55) would also play a piano sound (instead of a harpsicord or a violin), etc.

With SC-55/SCC-1, there was one simple MIDI message you'd send to the device to flip it to the "MT-32 mode", and another MIDI message to flip it back to GS/Sound Canvas/General MIDI mode. On power up they default to the GS/GM mode.

The main reason it sounds different (and sometimes even better) than on a real MT-32 is simply because it has better quality instruments (piano, violin etc.). The General MIDI standard does not define how exactly e.g. a piano should sound, it just defines that e.g. "instrument #1 is Acoustic Grand Piano, #2 is Bright Acoustic Piano, #14 is a Xylophone" etc.

It is up to the General MIDI synth maker to then decide how his "Acoustic Grand Piano" sounds, etc. That is why different General MIDI synths can sound so different, even if they are playing exactly the same General MIDI song.

General MIDI and MT-32 have quite many similar instruments in their instrument list, but they are not identical. That is (one reason) why a vanilla General MIDI card doesn't sound right when playing MT-32 MIDI music, and vice versa. Unless, you rearrange those General MIDI instruments a bit before trying to play MT-32 music.

General MIDI instrument list: https://www.midi.org/specifications/item/gm-level-1-sound-set (go to the "Patch Map" list)

Roland MT-32 instrument list: http://www.voidaudio.net/mtinstrument.html

The MT-32 or General MIDI game itself doesn't check nor automatically know what kind if MIDI synth there is receiving the messages. It just sees a MPU-401 MIDI interface, and then starts sending its MIDI messages to it. For example Monkey Island 2 auto-detects your sound card (unless you force it to use a certain sound card), and if it detect a MPU-401 MIDI interface in the system, then it thinks hey there must be a Roland MT-32 synthesizer, and selects MT-32 as the music device. This happens even if you have e.g. a Roland SCC-1 or some other MPU-401 MIDI sound card in the system.

The same would happen if you have a Roland MT-32 in the system but the game starts playing General MIDI music. Sure you hear some kind of "music" from your MT-32 because it is receiving MIDI messages from the game and understands them the best way it can, but it sounds all wrong.

It just means the General MIDI game (in this case Doom) sounds a bit different depending on what kind of General MIDI soundset you use. You can do the same on modern PCs by using different General MIDI soundfonts with e.g. the CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth. Doom music sounds quite different if you are using the default "Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth" soundset, or ChoriumRevA, or FluidR3, or SGM, or WeedsGM, or Timbres of Heaven... all those different GM/GS soundfonts had their own idea how the different instruments should sound.

Also the balance between different instruments may be quite different in different soundfonts (or General MIDI soundcards), e.g. playing the Tie Fighter title music with "Timbres of Heaven" has the horns sounding much more powerful (eclipsing rest of the instruments) than with e.g. the "ChoriumRevA" soundfont, which to me sounds more balanced for that specific song.

That's right, and this makes trying a game with "the best" soundfont a chore : you have to try everyone a bit with each game to see which one sounds best.

Chorium is really nice and quite small. But there are lots of others, each with its "domain" where it sounds best.