Hey everyone,

So far, I'm loving the fantastic enhanced port, but I couldn't help but notice the MIDI Music files where played "as is", with Windows' default soundfont. Which sounds okay, I guess, but I also launched the classic edition, and the Sound Blaster soundfont just sounds more "authentic".

So, my question is, can't there be a solution to configure how the soundtrack is managed in the enhanced edition?

My dream would be a small configurator which would let you pick up which old sound card would be emulated. An extra option to enable the MAC version soundtrack would also be perfect!

PS: Sorry for the approximative english.

Let us know how well this works.

It works like a charm ;) I'll experiment with some soundfonts and see what fits most. Thanks!

By FAR, the best free soundfont available is Timbres of Heaven 3.3beta. It's hidden on the midkar forums, I'll see if I can get you a link. It is compatable with Roland GS (Sound Canvas) and Yamaha XG modes, but General Midi is still great.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/4i1kuyfurk22vwf/Timbres%20Of%20Heaven%20GM_GS_XG_SFX%20V%203.3%20Beta.7z?dl=0

To get anything better is to pay quite a bit of money.

Why is the "By FAR the best free soundfont available"? I've used many very excellent ones, including ones that are identical to Roland SC-55. Also the SGM v2.01 is excellent, FluidR GM is solid too. A lot of people like the WeedsGM but I'm not a big fan for the games I play.

It's all about taste, I think. There are none that "by far the best." Purists will want a Roland SC-55 sound. For incredible high-fidelity modern classical sound, Bellatrix and is perfect, and for Super high quality everything Crisis General Midi I've found to be the best. It's very large, however at 1.75 GB.


This thread on Vogons has some more ideas.
http://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=31883

Unfortunately this doesn't seem to work on W10 (or 8/8.1 apparently). On my "Default MIDI out Device" I can't select anything. Comes up underneath saying: Warning: since MIDI Mapper has been removed in Windows 8, MIDI players are required to explicitly select an output device, otherwise the first installed one will be used. Please check if your player allows output device selection and select "coolsoft VirtualMIDISynth."

Okay, so this is factually true, but effectively false. On Windows 8, anyway, I haven't tried it in Windows 10. At least for me, anyway, every time I've launched program that runs in DOSBOX or the like and launches MIDI audio, VirtualMIDISynth is used. I think there may be a registry setting that puts this device in as 0. If it doesn't work for you, editing the configuration of DOSBox is very easy to select the right controller.

It's true, MS killed off Midi Mapper in Vista. Why don't you make sure that you have a Soundfont installed and chosen as the default soundfont in Virtual MIDI Synth, then under Options make sure that "Automatically open MIDI Mixer while playing" is checked, then launch a game that uses MIDI. You can then Alt+tab to the desktop and check your taskbar to see if the Coolsoft MIDI Mixer is there or in the notification area.

ToH is so much better then SGM and FluidGM, its not funny. As for purists, old machines are old. They sound old. Lets emulate Adlib while we are at it. As for Crisis GM 1.75 GB is too unweildly large for a SoftSynth, you probably have lag issues galore evreytime new midi instruments load. Am I right?

Give it a try first, then you can prove me wrong.

http://coolsoft.altervista.org/it/blog/2013/03/what-happened-midi-mapper-windows-8

This post has some information, and explains that if you only have the default MGWS and CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth installed, your software SHOULD be selecting the CoolSoft synth first. If it doesn't for some odd reason, then you'll have to select in specifically in software, like with DOSBOX by editing the config files, or VideoLAN (versions 2.08 or older) and selecting it.
Nope, that's not the way the Synth software works. It loads all on software start, so size doesn't matter. I have a couple seconds lag before the game or music software starts, but nothing after that because everything is loaded.

Also, a Roland MT-32 is still one of the best sounding synth devices to this day in my opinion.

I did the the thing about the making sure the mixer launches and it seems to be working. Cheers!

No you're wrong, it loads the instruments as they are needed. Some games load their entire pallete at the start and never change, others dont. Lag depends on your Ram I'm sure.
MT-32 is really, really old.

I'm not trying to prove you wrong I guess, I was asking if there was any reason you think it was the best, anything that makes it stand apart from the others?

And I'm definitely going to try it out because I love high quality fonts. Some work better for some games than others. I have a little 55 MB SC-55 font that kills for Duke3D.

I had never heard of this one you recommended, that's all.
Look man, I'm not wrong this is stupid to argue about something that you don't use. There is an option to load the entire font into memory before use, it doesn't matter if that instrument hasn't been called yet by the software because the driver has already loaded it all.

Fair enough, excellent Instruments, excellent balance. The author Don Allen is a genius when it comes to sound design. Initially I know he pulled a lot from Arachno and some from Fluid, but it has grown a lot since then.
By your own admission it's an option, that's not default behavior. But fair enough, I know a lot of other software that doesn't work that way and it's been a while since i touched coolsynth. I must have missed that option.