I really dislike the cacophony of the original setup GOG presented.
The GOG release lacks the install.exe file, so You can't really change the sound setup.
Thankfully, You can edit the games config file.

Go to Your "UNDEROM1\DATA" folder, and open up the UW.CFG, and edit the first line:
from "6 -1 -1 -1 sound",
to "4 -1 -1 -1 sound".

Enjoy the awesome music of UU without earrape. ;)

As one who played both on a genuine Sound Blaster 16 back in the day, I can agree that this setup is loads better. Sounds exactly the same. The same changes work in UW2, and for peace of mind, I'd recommend changing the sbtype in the [sblaster] section of their DOSBox CONF files from sbpro2 to sb16

I didn't notice any change when changing it to "4" in UU2 (perhaps, the violation of my hearing caused by the default sound device in UU caused this). Originally i wanted this thread to be about both games, but since i didn't hear a difference, i've decided to stick to UU1.
I'll look into it again in a moment. Also, i'll check the sbtype values changes.

Thanks for the input, i really appreciate it! ;)

While changing to 4 made it sound a bit better, it still didn't sound as good as when I played it on my old IBM PS1 PC. I tried copying the speech setting to the sound setting (so "2 7 220 1 sound") and it's actually more to my liking. Sound effect volume is a bit low vs the music, but it's still audible.

Edit: Just fooled around the setting for UW2, and I prefer the "4 -1 -1 -1" for UW2' s sounds.

UWSOUND.exe for Ultima Underworlds 1. Take off the 1 in the front.

UWSOUND.exe for Ultima Underworlds 2. Take off the 2 in the front.

This is from my own collection, it should work fine with both games. The UWSOUND from UUW2 will not work with UUW1.

Hope this helps.

Arkose reports that the install/music selection .EXEs are in game.gog.

The image has uwsound, but it reports with:

"Configures Underworld for non default Soundcards

You do not currently have any sound devices installed.
If You wish to add sound devices, run INSTALL"

Install.exe is not there.;)

Perhaps there is a way to configure the sound with this, i just haven't found it.
Considering the amount of tweaking it requires to get to play around with those files in DosBOX on the default GOG install [REMing two lines in the conf, and deleting the "exit" param in the shortcut] i think the solution given in my first post is the fastest. I don't think You need to set the IDA [irq(7), dma(1), address(220)] for music playback.
Anyhow, i sense no difference between "2 7 220 1 sound" and "2 -1 -1 -1 sound". I think it's more about what DosBOX uses, and then, what Your default MIDI synth in Your OS is. I believe UU uses midi (based/like/related/compatible?) format.

Maybe, haven't tried, I just did a copy/paste =P

Ah! Windows blunted my senses, all i though when i saw the file, was "oh, a dos uninstaller..".

Though, playing around with the uinstall, i can't seem to make a difference, i mean, it does not change the CFG file. I chose None for both sound and music, launched the game with the UW.bat, sound and speech was there.
I've also mounted game.gog with my own dosbox, i found out it creates a directory with save files [UNDEROM1\SAVE0] on the disk of my chosing, but does not create the cfg file, nor the DATA directory. Manual creation of the directory and file does not help. I can't seem to successively use the uinstall to change the sound. ;)

Ah, I ran the extracted UW.exe directly. I didn't try putting it back in with the other GOG files. GOG has done something fancy with the configuration for these games for some reason which may be the explanation for this difference.

A-ha!;)
There's another http://www.gog.com/en/forum/ultima_underworld/sound_in_ultima_underworld_is_playing_music/post8]threadp/url] here, where a guy describes the CFG file in more detail. He ninjna'd me, the bastard, as i was going to research the options of the CFG and update the first post. Oh well, there goes my first attempt at a problem solving thread. ;)

While trying this out I ended up with no voice but with subtitles. Then fixed it but lost the subs. What is the setting for those?

I don't think you can enable them separately. Many older games only displayed subtitles when voice was not available rather than tying to to a separate setting as in more recent games.

Can someone please tell me how to disable the speech, as I would very much prefer having subtitles since I'm a bit hard of hearing. I'm not a very tech savvy person, so please describe it in simple steps?