I recently got myself a Roland MT-32 for the sole purpose of listening to incredible DOS-era game soundtracks. For some reason the MT-32 appeals more to me than any of the Sound Canvases; everything sounds better.

So far I've listened to Ultima UW 1+2, Ultima VII, Quest for Glory series, Might and Magic III & IV and Betrayal at Krondor. They're all great, especially BaK!

If you have any recommendations please do share.

There's a comprehensive list here <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MT-32-compatible_computer_games&amp;gt; and I've love to try em all but I don't want to burn a hole in my wallet.

Silpheed is a definite must for the Roland MT-32 in my opinion. It is not here on GOG but if you find a copy to play, trust me when I say the soundtrack is amazing. I also will throw in Leisure Larry 1 VGA version and Wing Commander since those are the ones I can think if right at the top of my head that sound great.

I think there was some earlier discussion about this, hopefully I don't forget any important ones this time. By the way that Wikipedia list seems way incomplete.

I put (!!!) in those titles that I feel you should definitely check out for their music, especially if they are a bit less known games.


Many many Sierra games, before Sierra started supporting General MIDI (because after that their MT-32 support became "MT-32 music is a cut-down version of the General MIDI music", ie. they didn't support MT-32 to the full anymore. Was it around Space Quest 5 or so that they switched to General MIDI, maybe? So before that. Remember to try also the less familiar titles like EcoQuest and Island of Dr Brain, their music is great, especially later in the game.

Many Dynamix games, like Nova 9 (!!!), Heart of China, Rise of the Dragon, A-10 Tank Killer, Red Baron...

Many Ocean games, like Lethal Weapon (!!!), TFX (!!!), Inferno (!!!) Robocop 3 etc. Here's one in-game tune from TFX:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pc2Xowj22hU

Speedball 2

Utopia (!!!): here check the different in-game tunes from the menu screen, don't let the simple intro music fool you.

King's Table: The Legend of Ragnarok (!!!)

Ringworld: Revenge of the Patriarch (!!!)

Many Origin games like Strike Commander (!!!), Wing Commander 1-2, Ultima 7, Ultima Underworld 1-2. Here's an example of the Strike Commander in-game music on MT-32:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yRvxC4wpDo

Dune 2. Also the first Dune, to a lesser extent.

Double Dragon 3.

For some reason I find most LucasArts' games MT-32 music quite bland and uninteresting, even though everyone else seems to remember to mention e.g. Monkey Island 2. The music in LucasArts MT-32 games is ok IMHO, but that's all.

Same goes for most Microprose games, they didn't really seem to have that talented composers it seems. SubWar 2050 had a pretty good title music though.

For that I'd say, anything with e.g. piano or violin sounds much better on Sound Canvas, because those two instrument patches in particular were really quite abysmal on the MT-32. :) Listen to games like Privateer or Ultima 8 with Sound Canvas, they might change your mind a bit.

Dune 2 is an interesting game because I can't make up my mind whether the music is better on SC or MT-32. it's a draw, even though they sound quite different. Hence, when I was playing the game actively back in the day, I just had to keep changing the sound source on different gaming sessions.

But with a game like (LucasArts) Star Wars or Tie Fighter, there was no contest: while the MT-32 music was quite good, they were considerably better and closer to the movies with Sound Canvas music.

But many MT-32 games did sound quite special in their own way, making generic General MIDI games sound quite bland and "too clean".

Thanks for your suggestions. I'll definitely check out Wing Commander Strike Commander, and some of these Ocean games. TFX sounds epic indeed. Hope it becomes available on GOG. No doubt some of the later games sound better on the Sound Canvas since they were composed for them. U8 sounds great. But like you mentioned, they sound too clean and real to me. MT-32 has more "character" for lack of a better word..

Here's a auto-generated You-tube channel with 566 videos all(at last count in the corner) showcasing mt-32 sound.



http://www.youtube.com/channel/HCuzDrtI-W4Po


I just looked up Silpheed and yeah it sounded great too.

You're not the only one. I find MI2's MT-32 soundtrack boring and overly reverby. I much prefer the adlib soundtrack in that instance.

I still prefer the MT-32 version, but it is also a bit meh. As bland as it was, I even prefer the MT-32 music in Dune, even though so many others claim the SB/Adlib music is the better one on that one. I presume it depends quite a lot also which version you are used to hearing...

Adlib:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lbJ9aXwWqc

MT-32:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lbJ9aXwWqc#t=186s

I think a lot of it is to do with which card it was composed for and which is was 'ported to'. If the music was written on an Adlib/SB then they might have put a lot of work into programming the synth patches and then just lazily assigned MT-32 voices afterwards. Of course, if the soundtrack was written with an MT-32 in mind then it would all be mixed correctly for an MT-32 and just use horrible generic Adlib patches.
I think nostalgia plays a part, but I didn't hear either of the adlib or MT-32 soundtracks of MI2 until I started using ScummVM.

When I originally played it, I was on a Windows 95 computer and the only way I managed to get music was by telling it I had an MT-32 (the instructions for which got sent to the general MIDI of whatever soundcard I had) and then just listening to the hilariously mismatched voice selections.

Dang, some good soul has just recently (in June) uploaded many new MT-32 game songs into Youtube, some of which I mentioned before. Like:

Nova 9:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGRXiE1V7eQ

Double Dragon 3:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Iq6IhLvaF4s

(if you had a Roland CM-32L or LAPC-1 instead of the original MT-32, I think the music had a few extra sounds/instruments compared to that video. The game even had a separate sound selection for MT-32 and LAPC-1.)

Dune 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7ma2xLPwwg

Bigger list:

http://www.youtube.com/user/classicVGsounds

Some other GOG user, hmmmm? :)

So glad i picked up a Roland MT-32 off ebay quite cheap around 5 years ago, still need to get a USB midi cable to connect it to my PC, the music it produces in some old games is wonderful.

Definitely give Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis a shot. I think this game has one of the best MT-32 soundtracks from LucasArts.

-Tristan
Here is a good link to another thread bout great MT-32 soundtracks.

http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?topic=943.0

A database of MT-32 enabled PC DOS games.

http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attributeId,35/p,2/

I don't care much about soundtracks, but Ultima Underworld was a much better experience with Roland sound effects than Soundblaster ones.

Simple:
Origin games
Sierra games
LucasArts games

You have to "hit" the right time period, though. In case of the later games by all these companies General MIDI was the better option. Anyway, some more specific recommendations:

Wing Commander I
Wing Commander II (in combination with Soundblaster for speech)
Space Quest IV (again, in combination with Soundblaster for speech)
Red Baron
Monkey Island 1 & 2
Quest for Glory 1 & 2 (I think 3 also, I don't know whether 4 still supports MT-32 or does it well)

Also Populous sounds much better when using an MT-32 (where regular MIDI will generate pure garbage an MT-32 will actually create kind of fitting SFX - sadly still not very good audio, though).