[MusicallyInspired]

As for what specified MIDI devices game scores were made for, the answer is all of the ones that the game supports, or it wouldn't support them. Which one sounds best? IMO, whichever one the composer composed with while scoring it. Sometimes those devices aren't supported by the games themselves, but only rarely. Most of the time it was a Sound Canvas of some kind (SC-55, SC-88, SCC-1, etc). For games older than 1992 or so it was the MT-32. In some cases it was a GUS and even more rarely some obscure device that even less people had. The composer for Heretic, in contrast to Doom, did not use a Sound Canvas but another device that I....can't recall right now.

Basically, Sound Canvas is usually a safe bet. But that would be one comprehensive list to get the actual results from for every game. Then there's the subjective matter of which devices people think a game soundtrack sounds best on regardless of what the composer used, sometimes with a majority opinion. That's a thick dense forest you're trying to look for answer through...

[deuxsonic]

I suspect despite what they were composed with, there was emphesis on how they would sound on the sound cards that everyone had. A lot of DOS game music seems to be tailored for the OPL series chips rather than to sound good on a SoundCanvas.

Kevin Schilder did awesome work. My favorite song of his is probably the song used for the map River of Fire (E2M3). I liked all the remixes of Heretic and Hexen music he did for the Hexen II soundtrack as well.

[lukeman3000]

So, what is generally accepted as the closest to an original SC-55 soundfont these days? I am aware of the following contenders:

Patch93's SC-55 soundfont (which can be downloaded here)

deemster's Roland SC-55 Presets soundfont over on the vogon's forums

and of course StrikingUAC's own soundfont which can be found in the OP.

So, which one do you guys consider closest to an SC-55 for getting the "truest" sound possible when playing old games like King's Quest VI, etc.?

From what I read in this thread, it sounds like Patch93s may be superior to OP's soundfont (and is also newer). So, I made a comparison video showing the differences between Patch93 and deemsters soundfonts as seen here. In the comparison video, deemster's soundfont is first, followed by patch93 (they alternate back and forth).

[Lunick]

You comparison video link doesn't work.

[Sledgehammer]

lukeman3000, on 28 April 2017 - 09:27 PM, said:

So, what is generally accepted as the closest to an original SC-55 soundfont these days?

Probably Sound Canvas VA. It supports more than SC-55 actually. The catch is that it's not free.

[Lunick]

Here's a comparison of that software to the real thing

[lukeman3000]

Fixed my comparison video link. Youtube is still processing the video but it should be available to watch in a couple minutes.

So, is the sound canvas VA a soundfont .sf2 type file, or is it like it's own program or something? Once purchased, could I deploy it on another computer in my household or would I have to purchase again?

Also, I'm still interested to know which (free) soundfont people think is, generally speaking, the best these days, as compared to an actual SC-55.

[MusicallyInspired]

I've never been impressed with the official Virtual Sound Canvas products. That latest one seems a lot closer to the real thing, though. Does that video comparison with the Doom tracks show the worst offending comparisons? If so, not bad.

[Sledgehammer]

It's pretty much software and not soundfont, but you can use it to play MIDI with players. Can work with Dosbox too (just google). No idea if you can use it on other computers though, it likely has DRM (we're talking about Roland after all, the same company which didn't want to bother with PC because of piracy). There must be video comparison for it as well.

[lukeman3000]

Sledgehammer, on 29 April 2017 - 10:11 AM, said:

It's pretty much software and not soundfont, but you can use it to play MIDI with players. Can work with Dosbox too (just google). No idea if you can use it on other computers though, it likely has DRM (we're talking about Roland after all, the same company which didn't want to bother with PC because of piracy). There must be video comparison for it as well.

Got it.

That said, what do you think is the next-best option in terms of soundfonts at this point in time? Unless I'm missing some, it seems to be between OP's, Patch93 v2.2, and deemsters. Deemster and Patch93 do sound fairly different (as seen I that video I posted), but I'm not sure which sounds more like an SC-55.

[NightFright]

I actually stopped using soundfonts in favor of actual software emulation. Since I discovered the Yamaha S-YXG50 VSTi plugin run through mudlord's VSTi MIDI driver, I use nothing else for any game that uses MIDI (also Doom, for example).

This plugin basically gives you the sound of the DB50XG daughterboard which was one of the best wavetable synths you could buy back then. I used to own one and loved it. With this plugin, you get incredibly close to the sound of the original, would say almost 100% accurate if you are not a total audio freak. Sure, it's not the SC-55, but with just 4mb ROM size, this thing rocked in the 90s and still does today. Also consider that other than the SC plugin, this one is absolutely free of charge. Yamaha released a trial version of the S-YG50 but never published a full version. Only recently a Russian guy removed the trial limitations and made it completely portable. For me, it's the perfect solution for anything related to MIDI.

It's also easy to set up. After installing the driver, just point it to where you placed the plugin and it's done. Max quality settings are already applied.

Links for the plugin and mudlord's driver are at the bottom of the FAQ section of the HRP website.

[lukeman3000]

NightFright, on 29 April 2017 - 01:33 PM, said:

I actually stopped using soundfonts in favor of actual software emulation. Since I discovered the Yamaha S-YXG50 VSTi plugin run through mudlord's VSTi MIDI driver, I use nothing else for any game that uses MIDI (also Doom, for example).

This plugin basically gives you the sound of the DB50XG daughterboard which was one of the best wavetable synths you could buy back then. I used to own one and loved it. With this plugin, you get incredibly close to the sound of the original, would say almost 100% accurate if you are not a total audio freak. Sure, it's not the SC-55, but with just 4mb ROM size, this thing rocked in the 90s and still does today. Also consider that other than the SC plugin, this one is absolutely free of charge. Yamaha released a trial version of the S-YG50 but never published a full version. Only recently a Russian guy removed the trial limitations and made it completely portable. For me, it's the perfect solution for anything related to MIDI.

It's also easy to set up. After installing the driver, just point it to where you placed the plugin and it's done. Max quality settings are already applied.

Links for the plugin and mudlord's driver are at the bottom of the FAQ section of the HRP website.

Pardon my ignorance, but what is the HRP website?

[K1n9_Duk3]

http://hrp.duke4.net/

[lukeman3000]

Just tried the VST midi plugin. Sounds pretty awesome, except everything sounds like it's in a different key, like a higher pitch. Here's a video that contrasts Patch93 soundfont with VST plugin. Patch93 goes first, followed by VST.

As you can see, the pitch is totally different. I believe that Patch93 is the correct pitch and that the VST is not correct. Any way to correct this or reason for this being?

[MusicallyInspired]

"Video is unavailable"

[lukeman3000]

Well, that's annoying. Should be fixed now.

[NightFright]

Interesting, haven't noticed that yet. Maybe I'll try contacting the Yamaha plugin guy and mudlord to ask them about it. It's either the plugin or the driver that may cause this.

[lukeman3000]

NightFright, on 01 May 2017 - 11:35 AM, said:

Interesting, haven't noticed that yet. Maybe I'll try contacting the Yamaha plugin guy and mudlord to ask them about it. It's either the plugin or the driver that may cause this.

Great, thanks. Otherwise, it sounds really nice! Would be awesome to have the pitch/key/octave or whatever corrected.

[NightFright]

Btw, I don't seem to have this issue. So it can also be something related to your system.

[MusicallyInspired]

It may have the option in the software itself?

[supergoofy]

Make sure that you use the last version of VSTMIDI driver. I think the latest is from 2017-03-27.


Something that I noticed: if you update your sound card driver (I have onboard Realtek HD 1150), you may need to reinstall the midi driver.
Also this may happen when you update your NVIDIA GeForce driver (at least it happened to me).


I have installed:
CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth v2.0.1
BASSMIDI driver 2016-02-06
VSTMIDI driver 2017-03-27
Munt v2.1.0

Putzlowitschs Vista MIDI-Mapper Control-Panel Version 0.94
https://putzlowitsch...7/sichtwechsel/

[supergoofy]

Here you can find a tutorial by PhilsComputerLab on how to use Falcosoft MIDI Player as software midi synthesizer with the help of loopMIDI

http://www.vogons.or...hp?f=33&t=53855

[NightFright]

lukeman3000, on 01 May 2017 - 12:01 PM, said:

Great, thanks. Otherwise, it sounds really nice! Would be awesome to have the pitch/key/octave or whatever corrected.

I have recently discovered that it was an issue with the VST MIDI driver.

In detail (from the comments on the Yamaha S-YXG50 download website):

Quote

I've encountered the same problem with the VST MIDI Driver when my default wave out device was set to use 48000Hz sample rate. It seems that VST MIDI Drivers supports only 44100Hz sample rate, and when your sound device works with other sample rate, VST MIDI Driver still uses 44100Hz which is played faster or slower than needed. I've written to the author of the VST MIDI Driver about this bug and I hope that he will fix it soon.

The issue was fixed in September 2017 already. Latest VST MIDI driver is dated Jan 3, 2018, so give it another shot if you haven't already.

Download the updated driver here:
http://github.com/ko...driver/releases

That being said, I'd still like to see a MIDI device selection in EDuke32 like e.g. GZDoom has it. Doesn't need to come with its own synth(s), just has to allow you to select MIDI output. This is also increasingly interesting since the MIDI mapper has been removed since Win 8 and can only be brought back by installing third-party programs.

[MusicallyInspired]

I thought it was since Vista?

[NightFright]

I never used Vista, so I cannot tell. But the MIDI mapper integrated into the VST MIDI Driver doesn't even show under Windows 10 (the second tab in the config window is just gone). You need to install the Coolsoft MIDI Mapper additionally to change the MIDI device separately.

[MusicallyInspired]

I'm pretty sure it was removed in Vista onwards. I remember having a program called Vista MIDI Mapper Selector Tool or something. Definitely had Vista in the title. MIDI Mapper hasn't been a thing since XP.

[NightFright]

It's quite possible. Fact is MS is doing everything to make it harder and harder to enjoy midi music. As exotic as it may have become by now - if you are into classic gaming, there's hardly any way around it.

There are basically two games for which I really need an ingame midi mapper: Doom and Duke3D. GZDoom is almost offering an overkill of midi synth options - while EDuke32 never had any. It would be awesome if something was done about that. Better late than never!

[Hendricks266]

While doing some unrelated bugfixing of MIDI on Windows I found the code responsible for selecting a specific MIDI device, which currently always selects the first one in the list. I think storing just the ID number in the cfg would be fragile, and the correct solution is to store both the ID and the device name, but I can't look at this right now.

[MusicallyInspired]

Is that because devices can change? Because DOSBox does this as well and it still allows device IDs (not names) to be set in the CONF file regardless of what the name or the device attached to it is. And if that number doesn't exist it probably just defaults to the first one or something.

[NightFright]

Main thing is it's on the agenda. We may have a proper high definition soundtrack now, but 1) not everybody bought WT and 2) tons of older mods still rely on midi music.

The idea is also to make improving midi music quality as easy as possible. It is difficult enough for the (sub)average user to deal with installing a software synth and then finding/loading soundfonts, GUS patches or VSTi plugins, but having to mess with yet another program to handle midi device priority may be too much for many.

Surely it can be done - I managed to get the Yamaha plugin working under Win 10, but tbh I wouldn't need to have it as a system-wide synth since I am never using it outside of Duke3D or Doom. For DOSBox gaming it can be interesting, though.

Sadly, mudlord's VST driver actually comes with a midi mapper, but with recent Win 10 updates it just doesn't show up any more. It's time to put an end to such annoyances by handling this within the game. We can safely assume that future Windows updates will continue to reduce midi support, even though by now there's already hardly anything left.

I am sure there are more important things to do for Evan right now, but this midi mapper thing has always been in the upper range of my wishlist for EDuke32, and I hope I am not going on anybody's nerves when I keep bringing it up. Music is an important part of the game and I keep spending quite some time trying to find efficient methods to get the best results in the easiest way possible.