VOGONS


First post, by Zandro

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Would anyone be interested in this? i actually have a
8MB MT32 compatible soundfont that I'm working on
already. I`m also planing on making a bigger soundfont
later on. Any thoughts on this?

Edit:
Ok here it is the first preview sample of my MT32 compatible
soundfont it works on all Soundblaster cards that supports
sf2 soundfonts, it has only been tested on TES:Arena so far.
It is an alpha release but it sounds quite good with TES:Arena
i will try to provide a mp3 soundclip of the main title with this
soundfont and a mp3 soundclip of the original MT32 to compare.
I still have a lot of work to do before it can work properly with
most of the games that can utilise MT32. The MT32 soundfont
has only 22 instruments that are correctly comprised at the moment.

MT32 compatible Soundfont v0.2a
http://www.aep-emu.de/temp/MT32-8MB_V02a.zip

Soundclip TES:Arena main title original MT32
blaze.spicelab.net/mt32/nolinks/TESAren ... MT-32).mp3

Soundclip TES:Arena main title MT32 compatible soundfont.
/files/tesarena_-_overcast__mt-32_soundfont_v0.3a_.mp3

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Last edited by Zandro on 2006-01-23, 22:40. Edited 6 times in total.

Reply 1 of 5, by Zandro

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MT32 compatible Soundfont v0.3a is soon to be released

Compatible games:

- TES:Arena

Incompatible games:

- Jones in the fast lane (sound horrible, no solution to this problem)
- Legend of Kyrandia (no sound at all, but tests with ripped midi files
worked correctly, no solution to this problem)
- Betrayal at Krondor ( not a problem since the game supports GM midi)

Fixed:

- All the presets have the right name now
- Correctly comprised instruments have increased to 29
- Have improvised some instruments that kind of match
but does not really have the right tune due to differences
between MT32 and GM instrument types and subtypes

Issues:

- Still 99 instruments that are incorrect or missing
- Some of the instruments have an incorrect sound level
- Missing a lot of MT32 specific instruments

To do list

- Get more information regardign the MT32 synthesizer
- Find out what common instruments that MT32 and GM shares
- Get correct soundsampels for the instrument pool

Last edited by Zandro on 2006-01-24, 16:30. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 2 of 5, by HunterZ

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As I'm sure you know, the usefulness of an MT-32 soundfont is limited due to the fact that many games upload custom instrument parameters to the MT-32 on startup that change the instrument sounds in ways that cannot be replicated by a soundfont (unless maybe it's made for that particular game?). Still a nice idea and may work well for some games.

Also, you'll want to test Sierra and LucasArts adventure games at some point...

Reply 3 of 5, by Zandro

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Yes i know that Sierra games reprogrammes the sound banks.
But a good deal of the more "normal" games uses MT32 in a fashion that allowes soundfonts to be used and that is what I'm aiming for. TES:Arena works nice with the 0.3a version (besides a missing guitar?) but im mostly
stumbling in the dark since i don't know what a Oboe2001 and a lot of other MT32 specific instruments sounds like, normally it wouldn't be a problem but the Roland naming of the instruments makes it harder to find the correct sample that fits that specific instrument due to the "outlandish" naming of them. it is possible to make a game specific soundfonts but i strongly doubt that I'm going to try that, considering the amount of games that would need a special version.

Reply 5 of 5, by Zandro

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If i actually had a MT32 emulator or a real MT32 i would have
come a lot further than i already have, The way Ive managed
to get this far is a very complicated one, listening to recordings
of a MT32 device, comparing it with the output that i got from a
GM soundfont, demitting which instruments that goes where and bla bla
bla.... to much to write about. 29 GM instrument samples could be
directly transfered to the new MT32 soundfont, but the rest is just guessing.
Any help would be appreciated 😀

I'm not going to put actual samples from the real MT32, i have a big collection of instrument samples, i just need to hear what a real MT32 sounds like so that i can fetch the right samples from my collection and put in the right bank, and maybe modify it to match sound levels pitch etc if it out of tune.

Further down the road I'm i plan on making a monster MT32 soundfont with studio quality instruments (please don`t shout blasphemy) 😀

Edit: Updated soundclip of the MT32 soundfont with the
new v0.3a, it sounds a lot better now!