--On Sunday, August 11, 2002 10:55 AM +0100 Pedro Quaresma
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[Snip]
>> I have both an MT-32 and an SC-55. I went with external
>> units so that I could plug and unplug as needed for
>> games. I used a midi cable to connect the midi port on my SB Audigy
>> (was an AWE64, later a SB Live!) to the Roland unit and then fed the
>> outputs of each Roland via a reverse splitter back into the LineIn jack
>> of the soundcard.
>
> Adding a question here Edward: can you too be a bit more descriptive
> about the cables? I don't understand a thing about audio audio cables,
> unfortunately.
Sure. I had the same problems myself. I had to figure out what I needed
by asking people and doing some websearches.
Ok, here are the cables and adapters you need to hook up an MT-32 to a
sound card (I'm assuming a typical SoundBlaster or clone) with a MIDI port
and a line-in jack. Each of these links has a picture so you can see the
exact cable.
A) The MIDI cable <http://www.cablesnmor.com/midi-cable.html>
B) The 1/4 inch to RCA *mono* adapter
<http://www.radioshack.com/product.asp?catalog%5Fname=CTLG&category%5Fname=
CTLG%5F005%5F003%5F009%5F004&product%5Fid=274%2D320>
C) Stereo to RCA Y adapter <http://www.cablesnmor.com/w13200.html>
D) Male to Female Stereo extension cable
<http://www.cablesnmor.com/stereo-extension-cables.html>
Notes:
1) Make sure you plug the MIDI-OUT connector on the cable to the
MIDI-IN
hole on the MT-32 and the MIDI-IN connector on the cable to the MIDI-OUT
hole on the MT-32. I screwed up at first and did IN to IN and OUT to OUT
which is wrong.
2) Make sure you get the *mono* adapter. I bought stereo adapters
the
first time around which won't work. The mono adapter will connect properly
to C which is what combines the two mono singles into a stereo signal for
your sound card's line-in jack.
3) On your sound card make sure you enable the line in and set
the volume
accordingly. Also, if you are using the MT-32 under Windows you might need
to change the control panel setting for a SoundBlaster so all MIDI stuff
goes out through the MIDI port instead of to the SoundBlaster's MIDI unit.
4) For my SC-55 I just needed A, C, & D.
>> Once I built my retro-gaming PC (MS-DOS 6.22/WfW
>> 3.11/Win98) I just duplicated the setup on that
>> machine. Now if I want to play the more finicky games (Ultima VII) I
>> don't have to move hardware around.
>
> But you didn't port either your AWE64 or your SB Live! to your
> retro-gaming PC too, did you?
I put the AWE64 (an Value version) in my retro-gaming PC. Since I already
had the card it was the easiest one to use, plus I thought it would be the
most compatible card for older games. The Live! would have been wasted
there simply because it is a Live! Platinum and I have other Windows PCs
where the LiveDrive would be more useful. ;-)
Oh, another thing I did was to use two video cards. I use a Riva128 card
for 2D graphics and a Voodoo2 (Diamond Monster with a 'whopping' 12MB of
video RAM) for those games that support Glide. The Riva128 is useful in
that it also has Windows 3.x drivers for those times that I want to tempt
fate and try to game under Windows 3.x.
I can give you a complete listing of what I did with that PC if you are
interested.
[Snip]
>> The MT-32 definitely enhances Ultima VII (the main game
>> I bought it for), plus the Sierra titles such as Quest
>> for Glory 1 are much nicer with the full Roland support over the
>> simpler Adlib.
>
> QfG1 EGA or the VGA version? It's a game I'm bound to try as it was the
> game that made me fall in love with RPGs.
Both. I'm using the Quest for Glory Anthology so I'm trying out each
version.
[Snip]
>> I will say, however, that if you've gotten used to the
>> music of one type of soundcard anything else will sound
>> odd at first. Once the music burns itself into your cerebral cortex
>> variations are unsettling. :)
>
> I've noticed this when trying MT32 emulation with my SBAWE64 playing
> Ultima 6 actually :) I'll let you all know how it sounds with the "real
> thing".
You might not notice a difference with Ultima 6. I don't think Origin
used the SysEx commands on the MT-32 in Ultima 6. They most definitely did
on Ultima VII and the AWE64 does _not_ emulate the SysEx commands.
--
Edward Franks
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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