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Old 04-12-2011, 06:10 PM   #3
laffer
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Thanks and yeah, the MT-32 does sound really good in many of these games!

So much so in fact that the MT-32 is one thing I have no problem recommending to any big fans of classic Sierra games... in many cases, such as Police Quest 2, it's really the only way to play the games in my opinion.

It's especially easy to recommend to any fan of these games, regardless of their skills when it comes to PC related things, seeing as hooking this up to modern PCs and getting it up and running is so extremely simple and easy.

Basically, all you do is get a MIDI-USB cable to connect it to your PC, and a TSR cable with two 1/4" mono plugs on one end and a normal 1/8" stereo plug on the other end, to connect to your PC line-in.
The later model of the MT-32 has a normal stereo 1/8" output, but this one is a lot more rare than the older model which has the two 1/4" mono outputs which is why you need this kind of cable in most cases.

Anyway, both of these cables are really easy to find, and very cheap.

It's very much plug and play, just connect the cables and you're pretty much ready to go... the only other thing you need to do (if using Dosbox anyway) is change one little setting in the Dosbox configuration file... basically just change the "midiconfig=" setting to whatever number your MT-32 is listed as (which you can easily find by typing "mixer /listmidi" at the Dosbox prompt which gives you a list of your available midi devices, each with a number assigned).
Simply put the number assigned to your MT-32 in that setting in the Dosbox config file... in my case it is listed as 1, so the line is "midiconfig=1".

And that's it, that's all it takes to get it up and running perfectly.


About the links I've posted in this thread, here are my favourite MT-32 tunes out of all the ones I've posted -

Police Quest 2 opening and ending tunes, as they're maybe the most dramatic improvements compared to the adlib sound out of all of them... much because of, for whatever reason, that game has really bad sounding adlib music... adlib isn't great but it can sound a lot better than it does in PQ2.

Space Quest 3 opening music, as this is another huge improvement and is also a really nice and catchy tune

Secret of Monkey Island 2 opening tune - again because I find this to be one of the more drastic improvements compared to what you get when using adlib, but also because it's the only Monkey Island game for PC in which people normally have to use adlib... unless you count the new, remastered versions.
It's the only Monkey Island game in which this is the case, Monkey Island 1 has the CD version with CD audio tracks, and later MI games are too modern to even have an adlib option.

I also really like the Willy Beamish one... it's not that it's a very good example of the MT-32 improving the sound dramatically, as the adlib in this case also sounds pretty good... I just happen to really like this tune and despite maybe not being the best example, I still love how it sounds on the MT-32.

The one I like the least out of the ones I've posted is the Legend of Kyrandia one... I'm not at all fond of the pan flutes in the MT-32 version, so in this case I might actually prefer the adlib version (the adlib music in this game is really nice!).

Last edited by laffer; 04-12-2011 at 07:42 PM.
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