The Ultima 5 Soundtrack on a Passport Wavetable Card

To celebrate the release of Ultima 5 on Good Old Games today, it seems fitting to revisit one of the best ways to enjoy its soundtrack: using a Passport Wavetable MIDI card.

The glory of MIDI.

A Wavetable system would have cost both arms and a leg back in its day, but would the cost have been worth it? The glorious quality of the sound suggests that it would have been, yes.

And yes, you can download a copy of the soundtrack files here.

5 Responses

  1. Time Machine Dragon says:

    Wow. I get the feeling this is what they were using when they wrote the original tunes.

  2. Zygon Dragon says:

    Well. I’ve been searching for more info on this for a while now. Last night just before my Apple IIe blew up I think I’ve worked it out. (Now I have a broken Apple IIe 🙁

    The guy that posted the youtube video wit the music says on his website that he mixed it in after.

    http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=2&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fnsm53p.tistory.com%2Fcategory%2FULTIMA&act=url

    I have an Apple IIe with a midi interface card and using a Roland Sound Canvas you can access one channel only. Ultima V lets you configure this. But you are limited to one channel so to reproduce the music he has on his youtube is impossible. If anyone else can confirm this let me know.

    Cheers,

  3. Zygon Dragon says:

    Would be great. I also own the Sound Chaser and Mountain Music system cards. Neither of the Mountain music System cards work with Ultima V. These are the so called “wavetable cards” people refer to.

    The configuration is looking for a midi card and you must have a midi device connected to it for sound. Problem is your limited to 1 channel only. Before my Apple IIe blew an IO I did manager to get it playing sound on my Roland Sound Canvas 8850. Sounded good but no way like the youtube video though.

    I dare not risk inserting my midi interface again to my Apple IIe. I’m worried it will blow again. Its a homebrew card someone made many years ago and there is solder all over the shop. Probably why it blew.