Ultima Game Music On a (Real!) Roland MT-32
Jaesun999 sent me an email to let me know that he recently obtained a genuine Roland MT-32 multi-timbre sound module, and has been “squealing like a little kid and having a blast” listening to the music from various classic games played through it.
Naturally, being an Ultima fan, he also set out to record several tracks from various Ultima games as they sounded on this classic piece of hardware, and has posted a short playlist of results to YouTube.
It sounds gorgeous, no?
At present, he has select music tracks from The Black Gate, Serpent Isle, and Ultima 8 available, though I can only assume he’ll be adding more as time passes.
Simply precious…
If you do some research, you’ll probably hear this a lot. The MT-32 is a very noisy beast. As such I recommend you use a reasonably clean audio setup but primarily adjust your “line input” to an appropriate level for the given piece. Sierra’s publication of GAME ARTS’ Silpheed for DOS is a good example of pushing the MT-32’s audio output to a high level. When the title “SILPHEED” is flashed in the intro an orchestra hit sounds. It doesn’t clip the MT-32, but gives you a frame of reference for your recording equipment.
When I was a kid, I got a copy of the “Live From the Sierra Lounge” audio cassette and practically shit myself. I’d been soaking up tunes from the NES for some time and when I saw the possibilities for video game music presented in the tape I was amazed and inspired.
I presented excerpts from the tape to my computer instructor at my middle school. She was intrigued and impressed, not knowing anything about computer music at the time, and allowed me to play a sample for the class. They laughed at me and I felt like a complete asshole, as thirteen year-olds often do when mocked by their peers.
I begged my parents for an MT-32, but the $550 price tag was too much for them and I settled on an Ad-Lib card. I remember listening to the Sierra tape on headphones in bed at our apartment after my parents moved. My first girlfriend had broken up with me because I was too timid to properly kiss her, and I quietly cried to the sound of Silpheed and King’s Quest IV, trying to keep my nearby brother from hearing me while anticipating another day at an alien school.
Twenty plus years later I bought two MT-32s from eBay and connected them to a quad-core 3.5 GHz 64-bit machine running Linux, a far cry from any 8086 or 386 PC running DOS. While the victory was sweet, it was like an adult’s Christmas morning without children. The magic echoed mostly in my memory, and the feeling of loss, regret and bewilderment tainted an otherwise perfect circle.
The MT-32, CM-32L and LAPC-1 are great, as are their associated soundtracks. I have a few recordings on my music channel, but should really make more:
http://www.youtube.com/user/eightvirtuesmusic
Good job Jaesun999, and let me know if you have any insights or need any help recording. 🙂
Forgot to mention, the Codename: ICEMAN song is awesome. I hadn’t heard that one before. Got to get my gear together…
Ultima 7 sounded about the way I expected, but I have to say that I thought Ultima 8 sounded great; it may just be that it’s been a long time since I’ve revisited Pagan, but I find the music haunting.
I wonder… The U7 soundtrack has been availlable for a long time recorded from a real MT32 http://exult.sourceforge.net/docs.php#digital_music
And I got to listen to the U8 tracks, since u8 wasn’t orchestrated for a MT32 but for a general midi device and thus I presumed that it might even sound odd at times….
There is also quite a bit of MT-32 Ultima music at http://www.grandgent.com/tom/ultima
If this is the start of a series of new recordings from Jaesun999, I’ll put in a request for the Martian Dreams theme which I’ve always liked but never seen anywhere on the web. I wouldn’t mind some of the music from Strike Commander either, which for me has the best sound Origin managed out of an MT-32.
I don’t need much excuse so I’ll take the opportunity to plug a project of my own at http://www.pix.oneuk.com . I’ve tweaked various engines in scummVM to play oggs/mp3’s in the same manner as Exult, and recorded soundtracks directly from either an MT-32, CM-64 or SC-155. It’s definitely a case of quantity over quality but all the Sierra games with music composed for MT-32 are supported + Legend Of Kyrandia 1 & 2, Monkey Island 1, Loom, etc. It’s not a bad alternative to a real MT-32 especially with a portable device like the Pandora.
Pix: Don’t know why, but I had to dig your last comment about the spam filter. There doesn’t seem to be anything egregious within the comment that stands out as something which would have offended the spam filter, so here’s my apologies for what appears to be a case of Akismet and WordPress getting a bit overzealous.
This is gorgeous. I’ve only recently become aware of how much better the music and many of the sound effects can be with an MT-Roland; playing through the entire Sierra Collection (http://www.infamous-adventures.com/forum/index.php?board=54.0), with each game I attempt to emulate it – with mixed results; sometimes it sounds better, sometimes it’s horrendous bings and bloops that hold notes for eternity. Someday I’d love to get my hands on the real thing.
For Ultima 7, I’m doubt it would be worth it if cuts out the Guardians taunting abilities – as it seems to in your demo – and other the voiced parts for significant characters (by the time they managed to cast good actors). I know with Sierra games, there’s usually an option to set up the music to a Roland and keep the audio effects to sound blaster to have the best of both worlds. Doesn’t Exult have a work around for this at least, with those Roland audio data packs? Or does that just not sound as good as the real thing?
Ultima 8 sounds great on a Roland Sound Canvas. I think it was originally written for it.
Marquilin: the original does ALLOW you speech along with the MT32, but you can disable it. But if you want to record both mt32 and speech you will have to record two outputs at the same time, the mt32 and the SB speech. Perhaps the reason why jaesun didn’t, orhejust didn’t want the voice to interrupt the music.
Still funny how people react to this while Exult offered the mt32 soundtrack of u7 for years 😉
This is nice because it’s something easily listenable in…well…this format. I did actually play through Ultima 7 using the MT-32 sound pack a few years back, but obviously didn’t take the step of putting it to video like this.
I might take a stab at converting the Black Gate and Serpent Isle soundtracks from the Exult site to MP3s and putting them up here for playback as well, unless the conversion effort has already been done. Then I’ll just try get my hands on those, and save myself some time.
Pix: Oh wow! I had no idea you compiled all that music! Now why couldn’t I find your site while I was looking for Roland emulation? All I really found was MUNT, which didn’t really seem to change anything once it was implemented. Oh well, I haven’t played too many of the games yet with adlib, for all the AGI era (84-88) games I used an Apple IIgs emulator (kegs 32) which seems to offer the best quality for the time. I’ll give yours a try now, though it will be weird playing Sierra games under a Scumm emulator.
Dominus: Thanks, that’s good to know. And that’s a plausible explanation given that this is a music demo.
Thanks for the recording tips SANCTIMONIA! I am actually using a Mackie 1202-VLZ mixing board with the MT-32 and then the OUTPUT is going into my Soundcard. I’m still tweaking all the sound levels, as the damn MT-32 levels are notoriously hair ripping (King’s Quest 4 for example). I also will have a CM-500 (Which has the CM-32LN (MT-32) and a CM-300 (Sound Canvas) in it) soon. As I wanted to compare my JV-1080 vs an actual Sound Canvas for Pagan. Pagan is honestly to me the best damn Ultima Soundtrack ever created. It is just so hauntingly beautiful…..
And not to nit-pick but, a few of the tracks in the OGG mp3’s for Exult are off (at least when I play the original game with my MT-32)… that honestly bothered me. Granted most people are not musicians so you would not even notice the slight difference unless I specifically pointed it out (The Sea Shanty theme for example). That said, the recoded MT-32 music for Exult is awesome period, in that people without a MT-32 can finally experience the game the way the few of us that own an actual MT-32 can.
And as there ARE a number of recording out there on the web, as PIX pointed out. I just wanted it in a more broader view and audience which Youtube provides. And the Ultima and other classic games deserve the attention. There are some amazing soundtracks from the classic gaming days.
And yes DOMINUS. Ultima 8 was made for the GS/GM. Even if you use those Sysex dumps that Roland provided that maps the MT-32 to the GM standard.. it honestly sounds no where as good as an actual Sound Canvas. I may do a comparison.
PIX: AWESOME idea for the Martian Dreams suggestion! Will try that today!
I don’t have anything against nitpicking. In fact if you can I’d love corrections for the off tracks or a whole better balanced music pack. A lot of the exult mt32 tracks are way more muted than the SB music, sometimes you can barely make out the music ;(
That Exult’s real mt32 playback is also off at times doesn’t help, too ;(
I agree that the u8 soundtrack is the most awesome, if you can a direct comparison to sound canvas would be welcome.
Sure Dominus, if I can get an acceptable recording (as acceptable as the current OGG ones are) of a few of the tracks that are off, I’ll let you know.
And yes, I just bought a CM-500 for the very purpose of comparing a real Sound Canvas with the music in game vs my Roland JV-1080. I’ll also show you the horrifying GM version of the MT-32. It’s really bad. 😀 Ironically all these video recordings started from a discussion about this very comparison (SC vs JV-1080) on another board I visit….
Just added The Savage Empire intro, I’ll add Martian Dreams next for you PIX! That intro is so damn awesome!
Ugh my damn kingdom for an edit button… Just wanted to say Thank You SANCTIMONIA for the King’s Quest VI recording! I love that piece. Getting the damn levels right of that thing made me just give up. Now I can just add it to my faves and now enjoy that damn great song. 😀
If it bugs you that much, I can always move the text from your second comment into the first, and then delete the aforementioned second one.
I haven’t actually looked into adding an edit button…but you’re not the first person who has wanted one. I’ll see what options exist.
Oh valley of Eodon, how you call to me for Savage Adventures as if for the first time all over again. Very cool!
WTF: Not to worry, it probably didn’t like the 2 links in a post. Either that or the blatant plug.
Marquillin: I’ve not tested too many of these games so let me know if you have any problems. It should be better than MUNT but there are limitations to using oggs and my recordings aren’t exactly professional quality. I’m expecting that sooner or later MUNT will make my patch and real MT-32’s obsolete but it’s not there yet.
Jaesun: I’ve subbed and am looking forward to Martian Dreams.
WTF DRAGON: Edit button would be neat, but it’s not a big deal. I excel at making bad typos, so I just love an edit button. heh
Martian Dreams is up. Enjoy PIX! I’ll try to do Ultima VIII: Pagan with a MT-32 mapped as a GM bank, so you can all experience that…. horror (and it is a shame really). Maybe I’ll try a re-mix of it some day to make it sound better, using the MIDI files from the actual game data, now that I know how to do that thanks to the awesome Pentagram (and Exult) team! 😀
JAESUN said, “…Just wanted to say Thank You SANCTIMONIA for the King’s Quest VI recording! I love that piece…”
You’re welcome. Here’s the FLAC of it along with a few others:
http://www.eightvirtues.com/music/
This is why I wanted an edit button, I MEANT to say King’s Quest IV not VI :D. Anyways thanks SANCTIMONIA, I already subscribed to your channel. Good stuff on there!
Dominus: I recorded the Intro of Pagan with an MT-32 mapped to play GM (via the SYSEX dumps from Roland) and put it on Youtube, and well.. it is not pretty. Also it still is not mapped correctly. You can find it in this channel at I set up for me and a friend to compare Ultima Audio: http://www.youtube.com/my_playlists?p=316FAACC075FBBCD
I’ll be putting some more comparisons there as well, as I took one of the MIDI files from the game data and then re-mapped the MIDI song (using Cakewalk Pro 7.0) and mapped it more closely. It sounds pretty good, but the polyphony limitations really start to be very noticeable. To play the full score you would literally need TWO MT-32’s (using the Overflow Assign). Pagan’s score is just too complex for the old MT-32.