Roland MIDI Emulator Project 2.0 for best music with DOS Retro Games

[@ColdSphinX]

I'd use a RaspberryPI for example with PiMiDi.

[@xan1242]

It could work if one would build a proper SC-55 soundfont within SF2 specs (I tried to work it out with patch's soundfont but didn't have much time back in the day). I ripped some sounds out of my JW-50 and made proper soundfont implementations with filters and everything. It really could work out, it's just that nobody really focuses on those parameters while building soundfonts. Still, I doubt PiMidi or BASSMIDI support everything that Sound Canvas or Yamaha MU support. They're all lacking pretty much one piece of the puzzle, BASSMIDI doesn't support vibratos, TiMidity doesn't support all filters, none support 88pro EFX, the list goes on... This way you'll get pretty much every feature you'd want to use with most accuracy. Pi could work as good as this only when WoA becomes usable enough on it to run VST's.

[@boomerkuwanger3700]

I'd add that there's actually a way to connect midi directly to the GPIO pins, but sadly while there are diagrams for soldering something together, any pre-built creation costs substantially more. This is the biggest problem I see with Raspberry Pi in general--modification, pre-built or in parts, is a (relatively) expensive part of the up-sale market that is the cornerstone of the Pi. It's left me, at least for the moment, content with using my Pi for more mundane things. One thing I'm still contemplating is risking making a gameport null modem to bypass needing a gameport->midi and midi->usb adapter.

[@ClintTheriault]

@@boomerkuwanger3700 In theory it's fairly simple to use the serial ttl ports on the GPIO for this process. I'm trying out a PiMIDI project myself using a 800mb soundfont that I made. What I'm working on is making a simple cable that connects the gpio and audio out on a raspberry pi 3 to the wavetable header on a soundblaster card.

[@philscomputerlab]

You should do that, I'd love to see your setup and how to use it!

[@ClintTheriault]

​@@philscomputerlab www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=62&t=65908 Here's the wiring diagram I found. I'm doing some research on the soundblaster wavetable header to see if I need to worry about any voltage differences. I'll do a full write up on the vogons forums when I've tested this out some more.

[@davidhake7864]

Oh god Raptor Call of the Shadows was one of my favorites back in the day!

[@nullsmack]

Why did you need the long midi cable before your roland usb interface? Couldn't you have gone from the male connection on that straight into the female connection from your retro pc card?

[@philscomputerlab]

To make sure to show the MIDI joiner, as it depends a bit on what cable you have :)

[@nullsmack]

@@philscomputerlab That makes sense, thanks :)

[@se7vennld]

I used a Korg wavetable card on my soundcard. It sounded great !

[@justjoeblow420]

I think this might be the earliest I've caught a a video now this is a project I would love to do once I get a retro machine setup. All though I've got a similar setup for my DOSBox usage. I've really enjoyed the Roland SC VA VST but as expensive as it was I should have just bought a SC-55. All though part of what caused me to buy it instead of a hardware device was the fact space is something I lack right now. EDIT: All though my current setup is not automated like this as how I have it running it. So no on the fly switching when you have a full DAW running the VST's.

[@pc-sound-legacy]

Descent - nice stereo effects and bass👍 And another 👍 for Duke Nukem 😎

[@Edman_79]

I guess I'm lucky. Born before 1980 in Central Europe - but behind that Iron Curtain (and growing up on the lower end of the food chain :D), I have never come across Roland, GUS or Turtle Beach or any other fancy MIDI device. So reaching the maximum level of nostalgia for me means just the plain and simple OPL2 - which is still cheap and plentiful :D

[@pc-sound-legacy]

Same with me, exept i grew up in continental europe west side of that courtain:-)

[@philscomputerlab]

I can relate to that. I got a Sound Canvas in the mid 90s, so now those games sound right only with that one :)

[@Felix-ve9hs]

Really interesting what Sound Quality you could achive with MIDI back in the day compared to 8-Bit Music

[@AshtonCoolman]

Felix R this was some of the equipment used to make hit the songs of the time. It's amazing you could also use it for games. What an amazing time period. I grew up with a damn PC speaker in my turbo xt so I geek out a little too much on this stuff.

[@RetroTinkerer]

@@AshtonCoolman before I got my first sound card, a sound blaster pro 2.0, I had my 386 speaker output connected to a cheap car amp and car speakers. 😂

[@msthalamus2172]

I know it's been a few years, but I wanted to thank you for making this series of videos. I feel like I'm 30 years late to this party, but I couldn't come close to affording this kind of kit back then. (I was very lucky to have the hand-me-down clone XT I had!) While I still can't afford the kit, I do have an old Mac Mini collecting dust, and I've been able to give it a fourth lease on life now as a MIDI emulator!

[@xan1242]

I don't think that red midi cable is necessary lol

[@philscomputerlab]

It depends on your setup, so I showed it to be sure to mention the joiner :)

[@MaxiZamac]

I had a Sound Blaster 16 back in the days with my old DOS PC, now using MUNT software emulator to play these games again with Roland MT-32 sound, amazing experience all the way!

[@christopherbaar4498]

I love this. I have multiple machines that support MIDI through an MT-32 compatible or SC-55. Being able to just switch like this is great, and so much more affordable. And of course easier than trying to manage multiple devices.

[@AshtonCoolman]

I had a PC speaker in my Turbo XT from 1987 to 1997. I missed this entire era of MIDI and sound blaster music in my games. I geek out on every MIDI video you do, Phil!

[@RetroTinkerer]

I discovered how MIDI music could sound in games when a friend of mine asked me to purchase a midiport cable, we connected my SB to his keyboard and launch 2 games and his keyboard sounded so great! I should had researched a little bit before getting my AWE32, I think a sound canvas would had made me happier, but I enjoyed it very much none the less.

[@spitalul2bad]

Not to be that guy, but at some point, all the dongles, connectors, extra-thin clients, extensive software, ROMs and scripts just get to be too much for "authenticity". I'd rather just DOS-box it.

[@philscomputerlab]

We actually did a DOSBox project not too long ago! Also in terms of cables and stuff, the MIDI emulator is much neater vs. having real MIDI gear. The amount of cables with 4 MIDI modules is a real mess.

[@philscomputerlab]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqKYp5ufiLyDjJY

[@РусланТ-в6ъ]

Where is "Links in the description"???

[@JoeyRivers]

Thought Id say thanks for the tutorial Phil as it was very inspiring as are all your great videos. Rather than use a mini PC or otherwise dedicated unit for this project I thought I'd just use my main i7-8700K PC which is not far from the DOS PC. I routed the audio out of the DOS PC (AWE32) into the line in of my PC. This way I can play my DOS games with audio coming out my main PC speakers which are very good and also listen to MIDI tracks on the main PC using the Falcosoft MIDI Player (amazing software). For people such as myself who don't have a MPU-401 card on their PC I think Phil mentioned the Gameport to MIDI adaptor cable needed in the video but I didn't see a link for one in his list of links. For those who need such a cable I purchased the one below for around $22. It only took 2 weeks to get here to Adelaide from china. Very nicely constructed but they didn't label which connector was MIDI IN or MIDI OUT. Anyway it took 5 seconds to work out which was which. www.ebay.com.au/itm/1-8m-Dual-MIDI-DIN-5-Pins-DB15-Sound-Card-Joystick-Cable-Wire-Cord-Game-Port/263986355060?hash=item3d76d01b74:g:rDoAAOSwt6hcdZaM&frcectupt=true

[@RetroPCUser]

I have a Yamaha DB50XG connected to the Sound Blaster 16 CT2740 and it sounds amazing. I even made SYSEX files to reset the Daughterboard to allow the SFX for certain MIDI files, like Last Wave from OutRun (rhythm channel 10) when I power it on and when it boots to either MS-DOS or Windows 95C via the autoexec.bat that calls the bat file that resets it.

[@symol30872]

Using a combination of MT-32 and SC-55 for my DOS games thanks to your suggestions :)

[@ospha1]

I have my retro system on the same desk as my windows 10 main rig. Rather than using a thin client could i just use my main rig as the emulator?

[@opticburn]

Awesome project, Phil. Might have to bring out my old Retro 3 in 1 and rework my MIDI emulator box to start doing this. Thanks!

[@sirfairplay9153]

Those sounds must have been the shit, back in the day!

[@RetroTinkerer]

Between this and your 136 in one project you are really wrapping up the ultimate DOS gaming alternative for all the people that don't have access to hardware that will get exotic as years keep passing. Thanks!

[@danielsolis4330]

Ok, sorry if this is a stupid question, but couldn't I use a Soundblaster Card and go from the Joystick port to the "mini computer" back to line in to the soundblaster or do I still need a Roland Card too?

[@philscomputerlab]

Yea you can do this! I just prefer using an external mixer, that's all :)

[@danielsolis4330]

@@philscomputerlab thank you! I am building a 486 going to use a mini hp elitedesk 800 g3 and a soundblaster card. You’re videos are great and I could never afford all the Roland equipment. Fingers crossed that it works

[@MarkTheMorose]

Elite! (Or, in my case, Harmless!)

[@ytreview4390]

Hello Phil, thanx for useful video. Could you update links below video description as some files are not reachable anymore

[@GEM_CCB]

É possível utilizar essa placa para transformar um órgão organist yx-300iii em controlador midi?

[@etgripper]

Kind of a noob with all of this, but would you also do this for dosbox? Or could all of this just be done via software on the PC running dosbox. I've seen the Munt videos, but not sure if that covers all - MT32, SC, SF3, etc. Or would a dreamblaster via USB be my best bet? I'm just wondering how to get the same functionality of this set up, but while using dosbox.

[@timothyseidel527]

What is the name of the jet fighter game you are playing at 6:20 into your video? -looks awesome.

[@philscomputerlab]

That's Raptor!

[@timothyseidel527]

@@philscomputerlab Thanks, keep up the great videos!

[@360Fov]

I wondered if there was such a thing as emulated Midi hardware and it turns out there is! Can it all be done in software if the DOS program can be fooled into thinking a hardware device is connected? Like emulating a hardware peripheral connected to the serial bus or is it crucial to have a hardware emulator physically connected? I mean, we can create a completely 'made up' computer using VirutalMachines.

[@FrostbiteXZ]

Always did like the midis that came with every machine that had the yamaha s-yxg50 even though there was a 100 and later models

[@KJ7JHN]

Where has Commander Keen '4' gone? Good vid.

[@FeedingDragon]

Is there a reason you didn't include the $125 (USD) cost of the Sound Canvas VA in the cost of the unit?

[@walterg74]

Lol 50 bucks? You have no idea...

[@macupgrader]

Only thing I would miss are the SysEx messages some games would display on the MT-32 LCD!

[@RetroPCUser]

I'm wondering if there's a way to add something like that to the Mini PC. How cool would that be?

[@nickwallette6201]

Maybe the MUNT guys could add serial output? You could attach a 2-line serial LCD then.

[@RetroPCUser]

@@nickwallette6201 🤔 That'll be a good idea and interesting.

[@alextirrellRI]

You didn't need the midi cable or joiner. It would have plugged directly into the sound card adapter.

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes, I wanted to show it with the joiner so to be sure it works, depending on what your cable looks like. In a previous video someone complained that they needed a joiner after getting all parts.

[@xero110]

Great video Phil, how is the latency? I'm building a retro system and would like to use this. Low latency is unacceptable for me as I'm very sensitive to it.

[@rars0n]

1. He demonstrated this in the video. 2. Low latency is exactly what you want.

[@hometownzero3019]

With all the mini pc & thin clients, are there any good USB sound cards for WinXP or even Win98?

[@philscomputerlab]

Hmm, I haven't tried them with 98 or XP, for this project I used Windows 10. XP is more likely to have some USB sound, but 98 might be more difficult.

[@megafan0258]

@@philscomputerlab What about using a netbook? Not the first generations but the later with atom n270 or n570 (2c/4t).

[@philscomputerlab]

No way, they are too slow.

[@LTJ4CK]

Awwww Monkey Island on original midi haha LOVE IT

[@krnivoro1972]

Wow!!! What happend with MUNT?? Are this new project better? Besides shortcurts, does sound better in MT-32 mode than MUNT?

[@philscomputerlab]

It uses MUNT in this project. It's just a version that works with Falcosoft MIDI Player.

[@zbacsko]

The main difference is not 'It is just a version that works with Falcosoft MIDI Player'. Even traditional Munt driver works perfectly with Falcosoft MIDI Player. The main difference is that it's a VSTi plugin (that uses the same core Munt library as the Munt driver) meaning it's portable (you do not have to install driver components to use it) and it's also more versatile in the sense that you can save/load different configurations in the form of VST standard .fxb files.

[@TheDutyPaid]

Why not just use a MIDI extension cable? Female one end, male the other.

[@TechToTunes]

or plug the UM1 directly into the MPU-401 cable.

[@philscomputerlab]

I wanted to make sure I show the MIDI joiner as I got a complaint the last time, as they used a different cable.

[@RetroZwierz]

Great video 👍 I need to finally finish this project. After your first tutorial about midi emulation I bought Roland UM-ONE with all necessary cables and connectors, but I didn't got time to get it to run.

[@philscomputerlab]

The software side of things is a bit tedious to setup, but once you have it all configured, it's really easy to use :) Do let us know how you go!

[@j0hnny4rc4de]

The Roland MT-32 and CM-32L ROMs: dosboxece.yesterplay.net/MIDI-Tools/Roland%20MT-32%20ROMs.7z link isn't found.

[@philscomputerlab]

Hmm check the main page and see if the link has changed!

[@batteryman2852]

So my sandwich contains, Roland SC-88PRO, Yamaha MU1000, Korg NS5R, Kawai GMega, Casio GZ-50M, and a Roland MT-32. i also use a 5-1 midi din splitter and one Roland midi Usb for my MT-32. Also that doom distortion guitar is very similar to the SC88pro, in SC88(not pro) mode

[@philscomputerlab]

Nice MIDI tower :)

[@makotoenoki7271]

Nice video. You need make/update the raspberry pi 3 mdi emualtor Project. No sure for munt on pi3 but your tutorial for GM works fine on Raspibian with Fluidsynth. Also there not option for Android devices/phones?

[@philscomputerlab]

Nah I gave up on that, I checked it out briefly, but I find the Windows option with Thin Clients, Mini PCs, Tablets or Laptops just vastly superior.

[@plapbandit]

Midi Voyager on Android has MIDI in. Not sure if you'd be able to get it to redirect the output from dosbox on android without messing with the firmware though

[@Synthematix]

Does win98 support usb midi?

[@JohnathanNoechelShunn]

Wish you could do this with retro console games

[@krilatokolo2825]

Whats the name of the game after indiana jones. Tnx

[@amberselectronics]

Oh my goodness this is a great idea. Thank you.

[@xmaniac99]

Omg the kilrathi are coming 😂🤣😭

[@rebeccaschade3987]

Too bad the Roland SC VA costs almost as much as a used SC55. :-( So, 100 dollars for the midi interface + cheap system to run it on. $125 US for Sound Canvas VA, $150 for a used MT32 to legally dump the rom file from... Start adding up each VSTi and hardware device you might have to get in order for this setup to be legal, and it actually will not be cost effective. Unfortunately. Sure you can get the MT32 and CM32 roms for free online, but that is piracy of course. So all in all, this setup is more expensive and less user friendly then just going out and buy the actual used hardware.

[@InfiniteClouds]

You'll be paying way more than 150$ if your conscious really won't let you download ROM dumps. CM32Ls, when they rarely appear on Ebay, go for over 300$. I had no qualms downloading roms for MT32/CM32L -- 30 year old hardware they aren't making money off of. As for the Sound Canvas you are definitely better off getting a real SC-55 (go for Firmware 1.20 or 1.21 model) because the VA is actually an SC-88 with a SC-55 'mode' that doesn't give you an accurate emulation. Since MUNT uses actual ROMs it is nearly indistinguishable from a real MT32/CM32L but we have no such emulator for Sound Canvases yet, sadly.

[@rebeccaschade3987]

@@InfiniteClouds Fair enough, the CM32L tends to be super expensive, but only a tiny handful (not even hand "full" actually) of games actually use the extra sounds it has compared to the MT32. If you are patient, you can get a MT32 for about $100-150. A can totally see the argument for "Well, Roland don't manufacture the MT32 anymore, so they can't make money off of it anyway". Problem is, you can't really promote that attitude on youtube, since it isn't strictly legal. There have been plenty of discussions around the concept of "abandonware" over the years, and legally, there is no such thing. And all the samples on the MT32 are copyrighted. So paying $100+ for illegal emulation of an MT32 vs. paying $100+ for the actual piece of hardware suddenly becomes a very different prospect altogether.

[@DoomSlingerGAME]

why do you use a male to male connecter inbetween the UM-ONE and the cable connected to the dos mechine? wouldn't it be easier to plug the UM-ONE directly into that cable since it already has a female connector?

[@philscomputerlab]

The MIDI cables are male on both ends, so you need a MIDI joiner to connect.

[@Olie956]

Yes! The MIDI one.

[@tonibahloni920]

Does this work with Mister FPGA?

[@Arachnosoft]

Well... I don't know why I didn't find your video before... Thanks for the featuring and the interesting project! So far, I "ONLY" have a full-size PC tower with an old multi-PCI motherboard (5), crammed with 4 Sound Blasters to test SoundFonts and wavetables... It has an AudioPCI 128 (CT4810 - ES1373), a Live! (CT4830 - EMU10K1) with the LiveDrive IR (found years after in... a trashbin), an Audigy 2 ZS (SB0350 - EMU10K2) and an X-Fi XtremeGamer (SB0770 - EMU20K1). All working together and switchable as MIDI outputs. Has been quite a pain in the *ss to configure them all with the right IRQs and non-conflicting drivers on Windows XP MCE 2005!

[@Guillermo_XT]

The Roland midi adapter cost around 44€ could i use one from Thomann for roundabout 15~€ ?

[@philscomputerlab]

I know that some cheap ones do not work with MT-32 because they don't submit all information. So I'm not sure...

[@TheYuppiejr]

I'm currently juggling an MT-100 (MT-32), an SC-7(SC-55), and a Serdashop X3MB (general MIDI/soundfonts) via a 4 port DIN switch and a mixer. This is a FAR more elegant solution. While someone complained about the cost of the Roland VA plugin, you don't explicitly need it to get awfully close to the SC-55 / SC-88 sound via some of the free "inspired by" soundfonts out there and mapped to profiles in Falconsoft. Considering the SC-55 and SC-88's typically sell for more than $150 each in the used market (and were north of $600 each originally), $125 for the virtual module isn't outlandish. I am surprised Roland hasn't capitalized on the retro gaming craze with a similar for-purchase software virtual synth module for the MT-32/CM-32L given the prices of original hardware these days. Anyway, this is a great project and the instructions on your site are great - thanks for all the effort putting this together!

[@AnalogThinker]

I really like the idea. I am wondering what latency you get tho, as I found USB MIDI interfaces to add quite a lot. In my Dreamblaster on Atari video I measured roughly 1ms for the Dreamblaster, which is virtually nothing. Anything 20ms or above could impact the experience if MIDI used for FX for example.

[@krnivoro1972]

Yamaha S-YXG50 only works with Falcosoft MIDI Player 32bits (x86). It's only a 32bit mode Plug-in, so in order to have everything working, you cannot use 64 bits plug-ins, neither Falcosoft 64 bits.

[@OriginalSebie]

This is awesome, but is there a way to emulate MT-32 input without MPU-401? I wish there was some USB-compatible replacement of it and that the emulator would run on something like Raspberry Pi instead of thin client, that would be great :)

[@walterg74]

I don’t get it... Why did you need a MIDI joiner if you had already added the red cable because you had a female en on the first cable coming out of the MPU-401 card..? Couldn’t you just connect the Roland cable to the female plug? Edit: never mind, saw it had already been asked...

[@CircsC]

What about loopMIDI? You can get MT-32 and CM-32 working with MUNT that way without any extra hardware.

[@richardchute3052]

Ah, stole my idea for the "MB-32" I was working on but based on OrangePi (with similar idea of batch files on the retro pc sending MIDI commands to change emulation modes). Not really "stole", of course, but kudos for you for being less lazy than me :) Great work!

[@graeme2967]

Thanks Phil it’s working perfect 👌, stripped down copy of widows 64bit on the 16gb flash storage on £22 on eBay U.K. brand new in box

[@darak2]

Great project. I tried to implement something like this using a Raspberry Pi 3 (cheaper and less space wasted), and it works really well (with some caveats). - Software configuration is not easy. You need to compile MUNT yourself, learn your way around ALSA MIDI mappings, and finally, write some scripts for routing. - It's more flexible. I used a mididings Python script to answer to the SYX files sent from the retro PC and it works beautifully: not only I can switch from MUNT to FLUIDSYNTH and change the active soundfont using BAT files, I could also send arbitrary text commands to the Raspberry and process them in the script. Potentially, it could do things like save MIDI files of anything you are hearing, show the MT32 LCD screen contents in an external LCD, or change any kind of settings (volume, reverb...), etc. You can of course control this script from the Raspberry, perhaps using an external keyboard or touch screen. - It's Linux, so no VST plugins. That means I can't use Roland's (extremely expensive) SoundCanvas plugin or the Yamaha one. I found that Fluidsynth is good enough for GM, though. - Unfortunately, the Raspberry is not fast enough for accurate MT32 emulation using MUNT. It is good enough most of the time, but some complex music will sound really, really bad, with a lot of wrong tempo issues. Turning off reverb/chorus and choosing a less accurate emulation method improves the situation (the sacrifice in sound quality is very noticeable, though). - Latency is not great (and no, shooting around in Elite is not a good test, you really need to plug in a MIDI keyboard to the retro PC and try using something like DOS Cakewalk; latencies around 100ms, which would be unnoticeable in games, are extremely irritating when trying to jam). - You'll have the same compatibility problems you'll have in retro hardware if you don't have a real MPU MIDI card, almost impossible to find (and extremely expensive). Many games won't work at all or will have a lot of issues. A nifty thing you can do if you use any kind of support mini-PC for your retro hardware is purchasing a serial-to-USB adapter and use any DOS communications package to open a shell to your support PC. You can even transfer files this way using file transfer protocols like ZModem, same thing we used to do when connecting to BBSs and such.

[@BesideTheVoid]

Please list the games & times

[@mdvhimself]

arachno is always the simplest way if you have no idea what to use. good for oldschool games and newschool ones too. however you have to look around if you want something game specific or something you are used to.

[@korayus]

I was using Creative MidiBlaster MB10 for midi sound bank. HUH what days...

[@smg4gaming-poppyfromdreamw136]

Better than My MATE Vince since that please put your outro background music is amazing.

[@crimsun7186]

Are these MIDI compliant? Maybe you could replace those with something more modern, like a Roland Sonic Cell?

[@0525ohhwell]

Can't believe I missed this video. I have been wondering what the heck to do with a Dell Wyse ThinClient I have paying around. This is awesome.

[@vjscorreia]

Hi can you list the games used in the video? I want to play some of those and I didn't recognize all of them... Thanks!

[@eurocrusader1724]

I wish i had a rtx 2080ti plugin for my GTX 970......😫

[@AtariBorn]

What's up Phil?

[@Hiraghm]

Is it possible to power the thin client via battery, making it portable?

[@pedrof324]

Is it possible to do a similar project using a Raspberry pi or an android device?

[@jrherita]

Hmm these would be interesting for Atari ST/Amiga MIDI emulation

[@AlphaFox78]

Where’s the link for the sound blaster midi port to plug into the Rolland USB adapter?

[@DhinCardoso]

Well... looks like you ran a batch to change all descriptions in your old videos - could you put the links if it still available? ♥

[@philscomputerlab]

Done!

[@DhinCardoso]

@@philscomputerlab You are one of a kind, really!

[@GodOfGamingBG]

hows the emulation accuracy like compared to real roland midi modules?

[@philscomputerlab]

Very good actually. I did some comparison videos ages ago and the emulation is very accurate.

[@GodOfGamingBG]

@@philscomputerlab Nice! And, does the emulator need to be on a dedicated minipc/thinclient/tablet/whatever? I mean, my main PC is next to my retro PC, cant I just set up the emulator on that? And more importantly, if I did, could I then also use the emulator with DOSBox on same PC without routing any midi cables and stuff, all in software?

[@philscomputerlab]

Of course, any computer will do! You can also run DOSBox + MIDI Emulator on the same PC. I did a video on this recently. Ignore that I use a Thin Client for this video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqKYp5ufiLyDjJY

[@GiSWiG]

I'm definitely going to try this batch file setup. I do all of this except I use my main PC and speakers or headphones. MIDI goes through the Roland adapter, sound goes from line out to line in on my Sound Blaster X AE-5 and then out to either 5.1 speakers or through headphones. Now I didn't know about the MIDIPlayer presets so I have five copies of it configured differently. Thanks for the info!

[@ffpoke]

I'm glad I have a midisport 2x2 from m-audio this will make this easier

[@sirdrinksalottrenchhugger4041]

I hooked up my p200 mmx with SB PRO 2.0 to the ROLAND USB interface. Falcosoft is running on a Thinkpad t420. However, when running the mt32 batch file, I get an error - MPU inerface not responding. Am I missing something? I'm using a GamePort to MIDI passthrough cable.

[@sirdrinksalottrenchhugger4041]

Oh, never mind. It odes work on the AWE64.

[@overdriver99]

thank you Phil. after all these years I finally setup everything like above even though I have real SC-55 and MT-32 LOL! I used Thin client HP610 to setup like above. It works with my other real retro PC(Pentium 1MMX with your 136 in 1 configuration). I had some issues here and there but I finally setup. It sounds great!

[@philscomputerlab]

Good stuff!

[@xan1242]

Phil, Windows on Arm opens a whole can of worms with the Raspberry Pi 3B+ Here I ran the falcosoft player and S-YXG50: i.imgur.com/IIPdTEN.png Now I'm not 100% sure how will the usb midi behave, currently the driver doesn't install for some reason on my end. Quite possibly we will need to find a driver or build one for the GPIO pins.

[@philscomputerlab]

Windows 10 runs on the Pi???

[@xan1242]

@@philscomputerlab Yep, check it out: pi64.win/ Just tested the SC-VA, it just barely runs. Jitters if anything runs in the background, especially with the EFX turned on so yea, the potential is there, it just needs optimization to work! edit: SC-VA stops jittering if I disable the UI, seems to save CPU time.

[@philscomputerlab]

@@xan1242 That's pretty much how when I used the t5730 Thin Client with Windows 7, in some games it would work, but if you waited long enough, it would then trip over and fall behind so to speak. It just wasn't fast enough to handle it.

[@massa9027]

Greetings. I enjoy your vids, especialy the ones featuring roland sound canvas as well as other sound cards. Question. Would you ever consider making a video featuring the Arachno SoundFont and possibly a tutorial?

[@philscomputerlab]

The Arachno SoundFont works really well for Doom :)

[@davidhershberger7899]

BANGERS!!

[@TheLemminkainen]

still of some those game sound better on Amiga paula lol!

[@cheater00]

hi phil, do thin clients normally have gpio? do you know that? thanks

[@philscomputerlab]

No they don't, just the usual USB, serial or parallel.

[@cheater00]

@@philscomputerlab thanks dude! know any common cheap computers like that do have gpio?

[@bakakafka4428]

very interesting. would like to see something similar but for people living in small apartments :-) i.e. how to do this in a vm/dosbox for classic gaming.

[@philscomputerlab]

Just run DOSBox ECE, it has all of this integrated. I did a video on it here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/oqKYp5ufiLyDjJY

[@MagikGimp]

Is Gravis possible? Great video.

[@philscomputerlab]

No. That's a Sound Card, not MIDI device.

[@markm0000]

This is awesome. 😎

[@vulturius7664]

This project is to me the most inspiring so far ... heads off to you Phil. Have ordered a miniPC + have been testing everything on my main PC first before I'll port it to the miniPC. The MDF tool inreal DOS via MIDI-TO-USB cable works fine. You just need to tweak a little bit in HEX to make more presets, but that's part of the game. Want to create more presets for all cool soundfonts out there...

[@philscomputerlab]

Thank you :D I didn't consider that someone might require more presets LOL AFAIK Falcosoft's MIDI Player supports a large number, so yea, you can configure a ton of SF2 Fonts and then switch between them through batch files, it's all very convenient. Let us know how you go with the final project and maybe share a photo on twitter if you like, I rarely hear or see projects of others, but always excited to see when one is shared.

[@giuseppeiovino1687]

Hit Stabs MT-32 are pretty cool

[@AladimBR]

Phil, finally I got the cables and the Thin Client, I'm trying to setup my HP Elitedesk 705 G2 Mini to do exactly what you are showing in the video. This is all new, never had any midi stuff to play around. I watched your videos on the topic 3-4 times and I'm getting the grasp of it. I'm running into an issue: Sound Canvas is a x64 plugin and Yamaha S-YXG50 is a x86, which fails to load on the Falcosoft Midi Player x64, requiring me to change to the Falc. Midi Player x86. In the video you just loaded and fired the game: were you using the 2 different versions of the player? If not, how did you get around that?

[@philscomputerlab]

I don't remember the details but likely I found plugins with the same bits?

[@AladimBR]

@@philscomputerlab I found out this morning. Yamaha is 32 bits only, so you should have used the Sound Canvas 32 bits also. Unfortunately, Roland store doesn't sell anymore the 32 bits version, you can only buy the 64 bits. The only solution I found so far is to use a bridge software called jBridge - it patches VSTi plugins to 32 or 64 bit clients. I've tested both ways, converting Yamaha to 64 bits and Sound Canvas to 32 bits. There is a trial version which I used to check, time limited. It costs 15 EUR, I think I will bite the bullet for this one.

[@AladimBR]

@@philscomputerlab On a side note, I tried a Sound Canvas 32 bits (1.03) trial version found elsewhere, it works normally (savihost + DOSBox), but it crashes when I try to load on MidiPlayer. This is why I'm giving up and going the jBridge direction - spent to much time on this already, without a solution. Anyway, I like to learn new things and your channel is an amazing oportunity to try and do things I didn't even know existed on the RetroPC

[@philscomputerlab]

@@AladimBR Man they make this so hard...

[@joncarter3761]

As an amature/hobbiest music producer this really excites me, atm I'm using a lot of samples I collected from original hardware like the ZX Spectrum, the C64 and the Atari ST but I had to capture it through analogue means and it lost a fair bit of quality as a result. The Roland MIDI sound is fantastic and I would love to sample the hell out of it!

[@KayakTN]

What was the problem you had with the T5730?

[@philscomputerlab]

???

[@KayakTN]

You mentioned avoiding earlier HP thin clients with the Sempron processor.

[@sensn90]

I'm 2nd😧

[@tenminutetokyo2643]

DOOOD!

[@ArtisChronicles]

ok I gotta say I really loved this video. the midi sounds were beautiful.

[@UpLateGeek]

Managed to score an MT-32 and Sound Canvas a while back for a much lower price than they typically go for today, but I think I'll definitely look at setting one of these up, since it looks much easier to switch between sound fonts than swapping out the whole box. Actually, I'm wondering if I can use the MIDI port on a PCI sound card for the MIDI input? I'm thinking I could just use my WinXP/emulator box, which already has a sound card. It's a C2D, so it should be plenty powerful enough to run a MIDI program. All I'd need is the right MIDI cable, which I can make up using a cheap 5 pin DIN female connector, DB15 connector, optoisolator, and some microphone cable. Sounds like a fun weekend project!

[@philscomputerlab]

Yes, you can use MIDI input of your sound card, it should work just fine!

[@jelle_smid]

I really like this project and i might give it a try because it saves me a lot of midi cables and power bricks for "the real" stuff. But it also makes me wonder: will emulation affect the value of my mt-32 and sc-55 in the (near) future.

[@philscomputerlab]

It won't, the real thing will always be in demand.