Sound Blaster vs. Roland MT-32: Monkey Island 2

Sierra wasn't the only company that made games which supported the Roland MT-32. Jump to 2:09 for the MT-32 version.
I'm not entirely sure if Lucasarts actually wrote their musically specifically with the MT-32 in mind (Sierra most certainly did). But it sounds good regardless.
Recorded using a real Roland MT-32, not an emulator.

[@pauldavies6810]

Jesus imagining hearing something of this quality coming out of my pc in 1991...it would have blown my mind!

[@DerBomster]

It did blow my mind. A friend of mine had bought the Roland card for his PC and used Monkey Island 2 to demonstrate it. I thought he was mad for spending a couple of hundred dollars on a sound card just for playing games, but I was blown away by that sound nonetheless...

[@brucemanly]

It blew my mind. I first played this in 1992 ish and I used to let the intro play times before I loaded my save. It beats any music I heard in other games for years.

[@ggdavide]

i had to be rich to have a mt32 and midi modules in 1992 LOL

[@felipeestevez7361]

Ññ

[@donwald3436]

@@DerBomster Card? It came as an ISA card? How have I never heard of this?

[@GlitchyBastard]

The Sound Blaster sounds good, but the MT-32 sounds EPIC!!!

[@Andrecio64]

Like it was a remake from our era

[@saturn580]

Roland is far more crisp and detailed, but Sound Blaster has intense childhood nostalgia vibes.

[@Dilandau3000]

@Superphilipp Except this isn't a remake, or an enhanced version. This is what the original game sounded like back in 1991 if you had this hardware. The SB version didn't come "first", both versions were available at the same time. I'm not sure which sound device the composers at LucasArts had in mind (for Sierra games it was the MT-32), but that doesn't change the fact that this is just as much "how it first sounded" as the SB.

[@illegalquantity]

I like both. The SB sounded very good compared to its price.

[@AzureSC2]

Worlds apart, the MT-32 is amazing.

[@Greyweed]

This is by far the greatest version of this song! Both nostalgic and melodic in my case :) (The first one)

[@clubnientiendo]

Nah!, the remake version sound fantastic too 😉

[@jordanscherr6699]

Was the MT-32 MADE for Monkey Island? That's so good, I'm not sure the visuals can keep up with the music!

[@aurex8937]

Never had a Roland MT-32, remember I had this... I think the brand was Mozart, but with a synthwave yamaha chip. It was, by all accounts, an ISA soundblaster 16... sometimes just recognized as adlib for some reason. I still remember the irq thing... 220, 220, 1. Sounded divine, and nostalgia factor will probably ALWAYS make me like its sound more than the Roland which I never had.

[@TheEftelingFan]

also, i love your soundblaster/adlib VS MT-32 videos

[@JohnSmith-ch9sm]

I miss my old MT-32. A shame that most emulated titles use the Ad-Lib/Soundblaster mix.

[@jpTankMan]

+John Smith There is an MT-32 emulator out there.

[@JohnSmith-ch9sm]

+The Sangheilian For OS X?

[@jpTankMan]

Maybe, a quick google search will answer that.

[@KarjamP]

John Smith They can't legally use the MT-32 soundtrack anyway, or at least not without workarounds. The ROM imagery needed in order for MT-32 emulation to work is still under copyright, and it will remain so for a while.

[@zak8953]

check out munt. Not sure if it's MacOS compatible though...

[@Dilandau3000]

@TheEftelingFan Synthesizer modules like the MT-32 still exist of course. But since the advent of CD-ROM, games have nearly always had fully digitized soundtracks, so the player doesn't need to have a synthesizer. In fact, many modern sound cards don't have an on-board synthesizer at all anymore. As such, if by "comparable to the MT-32" you meant "something I can buy that will radically improve the sound of today's games", the answer is no. :-)

[@martymcfly6637]

i game (since 1992) plugged into a hifi stereo of some kind, avg 300 watts to many different imp and sensitivity speakers. Great memories of doom rockets shaking the house

[@meticulousgeek]

And there I was with my crappy SB16 at the time. Quite the comparison with the MT-32! Thanks for sharing!

[@danielbspinola]

And I was with the gorgeous pc speaker

[@TimMer1981]

When using a SoundBlaster AWE32/64, run "AWEUTIL /EM:GM" for General Midi emulation, sounds just as good or even better than the MT-32. :)

[@zfighter3]

When I read that without Roland MT-32 this game sounds like listening to Beethoven on the kazoo I didn't believe it, but now here I stand, a true MT-32 believer.

[@AnakiMana]

I have a memory of being a little kid with my first purchased video game, Pirates! for the Atari ST. When we hooked the Atari ST MIDI ports up to our MIDI keyboard, the game music went from mono-speaker built into monitor to something I couldn't believe I was hearing! I was so proud to own that game right then. Now I've got myself an Atari ST setup for nostalgia's sake and wondering what I should acquire to hook up via those MIDI ports. I want to relive that experience. Any suggestions? I heard the Roland MT-32 was good. Can I just hook up any MIDI keyboard that has the right kind of round MIDI ports, though?

[@TheMankyTube]

+AnakiMana Yes MIDI in ports.

[@iLikeTheUDK]

+AnakiMana Yeah, computer music was already quite advanced at that time, more than most people seem to remember. When a lot of people talk about MIDI music and its sound, they usually mean MIDI music played on an OPL card. But there were more advanced things out there.

[@Greyweed]

By the way, does anyone know if there's a way to get the sounds from the first version? It would be great to compose own music with these sounds!

[@itotophe]

whatever SB or Roland, this music is genious

[@josephfrye7342]

indeed.

[@GTXDash]

I'm waiting for the day when DOSBox will finally emulate the MT-32 just like it did with the Gravis Ultrasound, without the need of a real MT-32 unit.

[@GTXDash]

Andrzej Składanowski Thanks

[@Shendue]

+sp33dy S : I used Munt and i can assure you it's nowhere near to the real thing, unlike SB16 emulation. Munt sounds completely different from an actual MT32.

[@KarjamP]

Shendue Does not apply as much nowadays. With many developments later, Munt finally sounds a lot like the real thing, with only a tad bit of difference here and there.

[@Real_The_Goof]

Roland for sure sounds better in my opinion.

[@SpongeMagic]

Of course, It's MIDI while the Sound Blaster was FM Synthesis.

[@Real_The_Goof]

Shame not many games used it.

[@zhen86]

did you have it when it was relevant? if you and thousand people do not have it, why waste time on a unpopular platform? almost everyone who play games in the late 80s to late 90s know someone who had a sound blaster card or had one them self. Roland? not many people knew or had one.

[@jackcimino8822]

@@SpongeMagic Both used MIDI, but the MT-32 uses PCM combined with basic subtractive synthesis.

[@SpongeMagic]

@@jackcimino8822 Should've been more specific. Sound Blaster uses FM and Roland uses PCM. My mistake.

[@Eeroke]

The same midi sounded awesome on SoundBlaster live. MI1, however was optimized differently and sounded way worse on the same card, worse than on the original SB. The beginning specifically was rendered just one long brrruuuuum on SB live.

[@AidinZolghadr]

Drums of MT-32 and the rest of SB

[@krathoon2338]

You can totally emulate MT-32 with munt now. No more Sound Blaster.

[@user-ez9vg1ne8h]

At last i bought an isa midi card to connect my roland mt32 on my dos pc. Now i enjoy the amazing quality of the roland mt32. 10 years it was connecting on my Mac computers with great results but unfortunately only some Sierra Online games support Roland on Macs (the same for Amiga, Atari etc.)

[@hometimemayhem928]

0:16 CL SB 2:21 R MT-32 MTSS

[@onesyphorus]

the real dance monkey

[@renmorpheus]

@Dilandau3000 Not to mention that the MT-32 is actually an older device than the ME2 itself :D

[@wilder9777]

Awesome roland mt-32

[@TheEftelingFan]

the monkey island games have really awesome soundtracks! these games sound so much less old with MT-32 sound. is there something comparible to the MT-32 nowadays?

[@FigureFarter]

The standard MIDI soundfont on Windows is from the SC-88

[@Wobble2007]

If only we had quality audio in video games like we used to, I'd love to see MIDI audio, FM synth audio, HRTF audio like EAX, that would be amzing, sadly we only have generic digital PCM sound now days, Dolby Digital 5.1 Live is not anywhere near true multi position hardware acelerated sound like EAX, just listening to the incredible EAX audio in Max Payne 2 or the beautiful MIDI of Monkey Island 2 puts a smile on my face, btw the PS5 has true native HRTF audio via its Tempest 3D engine driven by actual hardware (powerful audio processor), as a result the PS5 had far supperiour audio to the PC, it used to be the other way round, PC/Computers had the best audio in video games by miles, we are a long way from that now.

[@linksmith1057]

I've always wanted a proper MT-32 setup but damn they are expensive for the perpetually broke.

[@Enchurito]

You could get the way cheaper RA-50 which uses the same sound engine and is like a quarter the price.

[@corgan59]

I can not choose, both are well

[@TheEftelingFan]

I actually meant things like cellphone MIDI processors.

[@ryan489]

The 2 Monkey Island remakes music is on about par with this but of course since they're newer it's the best. This damn close to it though.

[@MidiMusic]

Nice comparison ! I made my own remix (dance) 30 years later :-)

[@Redhotsmasher]

Well, technically you could probably somehow extract the sound data from a Pokémon Red ROM and convert it to MIDI but you'd have to set the instruments yourself.

[@pc-sound-legacy]

Soundblaster rules!

[@zummone]

@WarriorPoet2 Well I ran the raw midi files of pokemon red on my mt-32 giving each track a squarewave value and they sound awesome!

[@speedyblupi]

Ahah. The reason why people tend to want to distance themselves from robots that look a lot like humans. I've been reading the "New Scientist" and maybe you have too :) I don't really get an uncanny valley with ANYTHING. I'm kind of weird in that way. I can watch "The Polar Express" and rather than being scared or intimidated by the ultra-realistic animation (like many critics etc are) it just impresses me. I kind of like some things MORE if they're getting very near to what they're mimicking

[@donwald3436]

Oh man... the MT-32 is objectively better but I have so much nostalgia for the SoundBlaster version.

[@WarriorPoet2]

@zummone Do you have those on file somewhere? I'd love to hear them!

[@WarriorPoet2]

Ah, I see. Any idea what format the songs are in for these games?

[@smegskull]

I am saying it is like that graphics realism area where things look to real to be cg but just fake enough that your brain realises something is wrong. The same thing happened here it is too real to be a chip-tune but sounds just fake enough that my brain realises something is wrong. I think it is called the uncanny valley?

[@smegskull]

MT-32 was 1988 the MIDI came out 1991 though I prefer game blaster or the old IBMs anyway. synthesizers sound best at 16bit or under after that it sounds to realistic to be a chip tune but not realistic enough to sound like proper music.

[@danielbspinola]

Roland rules

[@WarriorPoet2]

Would it be possible to run pokemon red through an emulator, and then through the MT-32? I'd like to see how it sounds differently.

[@zx1701]

Shivers me timbers and poke me other eye out! Walk the disliker of this theme song off the plank!

[@calvinfoo]

Is there any games has good songs like MI?

[@Superphilipp]

@Dilandau3000 You're right, I got it wrong.

[@gibs2b]

Roland !

[@speedyblupi]

You could always MAKE support for it, if you are good enough at programming and know how an MT-32 works.

[@speedyblupi]

apart from the SCC, and possibly gravis ultrasound cz both came from 1991

[@moeschizlac]

how does this game sound with Sound Blaster 128 pci

[@WR3ND]

No cherry picking... ;) (Yeah, I'm one of the two thumbs down on this video.)

[@speedyblupi]

I want something that's comparable to an Mt32 as in if I attach it to my computer it will make it sound like an Mt-32. Of course I could buy an Mt-32, but that costs WAAAAAY too much.

[@Devilot91]

Guys I have built an old pc with Windows 98 and a original Sound Blaster Live! but when I try to play this game I only hear the midi sounds, that personally it sucks :( how can I enable SB or MT-32 music?

[@wyatt8740]

+Illusion Spark you dont seem to understand how this works. MT32 and soundblaster are both hardware midi synthesizers. You need to buy a sound blaster ISA card or an MPU-401 card and external MT-32 module.

[@Devilot91]

Yes I knew that, by the way I fixed simply running the game with "monkey2.exe /a" command, so it runs with adlib music and it works amazing :)

[@wyatt8740]

Glad to hear. :)

[@heborlan]

ScummVM is a set of game engine recreations + MT-32 sound

[@heborlan]

ScummVM is a set of game engine recreations + MT-32 sound

[@R33Racer]

In theroy if one was VERY clever, as to code the sound patches from Pokemon (which if I recall is similar to traccker based music) could be used to play different samples. That's if you could break up the game's audio files and use them as signals. Would be more effort then it's worth though... And that's before you think of hacking the Gameboy too!

[@WR3ND]

Which sound blaster is it though? There are a lot of different ones with different sounds. My favorite version of this piece is probably with the Game Blaster. It doesn't try and sound "good" as much as just sound awesome for what it is, kind of like the digital equivalent of Jimi Hendrix. Favorite retro sound card for this era is _probably_ the CT2230, given the best chip combos on the board with the different variations you could get.

[@masterluckyluke]

The difference is there, but try it with Might & Magic 3: Isles of Terra, there the difference between Sound Blaster and Roland MT32 is huge, also World of Xeen. ;)

[@Dilandau3000]

Isn't Pokemon Red a Gameboy game? A game needs to have built-in support for the MT-32 in order to work with it, that's never going to happen with a Gameboy game.

[@renmorpheus]

@Dilandau3000 Except of course an MT-32...for around 200 bucks :D

[@speedyblupi]

He could rewrite the music for it for Mt32, but it would probably be shit and/or take ages. Not to mention he'd need the hardware and software for it.

[@speedyblupi]

*good

[@speedyblupi]

really? Game blaster emulator

[@onesyphorus]

3:33

[@speedyblupi]

Lucasarts didn't make this game with the MT-32 in mind. The music is meant to sound like bells or steel drums or something similar, which the MT32 does not. However the MT-32 music is still better, even if it's not how it's meant to sound.

[@speedyblupi]

And the Mt32 was invented BEFORE the Sound blaster. Soundblasters were shit. They took until the pros to be better than AdLibs in sound quality, even though they were cheaper and had game ports built in.

[@tywinlannister8015]

I grew up playing on an SB16. I recently stumbled on my old games collection, but since I don't have the machine to run them anymore, I played them on emulator. And using the emulator, I defaulted all the digital and midi settings to what I had at the time - my trusty SB 16. But then ... i discovered so much other options. Adlib, Gravis, Roland. Which I somehow had not heard of back then. No I realised SB16 is not great in comparison but I still prefer it because it holds nostalgic value now ^^ Especially on games I played the shit out of, like Warcraft II. When I am testing a game I didn't play back then I default to MT-32 though ^^

[@F2bnp]

@WarriorPoet2 midi

[@AloanMoreira1]

MT-32: better quality - SB: more retro (nostalgic?) - I'll stay with Sound Blaster for the retro factor!

[@thekinglov265]

can say for sure not a real sb 16 probably a re branded one with a crap opl chip

[@TheRealAxelFury]

roland wins

[@LynxCarpathica]

MT-32 is Beter AGIAN!

[@reezlaw]

I know, the MT-32 was so much better and everything, but I prefer the soundblaster version. Without any hesitation.

[@Superphilipp]

Screw how much more lively and realistic the instruments of the MT-32 sound. The first one is hot Monkey Island is supposed to sound! It's how it first sounded. This is like that superfluous Gus van Sant remake of Psycho. Or the Special Edition of Star Wars.

[@speedyblupi]

AWE 32 also came after the others. AWE 64 is good, probably in there between Gravis and MT32. AWE 32 is SHIT, as in completely. Definitely not as good as an AdLib (At least in all the music I've heard for it)

[@androognoix1685]

Roland was better ONLY because it has reverb

[@sjftech]

Androo Gnoix You need to get new ears or some decent headphones/speakers. There's a huge difference.

[@androognoix1685]

I hear the difference now with new sets

[@josephfrye7342]

yeah you're right thats what the feature needs.