The sound of pure nostalgia! My love affair with the Roland MT-32! But is it justified?

[@michaelbricout6453]

There's a port of ScummVM called ScummVM-Lite for the ST. It runs MK, MK2, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis plus Day of the Tentacle (faster machine required). It supports Midi output and sounds absolutely fantastic with the MT-32 PI. Cheers.

[@TheRetroShack]

You sir, are getting pinned! Thanks VERY much for the info!

[@michaelbricout6453]

@@TheRetroShack thanks! I love your channel btw. And oh, I meant to write MI and MI2 (for Monkey Island), not MK, sorry for the confusion!

[@TheRetroShack]

@@michaelbricout6453 Thanks - I got it :) Glad you’re enjoying the channel :) :)

[@DragonNova]

Yep same thing is available on Amiga AGA :)

[@mrburns366]

I'd love to see an MK game made by Lucas Arts. 😋

[@MurderMostFowl]

I always loved the little Easter eggs that Sierra games would put on the MT-32 output screen

[@MacMelmac]

My dream was a MT32, but I connected my Yamaha PSR47 keyboard (still have that) to my ST and the Sierra games actually sounded decent. Even the soundeffects!

[@bazza5699]

i've had the MiSTer version of the mt32 (basically no midi interface) for a while now, and its truly brilliant.

[@TheRetroShack]

Yep - very clever project and wow! Those MT-32 sounds :) :)

[@DragonNova]

I've got one too, currently playing Monkey island 2 using the 486SX core LoL

[@FatNorthernBigot]

The MT32 was just an option I didn't understand on my DOS games. I correctly assumed it was a rompler, but by that time, General MIDI boxes were the norm.

[@d2factotum]

It was an option I never encountered myself, so was using the built-in music on Soundblaster cards for my DOS gaming days. Weirdly, that means that when I watch a KZbin video of someone playing a game I remember with music going through an MT-32 it just sounds *wrong*, because to me it should be that ol' FM synthesis!

[@FatNorthernBigot]

@@d2factotum yeah… FM is own thing. 😁

[@BigMacIIx]

The MT32 has such a unique tonality, I love my Mister-MT32pi setup for listening old nostalgic Sierra and LucasArt games soundtrack.

[@TheRetroShack]

Absolutely agree!

[@LittleRichard1988]

I personally have a Roland CM-32L which is basically an MT-32 in a beige box with no display or controls other than a power button, volume knob and a couple of leds to show it's switched on and a green light that pulses when midi data is going through it. The CM-32L also has extra sound effects in it's drum kit and was typically purchased with a CM-32P which is a PCM sound module that adds 64 high quality PCM instruments from the U-110 plus a slot for a rom card.

[@SidebandSamurai]

Wow I remember back in the day when an MT-32 was 500 Dollars US. Way out of my price range at the time. I always lusted after the MT-32 maybe I will have to get one of these.

[@irata2006]

Ultima VI's soundtrack on the Roland MT-32 was heavenly.

[@TheRetroShack]

I'll be checking that out !

[@werpu12]

basically all origin games of that era, they were Mt32 masters!

[@JimPatience]

4:36 That's actually a Roland SC-88 atop the S950s. I sold it to him in 97!

[@TheRetroShack]

Wow! Hope you got a good price for it - he was doing ok for himself even back in '97 :) :)

[@theretrogeek2281]

I have a Mister with the Mt32 pi,and I only have good things to say about it’s just brilliant,works flawlessly with Ao486 core,just an awesome piece of hardware..

[@TheRetroShack]

I’m finding myself increasingly more in need of a Mister… :)

[@theretrogeek2281]

@@TheRetroShack if you like Mt32 it’s a must have,there are lots of games that support Mt32 on the Ao486 checkout flynnsbit channel to have an idea..😊

[@MurderMostFowl]

I still have my original MT-32 and a CM32L in a closet. Last time I used them, they still worked great, though I usually use the ROM these days. ( but I will always keep them to be legit! )

[@Shmbler]

I got MT32-PI running on an old RPI 2 and connected that to a soundcard gameport. Runs great if you overclock it a bit, even though RPI 2 is not officially supported.

[@GeirEivindMork]

glad i bought mine when it was sub $100 :P

[@Student____2025__1]

I remember when Sierra started selling and supporting the Roland MT-32. It was a big turning point.

[@damouze]

I received mine a while ago and I have not had the chance to play around with it. I am currently trying to emulate an MSX keyboard using a PS/2 keyboard and an Arduino ;-) and I am making progress.

[@RootiferasRetroGameplay]

I just wanted to have a look into MT-32 PI online quickly, what a rabbit hole - I lost about 4 hours. Last thing I remember is ordering some PCBs from PCBway for a DB15 to MIDI converter and now I'm looking for some IC's to go on that board on ebay. Also, I found one DB15 to MIDI cable on ebay for £150!.. People are crazy

[@DragonNova]

Lots of MIDI support on the Amiga these days including Monkey island 2 ;)

[@cathrynm]

Oh I still have my MT32 from back in the 90's. Mine is exactly what's in that picture there.

[@TheRetroShack]

And are you still loving it? I think it has such a distinctive sound! :)

[@MurderMostFowl]

Wing Commander II had an amazing sound track on MT-32 ( and using a sound blaster for speech ) even the first game was quite good… I loved how the music changed pretty dynamically with the choices you made but still managed to sound like orchestration from a film or something.

[@shdon]

At 4:38 that's not the SC-55, but the SC-88 (or possible the SC-88 Pro, though that has some orange printing on the front panel which isn't really visible in that photo), which was the SC-55's successor. You can tell by the extra "layer" underneath.

[@TheRetroShack]

You’ve got better eyes than me :) Nice spot!

[@shdon]

@@TheRetroShack Having an MT-32, an SC-55 and an SC-88 Pro on my own desk helps 😂

[@MrLurchsThings]

Hah. You beat me to it. Serves me right for having the parts to build a MT32-Pi for months now and keep getting distracted on other projects.

[@TheRetroShack]

Lol - I know us Tubers should talk more often :) the amount of times I’ve worked on a video and then a day or so before I’m ready to upload it, someone else does something really similar :) Looking forward to your take on it!

[@SanguineBrah]

I don't understand why people express nostalgia for the MT-32. Back in the day, nobody I knew had one. It was an unnecessary expense unless you were composing music on your computer. Most likely they just had some OEM soundcard that was Soundblaster Pro compatible and were fairly happy with it.

[@TheRetroShack]

Surely nostalgia is by it's nature, entirely personal and based on your own experiences - if you never had one, you're not going to get nostalgic over one :) :) Personally, I loved mine :)

[@SanguineBrah]

@@TheRetroShack Of course, there's nothing wrong with being nostalgic if you had one. I'm just curious why I hear so much about them now vs when they were new. I suppose people love to have what they could only drool over in the magazines when they were younger.

[@michaelmiller3012]

@@SanguineBrah Short Answer: Back in the day, the Roland MT-32 was super expensive. and the Roland SC-55 (for General MIDI) was even more so. Long Answer: When Roland MT-32's were new, back in the late 80's and early 90's, you'd expect to pay ~$600 USD for just the MT-32 module itself. Then you need a MIDI cable. If you were on pretty much anything OTHER than Atari ST, you'd also then need to buy a MIDI interface for your computer, such as the MPU-401 for PCs. In contrast, most computers of the era had built-in sound, such as the Commodores and Ataris of the age. For the PC you could purchase a SoundBlaster card for ~$100 or so. And remember, this is 80's and 90's dollar values. That was a TON of money back then and so most people found the SoundBlaster to be Good 'Nuff. Today you will find a lot of interest in those old MIDI synths because now hearing old games as they were meant to be heard is a lot more affordable than it used to be. Even with the prices of MT-32 on eBay, you're still paying only a fraction of the $$$ these devices cost new.

[@LittleRichard1988]

I personally like it's lofi sounding percussions and it also has usable tuned percussion instruments and it's brass sounds have that 80s sound to it. I actually have the CM-32L which is basically a lower cost version of the MT-32 and I bought it as part of a loblot with the CM-32P which was another beige box which serves as an addon for the CM-32L adding 64 high quality PCM istruments from the U-110 covering all the important sounds such as pianos, e pianos, organs, guitars, basses, brass and saxophones plug it also has a slot for a PCM card, I also have a Roland U-220. I basically bought the CM-32s instead of a Roland D-110 and U-110

[@brianharper9798]

Still got a MT32 stashed away with my Atari STE and Atari Falcon. The last time I looked seemed you couldn't give them away.

[@TheRetroShack]

You can *always* give them away ;) ;) Be happy to add them to the collection!

[@brianharper9798]

@@TheRetroShack I'm sure you would. I've often thought of putting them up for sale, and even though they haven't been turned on in many years I just can't bare to part with them.

[@RVAPremodern]

I’ve just purchased this same hat. We’re you ever able to get a proper case for it? Love the video!

[@TheRetroShack]

Unfortunately not yet :(. I might end up designing one myself - could be a fun project :)

[@retrorabbitstudios]

The Roland MT-100 is a combo of an MT-32 and a PR-100 linked together and smashed into a PR-100 ish case. It's usually less expensive than an MT-32. However, it does not have a MT-32 display so no "Insert Buckazoid" maybe you can live without it. :)

[@TheRetroShack]

I doubt it :) Otherwise how would I know when to insert a Buckazoid? :) :)

[@SiaVids]

I was just fortunate to have got a Roland SC-88 and a Yamaha MU128 at a time before they were considered retro and the prices started to climb. 😎

[@anterometso276]

How about making a video, how to make music for MT-32 or about the internal programming details of it? What limitations does it have and how did they make the music tracks for it? I think it is too legendary a device to be handled as a black sound box with midi connectors, there must be more in it.

[@pauldeane8369]

Could you share your config settings? I made one of these up but for the life of me can't seem to get anything on the OLED, no matter what settings I use. I only see a blank screen via HDMI too. I made two separate boards so I sure the components are sound. Haven't actually hooked up to anything yet because I see no indication it's working.

[@werpu12]

You can use the MT32Pi on a Mister, running Monkey Island on the Ao486 core. I think also the Amiga version of the game supports the MT32! Several games (Sierra for instance do, on both the Amiga and ST)

[@helldog3105]

Strange, the MT-32 music for Quest for Glory feels like it's running at half speed. Is that an AtariST thing? I played HQ/QfG on the Amiga back in the day. I don't remember if the first one supported MT-32 on the Amiga, but I know the second one did. I have a MegaST 2 and the few games I have that use MT-32 don't play back that slow. The Colonel's Bequest plays the music at the same speed as my PC copy does on the 386, which speed wise is a much faster machine. I wonder if it's just a HQ/QfG thing?

[@TheRetroShack]

Hmmmm not sure - I'll have to have a go on some other machines and do some comparisons! :)

[@helldog3105]

@@TheRetroShack I know it sounds slower than having the MT-32 play back on my 386. But the question becomes, is it running faster because of the 386, and the pace of the music on the AtariST is correct? Or is it for whatever reason, that the music is running slower on the AtariST? This is where you really get into a conundrum. And I don't have a lot of games on my AtariST that support MT-32, but I do have The Colonel's Bequest, which is another Sierra game, and the music does not play any slower than the music does on the PC. So that is where I wonder if I have been hearing the Quest for Glory 1 music at the wrong speed all of this time?

[@EvilFranky]

There is a version of Monkey Island 2 for the ST. I've tried to post the link twice but my comments aren't appearing, not sure if it's because of the link or whether my comment needs reviewed first.

[@TheRetroShack]

There’s nothing in the ‘held for review’ section so not sure what’s happening there - but a link to MI2 on the ST would be awesome!!

[@markusjuenemann]

If I remember correctly, some of the Police Quest games on the Amiga supported MIDI, but I'm not sure about that...

[@bamdadkhan]

what is that flight sim you show twice around the beginning?

[@TheRetroShack]

That will be Wing Commander :)

[@bamdadkhan]

@@TheRetroShack i was literally dozing off when i asked that, sorry. : ) i meant at 1:48 and 3:58

[@TheRetroShack]

@@bamdadkhan That will be Strike Commander :)

[@bamdadkhan]

@@TheRetroShack awesome cheers < 3

[@jackbootshamangaming4541]

love my MT32pi, had it since the HAT came out for MiSTer pmuch,

[@bigwendigo2253]

I’ve been looking into this! The MT-32 emulator is fantastic. Unfortunately the hat and a pi would be almost the same amount as an actual MT-32 these days, I was lucky to get in on a couple 3Bs and 4 while they were regular priced. A Raspberry Pi synth is is a goal I have of completing one day (with a full on DIY midi controller and customizable patches, 3D printed shell) One question, though, why do you have your 3.5mm cable plugged into the pi jack instead of the DAC hat’s jack?

[@Colin_Ames]

Very interesting. I didn’t know about this.

[@TheRetroShack]

Thanks - me either till my rabbit hole trip :)

[@VladoT]

Is it possible to get a Sysex file for some Roland synth from the 90's with exactly the same sounds set up as an MT-32 emulation?

[@TheRetroShack]

That’s one for the community to answer I think! Above my level of knowledge - I’m a consumer of MIDI only :) :)

[@shdon]

Not really. The SC-55 and SC-88 (and Pro) came with a patch map that remapped them to the same instruments as the MT-32, but it wasn't a perfect match. Also, those later modules used just regular sound samples, unlike the MT-32 which used LA synthesis allowing for some techniques that aren't possible with PCM wavetable as is. Also (and this is the biggest obstacle) the newer modules don't understand the MT-32 sysex data, they don't even listen for the appropriate device ID and simply discard what they don't recognise. This meant that the SC-55 "emulation" of the MT-32 sounds okay (just "okay", not "great" or even "good") only if the music being played just makes use of the default instruments and has no additional effects. That leaves very few games sounding good. Of the ones I've tried, I think Monkey Island 1 comes pretty close to the MT-32 when using the SC-55's MT-32 patch map, but most Sierra games sounds awful that way.

[@chaoticsystem2211]

Thanks for the shivers

[@TheRetroShack]

You’re welcome! :)

[@josephkarl2061]

I have been looking at this quite fantastic project and seriously desire to get my hands on one 😃 One silly question though - does this combine the regular wave output of your PC, or do you have to do something like feed them both into a mixer and then output that to a pair of speakers? Maybe I'm overthinking things, but I thought I'd better put my mind at ease.

[@TheRetroShack]

It doesn’t combine the different sources, you’d need to mix it yourself - 90’s styleeee!

[@josephkarl2061]

@@TheRetroShack Totally 😅 I must say that's one thing I don't miss about the 90s (or earlier), is having gear sitting round and a giant noodle bowl of cables and connections to make it work. I mean you can still do it today, but so many things I use are just now one box and a couple of cables, which actually suits me fine 🙂 Thanks for the reply! I can now get on with sorting out how to make this work in my system.

[@jmpiv4]

You missed a pun there at 2:43 lol

[@TheRetroShack]

Yep, should have gone with "Shiver me timbers!" :)

[@petertorda5487]

I heard MT-32 for first time back in 2007 (munt emulator), and was absolutely shocked. Then in 2008 I have got real one for les then 100eur. :-) In compare to my Yamaha MU-100R, this sounded like real synth, simply sounds has been more "alive", evolving, then I found out, that it is real synth in compare to that "static" hardwired romplers. Actually LA engine is combination of early Virtual Analogue with PCM (same synth chip LA32 as in it's professional brother D50/D550), that's why it is highly programable. Unfortunately Sound Canvas didn't inherit "real" synth engine, but have got it from Rolands U romplers series, where you can't program sound from scratch, but only adjust one ADSR envelope, but that was not Rolands intention, as soon they started to release into market famous JD and JV series.

[@wimwiddershins]

I remember that point in time when it became clear the PC had caught up with (& surpassed) the Amiga. For me it was playing a faster and graphically enhanced game of Syndicate on a friend's 486. It made my A500 seem sluggish by comparison. Boo hoo!

[@TheRetroShack]

In a way I'm glad I moved away from the Amiga before I really noticed it's decline. By the time I got back into Amiga's they were expected to be slow :)

[@d2factotum]

Well, the PC version of Syndicate ran at 640x480 while the Amiga version was stuck at 320x200, not surprising the PC version was better! I was amazed at those high resolution graphics back in the day.

[@bazza5699]

@@TheRetroShack i got the A1200 after the A500 and it was a brilliant machine, had it until 94 then moved over to the pc and i have to admit i was mightily disappointed, pre-windows 95, dos 6.2 & win 3.11 was so inferior to workbench. thankfully it was only 6 months then win 95 came out, which i remember buying from my local HMV for £75. the amiga was so far ahead of it's time.

[@daishi5571]

​@@bazza5699 I find it ridiculous that people make statements like this! "Hey I'm going to compare a 5+ year newer system that cost much more that the A500 that was always priced to be an entry level system. I never bother spending any money upgrading the Amiga with CPU's or video cards or sound cards or anything else that PC owners basically had to just to keep up. But I'm going to say it was the Amigas fault! not that I couldn't buy upgraded Amigas with all these things that may have then invigorated the market to make software that would then take advantage" In 92 I got my A1200. Quickly upgraded it with faster CPU's, memory, storage, multisync monitor. Made a lot of money with that system, annoyed a number of Mac users by blowing away their preconceived notion of what made them superior by running their software along side the Amiga, faster then they could (yep, that's what real preemptive multitasking allowed). Ran PC software and a number of other systems so by all accounting I had access to the largest software library in the world across multiple platforms. Yep the Amiga was definitely so far behind!!! In 95 I spent thousands buying a PC that I felt was worth replacing my Amiga with after the bankruptcy and even then it was not living up to my old Amiga in reliability or usability. it wasn't until 1999-2000 before I had a PC that eclipsed the Amiga It cost in excess of $10,000 and was by al accounts a cutting edge system running Windows 2000. Today Deathloop locked-up on me taking with it the file manager, requiring a hard reboot. It's not like my system is some POS. I run a lean Win 10 system, with consistently cleaned up startup programs, 32GB RAM, 8 Core CPU, 4.5 GHz hell my video card alone cost over $2000 it's a system capable of amazing things. Yet even after all these years I'm disappointed with the lack of progression.

[@CheshireNoir]

I swear you're about a month ahead of me on so many projects! First the MSX and now the MT32Pi. (I'm picking up mine on Monday) Want to give me a hint at what my next project is, since you seem to already know? :-D

[@vaughantruelove1757]

Oh! Midi play. Excellent video. Get well soon.

[@TheRetroShack]

Thanks :) I’m on the mend now :)

[@Student____2025__1]

I prefer the sound of the Roland MT-32. It has a great sound.

[@mitubashiciro]

I have build this mt32 incredible sons

[@lucyinchat]

Rose Tinted Stereo!

[@m4rgin4l]

Strike Commander

[@TheRetroShack]

Still looks good today! ( And sounds great too :) )

[@mitubashiciro]

I have build its working

[@stevemcknelly5036]

Going from the MT-32 era to Command and Conquer kind of skips over the ScreamTracker/Future Crew era of computer music.

[@TheRetroShack]

I guess that's just an era that I missed as I transition from unwashed youth to reasonably sensible adult - you know that five years or so :)

[@include55]

The MT32 was of course fantastic, but hardly nostalgic since that wasn't a card that people had in their PCs back then. Nostalgia would be GUS or AWE32.

[@donpalmera]

The irony being that the Pi has enough resources to emulate the mt-32 and the atari st ... or just run one of the many emulators/reimplementations like scummvm that has mt-32 emulation baked in. At some point in the future we'll have quantum computers wired up to current-gen-now-but-at-that-time vintage machines to emulate the experience of watching k-pop videos on youtube via crappy ADSL or something.

[@GoranObal]

Nice! :)

[@XEVIAN360]

Omg, feelings

[@CallousCoder]

Another one who had the “killer virus” and survived.

[@user-yk1cw8im4h]

it's always just monkey island demo because that's it's only use lmao lame device