Are you a fan of old Sierra games? Do you particularly enjoy blip-blops? Did you know that the soundtrack for many of the games were actually written specifically for the Roland MT-32 synthesizer? These are games like King’s Quest 4, 5 and 6, Space Quest 3, Leisure Suit Larry 2, 3 and 5, Police Quest 2 and 3.
If you are lucky enough to have one of these Roland babies the games sound really awesome. But is there a poor man’s solution? There sure is. The Munt synthesizer emulator does a fine job at emulating an MT-32.
So what are the steps for settings this up? It turns out it is easy. As a prerequisite you will need a copy of the MT-32 ROMs, but these are easily available at TheOldComputer.
- Start up the Munt MT-32 Sound Module Emulator with the proper ROMs installed.
- Among the actual game files are a RESOURCE.CFG file, change its “soundDrv” setting to say:
soundDrv = MT32.DRV - The last thing you need to do is to set the MIDI device to be the MT-32. I recommend running the games in DosBox using D-Fend Reloaded. Assuming you have the game added there, it is as simple as going to the Hardware/Sound/MIDI setting, click the “Select MIDI device from device manager” button and select “MT-32 Synth Emulator”, which should be visible to DosBox when the emulator is actually running.
You *could* use the default Windows MIDI device also, leaving all DosDox settings in peace, but lots of the sound effects will then come out wrong, so taking the trouble to download and install the MT-32 emulator is definitely worth it. You can also experiment with other sound drivers if you want, but for the soundtracks that are actually written for the MT-32 that makes little sense.