MIDI that sounds like the oldies?

[Elvisish]

When I play games by Sierra and Lucasarts, there's always that excellent FM Emulation type music that it uses, that is completely different from the wavetable music of ones soundcard. I haven't used the DOS ags and am wondering if it will give you the music sounds simmilar to Freddy Pharkas and Leisure Suit Larry, or if it uses it's own soundset, and can you change it or not?

[Elliott Hird]

Well, there's something about it on the download page...

...but the only way you'll get perfection is to buy a Roland MT-32. Woo!

[Gilbert]

MT-32 was wavetable as far as I know.

You can however use one of those MOD formats for music, where you can use samples that sound like FM tunes.

[Elliott Hird]

Sierra and LucasArts used the MT-32, so that's what he needs.

[Gilbert]

It's not that problem, most old Sierra & Lucasfilm games supported both FM synthesis MIDI (OPL cards like Adlib and Sound Blaster) and MT-32. They're different things. If what he really wanted was FM synthesis music, it's definitely not MT-32.

[Elvisish]

Your right, I'd like the FM synthesis they used... it's especially identifiable on game such as Larry and Freddy where there's atmospheric plinky tingy sounds for ambience that windows midi just cannot synthesize as effectivly. Is there any way that AGS could emulate such sounds via plugin or later release update?

[modgeulator]

It's funny because I remember when you had to pay big on a soundcard to get wavetable music in games, and now that it's standard in Windows there's a lot of people nostalgic for the crappy old FM sounds  :

The only way I can think to get your games music to sound like that in AGS would be to use pre-recorded mp3/ogg files. You could take the MIDI files you want to use and render them them out with something like AdPlug (http://adplug.sourceforge.net/) for that authentic old Adlib FM synth sound.

[Elvisish]

So it would be possible I guess for somebody to implement the code from adplug into a plugin for AGS, thus one could have authentic AdLib emulation?

Now, who wants to do it? 

[Gilbert]

Or, like I mentioned, use MODs with samples that sound like FM tunes.

[Elvisish]

Yeah, but i was wondering if you could get the samples to work the same way, or would they just sound like mods?

[Gilbert]

Samples are just recorded wave files, so they can be sny sound, I don't understand how a music "sounds like a MOD" though.

[modgeulator]

Sounds like a MOD = sounds a bit like an ancient lo-fi sampler or an old Amiga computer. With some pretty extensive sampling and editing you could probably create a MOD file that sounded a bit like an old FM soundcard synth. However, considering they're two completely different ways of generating sound it would take a lot of work to make something sound convincing.

[Elvisish]

Sounds like a MOD = sounds a bit like an ancient lo-fi sampler or an old Amiga computer. With some pretty extensive sampling and editing you could probably create a MOD file that sounded a bit like an old FM soundcard synth. However, considering they're two completely different ways of generating sound it would take a lot of work to make something sound convincing.

Exactly, and it would probably take more time than one would care to, just getting the AdLib sampled. But eharing the AdPlug, I was very impressed as to just how simmilar it is to the Sierra emulation of the OPL2. I'm no programmer, so I don't know exactly what would be required to make the two compatible by means of a plugin for AGS, but I would have thought it a relativly easy job, considering the Open Source nature of the AdPlug. But perhaps I am way out of my depth here! 

[modgeulator]

If I wanted that old FM synth sound I'd just take the output from AdPlug and encode it to Ogg Vorbis, obviously not as size efficient as having a plugin or something but it probably wouldn't need a really high bitrate at least.

[Elvisish]

Yeah, I guess that would work. It's just a shame as it would be nice to be able to have this functionality to make the retro games even more accurate... especially for fan games or remakes. Is there any guide on how to start programming plugins here, as I wouldn't mind giving it a go?

[Pumaman]

You'll need some knowledge of a programming language like C++ in order to write a plugin; adding something like AdPlug to AGS is a possibility, but that really depends on whether anyone else would find it useful?

[Elvisish]

I think it would be a very nice option, and it would also solve any midi related problems that people may have; for instance, the computer I have out in my den doesn't have on-board midi capabilities, so if I wanted to hear music on an AGS game, I'd be stuck! It would also be invaluable for either fan-games or remakes, and generally anyone who wants to get a bit closer to the quality of retro adventuring, I believe. 

[Elvisish]

Just wondered if anyone was still interested in this feature, as I still think it would add alot of authenticity to fan adventure games 

[Elvisish]

I know it's my old topic, but 9 years later I'd still love OPL support, ala Dosbox in AGS. Foobar w/ AdPLug can accept .laa files in three different engines including Ken Silverman's, and simply changing the filename *.mid>*.laa enables OPL playback specific for Lucasarts sounding music. How difficult is it to have this feature in AGS. It's literally the only thing I can think of that AGS really needs to be true to the oldies.

[Gabarts]

Find in my posts... I've lot of VST-AU virtual instruments for both Win and Mac, just found recently an emulation of Roland MT-32 somewhere. But I used another host program to load those sounds. I don't remember the name now, have to check in my Macbook. Anyway you should find something in my posts about Roland MT-32.