Roland MT-32 vs Amiga Paula

>>3713791
My old D110 (rack mount MT-32) was a soul crushing disappointment and such total trash that I am inclined to side with the Amiga Paula despite never having heard it.

Fuck, i'm sure I just watched LGR with him getting some of those MT-32's in the mail. Spooky.

>>3713791

The roland is definitely technically better, but most composers couldn't figure out how to get good at it. Amiga on the other hand has tons of talented people making songs.

On the other hand, when you do get a someone good on the roland, the results are amazing:
https://youtu.be/cHom8wOtoNg?t=2m42s

>>3713791
>Which has better audio quality?
That's a dumb question. One is an actual 8-channel + drum polyphonic synthesizer that uses PCM sample and apply various algorithms and effects with it's DSP, the other is a 4-channel PCM playback chipset with a low-pass filter.
>Which has the better compositions made for it?
Both had great tunes, but good MT-32 tunes are miles ahead of good Amiga tunes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3dB0qEcG20
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2sJQUTLPSH8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWJxOMLnNXc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u2YQp-sDsb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dL8IuOtk3nU
>>3714328
>but most composers couldn't figure out how to get good at it.
That's what happened with Adlib Soundblaster and OPL cards in general, not the MT-32. There were many vidya tunes with a mediocre use of the MT-32, but that was because they made them with the SC-55 in mind in the first place and adapted them to for the MT-32 without taking the time to do it correctly (playing SimCity 2000 in MT-32 mode is worse than playing without music at all).

>>3713791
Note that Paula is the Amiga's built in sound chip, not an expansion card or midi box.

The standard Amiga got cheaper to buy each year while the MT-32 unit and interface card cost like $700.

>>3714551
>There were many vidya tunes with a mediocre use of the MT-32, but that was because they made them with the SC-55 in mind in the first place and adapted them to for the MT-32 without taking the time to do it correctly

I thought most big DOS games were composed on MT-32 and SC-55 was invented a few years later?

What about Yamaha MU-80 which is also compatible with DOS games? Were any games composed using it?

What are all the different external midi boxes (no ISA/PCI cards) that were used with DOS games and were do they fit in the timeframe?

>>3713832
Really? Can you elaborate? I've just downloaded an MT-32 Soundfont but I haven't heard it yet.

>>3715369
>I thought most big DOS games were composed on MT-32 and SC-55 was invented a few years later?
The MT-32 is from 1987 while the SC-55 was from 1990, yes, and most good MT-32 tunes are from the late 80s/1990 (at least on PC). The MT-32 remained in support in the early 90s, however, most of the musics made for it were made with the newer Roland SC expanders, and as the MT-32 isn't really GM compatible, they had to adapt those songs for this expander (or remap the MT-32 instruments), which they did poorly in most cases.
>What about Yamaha MU-80 which is also compatible with DOS games? Were any games composed using it?
If the game musics are pure GM then it'll sound great! If it uses the GS expansion then it's Roland GS expanders only.
>What are all the different external midi boxes (no ISA/PCI cards) that were used with DOS games and were do they fit in the timeframe?
Roland MT-32 for the late 80s/early 90s, Yamaha FB-01 for a few late 80s Sierra Games (they made an EXTREMELY POOR use of it though I'd advise not buying one for these games, they made it sound worse than the Adlib, despite having rougthly the same capabilities as the Sharp x68000 audio chipset, without the ADPCM channels), the CM-32L/64L (which are basically MT-32 units with instrument cards), the Yamaha TG-100 (for GM uses), the Roland SC-55, then SC-88 (usually they just say Sound Canvas). I don't know if there are games that were designed to use the XG expansion or if the MU-50/80/100 were only used as GM expanders though.
>>3715480
It's no professional-grade synthesizer (the more you try to compose stuff on it, the more you notice how noisy the audio signal it outputs is), it was mean't for amateur and low-budget musical uses. It's still pretty nice for late 80s game stuff and the likes.

>>3716582
Final fantasy 7 used Yamaha XG

>>3716607
Well then good to know (though it's a Windows game, not a DOS one)

>>3713791
MT-32 can't do sound effects or speech.
>Amiga
Who cares?

>>3717321
>MT-32 can't do sound effects
Except it can, and plenty of games did use it for sound effects.

>>3717321
>Who cares?

Britpoors

>>3717394
You're still limited on what kind of sounds effects you can do though.

>>3717964
You're limited to the ones you can download to the unit via SysEx messages on the custom instrument bank. As far as I know, you can send something like 64 user sounds? On top of the sound effects already present in the built-in bank.
>>3717396
If you wanna be a retarded meme spewer, try to get them right in the first place.

>>3713791
I have to go with Amiga, MT-32s soundfont was build in, while tracker music was a direct descendant of MIDI fixing what MIDI can't do. Amiga can load any sample to be modulated and it also can do voice and FM-synthesis, plus many effects. It even can even do 8 or 14 bit sound playback, like wav or MP3.

>>3719303
>tracker music was a direct descendant of MIDI
Loads of bullshit, trackers are just a kind of sequencer that uses reusable patterns. MIDI trackers are a thing.
>fixing what MIDI can't do
Like what?
>Amiga can load any sample
So does the MT-32, and game devs DID load their own instruments and sound effects on the unit.
>to be modulated
So does the MT-32. It's only "modulated" so it could be played at various pitch, and every soundchip does it.
>it also can do voice
Load voice samples as MT-32 instruments and you'll see it can do voice. Otherwise if you're talking about voice synthesis, the Amiga does it software-side.
>and FM-synthesis
The only stuff that uses it used it pretty poorly though.
>plus many effects
A low-pass filter and that's it. Anything else has to be done with the CPU, in other words not by Paula.
>It even can even do [...] sound playback
Well no shit, sample playback is the main purpose of the chip, that's the first thing it's supposed to do.
> 8 or 14 bit
8bit yes, 14bit only with tricks that only let you have 2 channels.
>like wav or MP3
Raw PCM wav yes, don't expect to be playing mp3s on an Amiga 500 or even an Amiga 1200 without expansion because you'll need to have the CPU do all the decompression stuff.
The MT-32 has 9 15bit@32kHz channels for it's instrument + rythm playback , with a polyphony of 32 notes, each channel can be assigned to either the left, right or middle stereo channel, the reverb effect can be set for each instruments independently, and of course you can change a channel's instrument on the fly when playback. When it comes to pre-recorded playback Paula might be better, because that's EXACTLY what it was designed to be and the MT-32 isn't a sampler, but for real-time music playback, the MT-32 is way better.

>>3714328
>>3714551
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q2jcwZB9LXo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkzPi_eFSOs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP5VoIJzPtc

>>3719381
>So does the MT-32, and game devs DID load their own instruments and sound effects on the unit.
>Load voice samples as MT-32 instruments and you'll see it can do voice. Otherwise if you're talking about voice synthesis, the Amiga does it software-side.

What the fuck are you talking about? MT-32 is basically a ROMpler. It doesn't have an expansion card slot, you can't load new samples in.

>>3719551
>It doesn't have an expansion card slot, you can't load new samples in.
You have no idea of what you're talking about. There's a 64 user timbre bank so that musician can load custom samples via SysEx. You seems to forget that MIDI is basically a ~30kbps serial bus and that you can send data to synthesizers/expanders. Game developpers like Sierra made use of the user timbre bank in games like Firehawk and Codename : Iceman, that's why it takes more time to load the game when in MT-32 mode.

>>3719557
MT-32 can NOT load custom samples.
You can send patches via sysex, sure, none of those will have a custom sample in it though.

Are you confusing samples with the synth engine? Changing the parameters of the synth engine is not a sample. You won't be able to replace all those shitty flute and organ attack samples with sysex.