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Roland Backs Down On MT-32 Emulator
canadacow writes "This is a follow up to the cease and desist letter the MT-32 project received (Original Story). Roland, unable to find documentationg establishing a copyright on the MT-32's ROM, has yielded to the project and allowed distribution of the emulator to continue. On my page www.artworxinn.com/alex I've again posted the emulator along with the legal developments as they happened after the receipt of the initial C&D letter. This development was largely due in part to the legal support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
Before you all get excited about this, note that this is not a win for OSS -- not really. Notice that no legality was established. Roland simply gave up because they have not been able to find their documentation establishing copyright.
The emulator won't work unless you have a copy of the required ROM file, mt32_pcm.rom
:-)
So, don't slaughter their bandwidth/server by downloading the emulator unless you've got this file. Since I already made this mistake, I thought I might try to spread the word and cushion their Slashdotting, if only a little.
OtakuBooty.com: Smart, funny, sexy nerds.
A professional synthesizer module produced by Roland during the mid to late 1980s. It had 128 built-in samples, but could also store custom samples using LA synthesis based on the existing samples. It's most desired by fans of older computer games; many games, especially adventure games, prior to about 1992 were written specifically for the MT-32. Since no other devices (other than a few devices based on the MT-32, also by roland) can play MT-32 MIDIs properly, they're quite desirable especially to fans of Sierra and Lucasarts adventure games, as well as fans of the Ultima RPGs.
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
This is interesting. Note that restored works are only an issue in the United States, and the original copyright gained in Japan by way of Berne should still be legitimate not only in Japan, but in just about every other Berne signatory (the restored work issue results from US non-compliance with Berne).
This would mean an interesting situation that you could be considered in infringing copyright if you take your work outside the USA, or if anyone downloads your work from outside the USA (many of the similar ITAR issues).
Since they couldn't find the copyright of the ROM, it seems it can be freely distributed.
"This development was largely due in part to the legal support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation."
Let's hear it for the Electronic Frontier Foundation. Without the EFF, there'd be much more doom and gloom on Slashdot than there already is.
Although, "largely due in part" is an odd statement.
Long live Schrodinger's cat...
ObDisclaimer: I'm not a lawyer. This is not legal advice, and it's probably completely wrong :)
Yes... a port is planned. Right now I'm just working to get the audio perfected before I work on seriously porting the code myself. If anyone else wants to help, let me know.
It was a synthesizer module, not a keyboard. It can be attached to anything that can communicate via MIDI; I have it connected to my AmigaOne right now, but it would work just as well with a MIDI keyboard. As the above poster points out, there was also the LAPC-1, which was basically a Roland MPU-401 MIDI port and a Roland MT-32 in one ISA card. (They used the same idea later with the SCC-1, which is an MPU-401 and an SC-55 in one ISA card.)
Bít, zabít, jen proto, ze su liska!
It's not a keyboard, it's a sound-module. i.e. it's the part which generates the sounds but doesn't have any keys on it to play and is controlled by another MIDI device.
It was an important product in it's day since it was the first multi-timbral (hence MT) synth meaning it could play more than one instrument at a time (e.g. piano and trumpet). The 32 refers to the maximum simultanous voices of the device. Each instrument uses between 1 and 4 voices, so the actual polyphony was between 8 and 32 depending on the instruments you were using. If you had two MT32s you could daisy chain so overflow notes go to the second device.
As others have mentioned they were supported in various games, like the Sierra adventures. My personal fave was X-wing with the MT32 (music) + Soundblaster (effects) setting.
MT32s are pre-GM (General MIDI) so the instrument mappings are non-standard (luckily the drums are the same). Various MIDI devices will have a MT32 mapping mode, so MIDI files will sound about right but for the real effect you'd need the real device.
The tone generators were a hybrid of FM generation (i.e. sawtooth waveform etc.) plus a limited amount of sampled data.
I saw one of these things, in the beginning of the 90s, at a friend's house. It was really high end... and he used "Leisure Suit Larry" to demo it (!). Anyway, this MT-32 emulation effort will probably be interesting for running the golden DOS-era games (many abandoware, check Home of The Underdogs).
Quem a paca cara compra, paca cara pagará.
just a friendly reminder to toss some extra change towards the EFF...thanks to them alex and others are able to stand up against this sort of corporate legal pressure.
donate here:
https://secure.eff.org/
From the Dec. 9 entry of the news section:
Copyrights are in force, whether registered with the US Library of Congress, or not. Every crayon scribbling you've ever made, every photograph you've ever snapped, every recorded karaoke performance you've ever warbled, is protected by the force of law. Registration is a paper trail for the courts, but not a necessary element of a copyright enforcement lawsuit.
[
True for creations past a certain date. Before that, creations had to be registered to be protected. Unlike bogus copyright extensions, this change is not retroactive. I suspect that this is exactly the case here.
Quest Studios has lots of MT-32 MIDI sequences from classic Sierra On-Line adventure games, and a few MP3s as well so you can compare the softsynth's sound to the Real Thing. I think they used to have sequences from Lucas(Film|Arts) games as well, but I can't find any there now... maybe I'm thinking of some other site. Argh.
If you want a good synth, these days they are cheap and plentful the cheapest and most flexable for the money I can think of is the SoundBlaster Live. It's a real, no-shit, sample based MIDI playback device. Now it doesn't sound all that impressive with the included samples (better than the MT-32 but not great) but the cool thing is that you can find free and commercial samples in Creative Labs' Sound Font format all over the net. Get yourself a better one, and you are rocking. Along those lines, you aren't limited by the orignal GM spec. You can load your own instruments at your own locations to your hearts content. Quite a powerful editor for Sound Fonts too. Now, given that SBLives have be had for as little as $30 brand new, the MT-32 in no way competes.
This isn't even to mention the new synthesizers that Roland offers (under the name Edirol now) or more professional versions of the Live/Audigy hardware that Emu sells (Proteus).
The point of emulating the MT-32 is vintage sound. Many games were composed to it's unique sound. Hence if you want the true sound of old games, it's desirable to have one. So the emulator is for enthusiasts, not professionals.
Read my page to get an understanding of the relevant law here. While you're correct with regard to the current method of how copyright works, such policy is not retroactive in this case. And before you think I'm just talking out my butt since IANAL (no pun intended), remember that both the EFF and Roland's counsel agree with me on this interpretation of the law.
That's the very point of this emulator. It implementes the MT-32 sysex and is not simply a MT-32 patch set. The emulator works exactly as the original hardware did, combining analogue waves with PCM sounds. In otherwords, yes, it supports custom patches and on playing any of the games you'll hear the real sounds, not the "incorrect patch" being played instead.