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."

Comments

Not a win for OSS

[molafson]

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.

Re:Not a win for OSS

[lostchicken]

Also, you need the ROM image from an MT-32 for this to work at all. If I remember correctly, this wasn't needed before.

Before You Waste Your Time And Their Bandwidth...

[John_Booty]

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. :-)

Re:great, now we can all freely emulate MT32s..

[Fancia]

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.

Re:Before You Waste Your Time And Their Bandwidth.

[LoganEkz]

Since they couldn't find the copyright of the ROM, it seems it can be freely distributed.

Three cheers for EFF

[psifishdot]

"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.

Re:About the MT-32

[codebunny]

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.

Re:About the MT-32

[rcastro0]

Actually, an early-days PC sound card. Check this out:

" Serious game music for the mainstream user on the PC started with Sierra back in 1988. Before this, PC's were only equipped with a tiny beeping speaker. Sierra prepared to change all this by creating games that contained serious, high quality musical compositions drawing on add-on hardware. Sierra struck a deal with two companies, Roland and Adlib. Sierra adopted the Roland MT-32 and the Adlib Music Synthesizer. They would compose music for these units starting with King's Quest 4. Sierra would also become a reseller for these units.

The Roland MT-32 was the higher end of these music devices. In today's terminology, it would be labeled a "Wavetable Synthesizer". A wavetable synthesizer usually implies that real instrument sounds are recorded into the hardware of the device. This device can then manipulate them to play them back at the various notes you need. This may not be the most accurate description as the MT-32 had the ability to manipulate parts of its built in sounds using something called "Linear Arithmetic (LA)" synthesis. Technobabble aside, it was a very good device that can rival even today's sound cards (though Tom and other MT-32 users will be quick to point out the lack of a built-in piano patch). It was also a very expensive sound card, costing $550 through Sierra. " (quoting an article by Eric Wing)

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).

Re:the scene...

[CaptKilljoy]

Truer than you think

From the Dec. 9 entry of the news section:

Also note that it's more of a reprieve, Roland, on failing to find to any substantial documentation, yields to the publication of the MT-32 emulator. It should be noted their offer is without prejudice, meaning that if any evidence does surface, Roland will request that this site be taken down again. ( Offer.pdf)

It's not being emulated because it's good

[Sycraft-fu]

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.