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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."
In a world where companies are always trying to squeeze every last marginal penny out of us "consumers", they usually want to do so by abandoning valid and proven technologies in order to force us to upgrade to the latest doo-hickey for the sake of upgrading. Musicians generally don't need "the lastest thing", much to the chagrin of big companies who are trying to get us to go digital. Tube guitar amps, transistor-based effects pedals, well designed classic style guitars from the 50/60's (Fender Stratocasters, Telecasters, Gibson Les Pauls, Martin acoustics), class A discrete mic preamps, pre-World War 2 German microphones, these items are still in use today and still built this way because quite simply, they work. Not to mention the quality factor. If companies had their way, they'd be making wood *veneer* electronics guitars a la IKEA instead of with solid ash/mahogany bodies. But oh, since it doesn't sound as good, they'll make up for it by putting in digital pickups and then running it through a mock tube circuit which really is just a little light show to trick the plebs. As a synthesizer player, I still like my old analog synths (Roland Jupiter, ARP 2600, Oberheim Matrix). Yet it's funny because these days, companies make these digital synths to emulate what was already done and call it "progress".
It's public domain, so it's not *other people's* IP, it's *our* IP.
Don't worry, though -- Disney and their paid representatives in the government are working hard to ensure that nothing more will ever become public domain.
-- Help Digitise the Public Domain at DP.
The sad thing is, this depends on so many technicalities, it is not likely there will be another "victory" like this for a long time to come, becuase the relevant laws have all been strengthened in the last 20 years. In the US, Copyright lasts (practically) forever now, with no registration or renewal requirements. Unless there is a major shift in the laws, there is nothing being produced today that will come this close to becoming public domain in 20-30 years.
So, while I'm glad the MT-32 emulation project can continue, I don't see much chance of any other more cheerful stories like this coming out.
Roland is the Nintendo of musical instruments. .jp that they could ...
Not "hi-tech flashy" like Yamaha, but they
understand what "play value" means in the same
way Nintendo does, in a way that transcends
language and cultures. They designed the
drum machines (808, etc) that put the raw
sonic tools behind a lot of cool music, written
in cultures far away from
never understand except sonically. I honestly
think if the right (non-lawyer) types spoke to
them, they would get what was really going on
here and be cool
Could this get rolled into the SCUMM VM for our auditory pleasure?
A Gravis Ultrasound is a good alternative to the MT-32. It has a Dos-based MT-32 emulator, and can emulate a Soundblaster too, so you can get the best of both worlds for older games.
It worked great with Band-in-a-Box.
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.
Of course, due to the lack of a copyright, anyone can freely distribute that ROM. For example, you can currently get a copy of it from their page at sourceforge.
I suspect they made it external to the core program just in case the lawyers succeeded in making life difficult - Using a home-made (and thus non-copyrighted) version would get around any objections Roland might raise. And, more importantly, for those lucky enough to have an MT-32 to rip the ROM from (or the 99% of us who don't particularly give a damn about the legality of grabing one off the internet), a user could run with that one rather than the home-brew one, with no liability for the emulator's authors.
I recently pulled a Roland MT-32 that I paid way too much money for back in the early 1990's out of the closet and played for a while.
What a disappointment. The instruments are mediocre and very noisy. The MIDI implementation is unnecessarily difficult and poorly documented. The editor programs still available are awkward to use and impossible to alter (no source code anywhere for MT-32 editors).
The unit has no backup battery inside. All modifications to any sounds are lost at power-down. The internal firmware writes the mediocre internal voices over whatever is in RAM so just adding a battery to the RAM's VCC won't save your work.
The internal synthesizer is just a square wave and a sawtooth with a gritty filter, amplitude envelope, and pitch tweeker (fire engine siren generator). So-so reverb and precussion patches. That's the whole thing.
Of all the synthesizers to select to emulate, this would be my last pick. Fifteen years ago, when it was released, it might have been impressive. But not now.
In fact, of all the synth tone modules from that period, the MT-32 sells for the least amount of money on Ebay. Someone is always trying to unload one for $40-$50 US.
The only thing cheaper is the Yamaha FB-01. In my opinion, the FB-01 is a 'better' synth because you can at least get some really metallic industial sounds out of it, along with fair orchestral instruments. For a $50 Ebay synth, get a Yamaha TX-81Z. It's the same price as a Roland MT-32, but far more fun and flexable to play with.
I wish I could say this is a cheerfull story for me. I am certainly happy that the MT-32 project was able to go on its merry way. I am certainly happy that the author was able to continue using his spare time to make a positive contribution to both the culture and humanity. I am really not happy this played out in the usual way.
Consider the general case of legal intimidation.
1. The little guy undertakes a project/enterprise/undertaking that somehow threatens/annoys/provides a scapegoat for someone at a large company.
2. The large companies officers/representatives/agents meet with their legal representation and proceed to formulate an attack via the legal system.
3. If the activity isn't sufficiently profitable or the defendant doesn't have sufficient disposable personal resources, they either have to obtain pro-bono legal representation or face judgements that may economically devastate them.
4. Even if the defendant can defend themselves there is no assurance a victory ends the matter.
5. Even if a final victory is obtained by the defendant it is in only the most loose sense of the terms a victory. The only thing they have gained is the right to proceed in their business unmolested, they have lost a great deal of time, energy and usually financial resources to have things restored to status quo ante bellum.
I know its been said before, but the legal system is a cruel joke. To expect a class of people to place the pursuit of justice ahead of their personal profit is insane. Too allow anyone with a hair up their rear to bring suit indefinitely without the presumption of their being wrong and the built in provision for compensation is insane.
Roland (and their offspring, Boss) have always made excellent instruments. I have an SH-3 (not even an "a") that has been through the wringer and then some, but all it needs right now is a cleaning...it still sounds as sweet as the day I traded a copy of the Principia Discordia for it in the 1980s. I've had many a piece of Roland equipment over the years, and have always been happy about their quality and sounds...their Boss stomp pedals practally owned the market for many years...and with on exception, all of the Roland/Boss stuff I own still works, even if some of it is 20+ years old.
Roland giving up on the whole copyright issue, saying that can't find their proof of copyright may just be them saving face. They have have decided that the amount of bad publicity the whole fiasco would generate would tarnish their good name, and I wouldn't blame them for deciding so. I'm willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, and say they are just being good financial citizens realizing they wouldn't profit from going after the emulator people, and it may just have been an over-zelous lawyer's department that got overruled by the higher-ups.
That being said, I guess I have faith in Roland, they have always dealt fairly with me the few times I've had to deal with them, and I only hope that is happening now with this MT-32 emulator business. Think about the musical instruments that have been emulated, the Prophet 5, the Minimoog, etc. and think of the prestige that has given these companies that made the copied instruments...the only difference is that Roland is till around (although Mr. Moog has reconstituted his company, Big Briar rocks!)...having a emulator come out of an old instrument from a company give them a prestige like few things can!
CAN-CON 2019 - Ottawa's only book oriented Science Fiction Convention! October 18-20, Sheraton Hotel, Ottawa, Canada h
This was back in the day when copyright was NOT an inherant thing. You had to actually file for it. IF you failed to do so, you had no copyright. The law was later changed so that copyright was inherant, at the moment of creation. All you had to do was make something and you had the copyright.
Since the MT-32 was made before that date and since Roland didn't file, they have no copyright.
The MT-32 was the synth of choice all the older Sierra games (and others) supported. When you ran their setup program, it was quite common to get choices such as EGA or VGA display, followed by the sound selections of "Internal Speaker", "None", "Adlib", "Soundblaster" or "MT-32".
Eventually, they started offering "General MIDI" as a selection - which was ultimately more useful and better sounding on the right hardware.... but before that, MT-32 was the one to have.
As strictly a music synth though, no, the MT-32 wasn't a unit you'd use for its stellar signature sounds or anything....
How come something that emulates the MT-32 1987 sound module that most people haven't heard of gets into trouble, yet programs like Propellerheads's Rebirth, which emulates three much-sought after pices of Roland gear, seems to have no trouble? Did they pay royalties or something? What about Native Instruments cloning Yamaha's DX-7 synthesiser and Sequential Circuits's Prophet 5?
(Before any of you chime in saying that losing documentation is stupid, how many of you who work in IT would be hard pressed to provide licenses to all of the software you use if the BSA knocked on your door today, hm?)
I wouldn't be hard pressed, I'd just reach for the gun rack. BSA is terrorism, no more no less. They walk in without even calling, 'demand the proof' in a very Agent Smith manner, calm yet obnoxious. And if you say "Sorry I already gave" they come back with rent-a-cops. Because they get paid for carrying out corporate extortion on behalf of the big companies that contract them. They are very finicky on what they consider 'proof', a printed store receipt or signed P.O. doesn't cut it for them, even though it is standard fare everywhere else, especially in court!
So the next time you get visited by the BSA, invite them in, take them to that dark cold 'license filing room' down the maintenance hall in the basement. I'll leave the rest to your imagination.
Anyways back to the MT-32 issue: MT-32 is obsolete crap and Roland realized it isn't worth wasting money to find these decade-old copyright tracts because MT-32 doesn't produce income anymore, and never will. This is different from say, Atari/Hasbro suing left and right to protect Frogger and Missile Command, because they wanted to make room for the own half-assed remakes. Roland will never re-make the MT-32 because they have long since moved on to bigger and better things. Yeah, sometimes people get all retro and get all kinky over that lo-fi sound (like the Da-Da-Da Volkswagen commercials), but for the most part artists want freshly squeezed aurally perfect synth sounds to fuel new spurts of creativity. In the music industry, everything is a passing fad.
MT-32 was great for games in its day because the SB Pro/16/Adlib's FM synthesis was too simple and inflexible for traditional music reproduction. Oh it was great for electronic soundtracks in video games, but try to play a drum in FM, and you'll want to shoot your ears out. Under A Killing Moon actually had an option for "Digital Drums", which played FM music but with sampled drums instead of their sucky blip-blop-hiss FM homologues.
Today we have software wavetables that can suck up as much ram as you can fit on the motherboard, we're talking 64mb collections of sampled instuments that effortlessly blows away whatever synthesis tools the 80's and 90's ever spawned. MT-32 is commercially dead and buried.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
They'd just capatalise on this sort of thing. They should make a peice of software for vintage gamers. Make it a MIDI software synthesizer that emulates classic Roland hardware. I'd give it an MT-32 mode, a CM-64 mode and an SC-55 mode. That covers basically all old MIDI games. Thing is, it'd take very little development on their part. The only thing they'd really have to write is the MT-32 engine. They already have a number of software synthesizers, who's engines would work quite well.
The problem is that Roland seems to think that the hardware market is where it's at and deliberatly cripples their software. They don't seem to realise the future is software synthesis. I say this as the owner of two hardware synthesizers, one Roland.
They have a program caled Virtual Sound Canvas that is supposed to be an emulation of a number of their SoundCanvas products like the SC-55 and SC-88. Ya, except it sounds nowhere NEAR as good as the real hardware it's supposed to emulate. This is NOT a limitation of software, as there are software synths that sound as good or better than anything done in hardware. Same goes for their newer programs and synths. Their GM2 Hypercanvas software sounds like a software version of their new GM2 synths.... Except it has less than a third of the instruments, and the ones it does have are of inferior quality. Silly, given that it's only about $50 cheaper than their SD-20.
Siller still that the main reason for the inferior sound and lack of instruments is the small sample set. Well one of the main advantages of software synths is their ability to handle huge samples. It's not uncommon to have a PC with over a gig of RAM, and with streaming from disk (which good softsynths do) you can play sample banks larger than the system RAM. It's not uncommon to see single instruments for soft synths that are over 100MB. The Hypercanvas software, on the other hand, has only 26MB for all its samples.
Well since it's clear from what we know about software synthesizers that you can have large sample banks, and it's clear form other software synthesizers that Roland makes that don't directly compete with their hardware that they know how to make high quality ones, why not have high quality implementations of their hardware? Only reason seems to be because they are afraid of hurting hardware sales.
It's a pity, really, because I think there would be a large enthusiast market for a GOOD software emulation of their old hardware like the SC-55 and MT-32. I know I'd like it. GM devices don't play old MT-32 games right and even my SD-20 doesn't sound quite right for old GM games. I'd like to have the sound of an MT-32 and an SC-55 but it's both expensive and inconvienent to buy the real sound modules. I'd certianly buy a softsynth if one existed though (and do use this free MT-32 emulator).
Last year I received notice of a Rebirth clone for Linux called Reborn. The programmer sent me a copy (no source, but he was planning to release it), I tested it, it was great sounding and great fun. Within days he received a C&D from Propellerheads claiming copyright infringement of their interface. I thought that was pretty outrageous, since P-heads software had copied the Roland interface. However, the programmer informed me that in fact P-heads *did* pay Roland for the right to use their interface designs on Rebirth. He also pointed out that the people at P-heads were quite civil about the whole thing and even offered him a job. All well & good, except that Linux still doesn't have a Rebirth clone. P-heads apparently have no inclination to release a Linux version of Rebirth. Bummer... Oh, btw: If someone were to create a software emulation of Roland's MKS-70 I'd really be impressed, it's still one of Roland's finest synths.