Buzz Aldrin's Race into Space (BARIS) MT-32 MIDI

Channel:

Gernot Schrader

Subscribers:

359

Published on February 6, 2020 10:22:33 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BDnWKyCQWvQ

Game:

Buzz Aldrin's Race Into Space (1993)

Duration: 46:38

1,283 views

26

Not much to tell about, the dedicated MT-32 MIDI of BARIS played back using "PX" which is based on "X(MI)P(lay)" and uses AIL2 Miles Sound Drivers. "PX" and the miles sound driver allow you to playback the midi files of games in the period between 1992 and 95 as they was meant to be played. For a playback on the (quite shitty) MS MIDI mapper using the MSWS font it won't make no difference, but of course for a playback on "Munt" (or a real MT-32). Also for a proper playback of AdLib or FM chip sound. Even the SC32MPU will sound different even if you use the same soundfont to reproduce the music. Also "PX" uses and needs the GTL libraries which are sometimes needed to reprogram a device or to store certain instrument patches for a game.
In this way you can playback the files exactly as they sound in the game.
On one side there is "DOSBox ECE" which has the "Munt" project implemented on the other side it's "PX" and the miles sound drivers.
This result isn't to reach with the standalone "Munt" and any other player because they disregard the GTL or use a uniform one. While especially BARIS (but not only) uses very own GTL for MT32 and AdLib (or OPL2, OPL3 chips) and without them they won't sound right except the GM/GS (GS because they sends a GS reverb and echo sysex, they just don't send the GS reset to the device). All this will be discarded by a windows midi player (i.e. WinAmp or Media Player or whatsoever, sure WinAmp supports the sysex commands but i didn't respects GTL files thus the BARIS MT midi will sound cwrong played back using i.e. WinAmp even on "Munt" because the GTL is disrespected but contains vital settings for BARIS' midi. The same for the FM versions, also them use a very own GTL to reproduce the music of BARIS proper on a FM chip)



Overall one could claim this is the only proper way to playback a games midi from this period. Use "PX", the miles sound drivers and the dedicated GTL libraries you will find in the game, sometimes they are standard stuff which was shipped with the miles sound drivers - sometimes they are very exclusive for a single game.
Like i said for GM/GS it won't matter as much as for the MT or FM midi versions (GM/GS won't read a GTL even if i noticed in the SC32MPU driver the same *.MT as in MT32MPU it never needs one as far as i know).
Further GUS respectively GUS' Ultramid is supported and even this offers a unique sound not to replace by a GUS MegaEm playback or the GUS midi player itself, the "rotten" Midi player and MegaEm use only 8bit samples always and they can't be setup for a specific instrumentation of a game. Never will Playmidi sound as rich as Ultramid using the miles sound driver.
"DOSmid" you can use together with Ultramid but it won't sound as good as "PX".


For BARIS i mostly used "PX" to playback the games midi because most other players will fail to interpret them proper also i can keep the looping of the titles as in the game while most other players will disregard the XMI loop command (mostly because you have to convert them to a MIDI type 0 or 1, except for WinAmp most can't play XMI files and also winamp disregards the loop) which means in the end you would get sometimes 8seconds short snippets as "music".
For this "Playlist" (or batch proggie) i used "STUFFIT" to send pressing of the "Escape" key to "PX" after roundabout a minute or whatever suits to the duration of the midi if it is looped (the duration was determined by further use to replace the thin sound in "race into space", a win32 derivate of BARIS, sloppy made imho and honestly i can see no advantage over the original DOS game. DOSBox offers better results not to speak about music in 11kHz mono - i get nausea from that).
Since BARIS contains a special PC speaker version i recorded even this this will suit exactly to 11kHz mono, but not a well made midi).
However even downsampled to 11kHz and in mono, what "PX" and a nice soundfont or "Munt" exports beats the thin MSWS standard conversions by "race into space" easy. Yep even the Tandy sound sounds better as what is shipped with the game (dammit!).
What i don't understand fully is to limit it to 11kHz and mono (i know now why, it is rooted in the loop length based on samples in power of two, which never fits to the duration of any midi of BARIS)



If you look for a good image of the BARIS CD-ROM, you will find it in the "race into space" project on sourceforge. BARIS is abandonware since 2004 i guess. I know "race into space" was picked up and professionally completed and is sold on "GOG", however the original game is still free.


In this sense "Never feed the Troll"
Promise me:

Never download and pay for a game which was stolen by the bastards!
Get the original DOS version and show them the finger!


MORE EVEN!
i will offer soon a special "DOSBox" version which contains more AIL2 drivers as usual to fiddle around with the music in DOSBox.