Game:

Duke Nukem 3D (1996)

Duration: 7:01

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26

This is the Duke Nukem 3D Grabbag theme MIDI by Lee Jackson, played through a few different General MIDI-compatible VSTs, using VST Host and loopMIDI.

I had previously made a video showing some GM VSTs used with DOOM, and this time it's Duke 3D Grabbag. Here, I am using Windows Media Player to play the game's original MIDI file, although the music can still be played with the VST ingame too.

These are the VST plugins compared in this video:
0:00 - Sonic Reality OmniSynth 2 - A GM bank for SampleTank.
1:28 - M-Audio GM Module - This is a software GM sound module.
2:56 - LUXONIX Purity - Blech. The electric guitars here sound like a bunch of car horns going "brreep BRRAAAPP!!"
4:16 - EDIROL/Roland Hyper Canvas - This is actually the same as the Cakewalk TTS-1; the only difference is the name and graphics.
5:43 - Native Instruments Bandstand - Takes a while to load patches.

Well, despite newer high quality VST General MIDI sets like the ones I demonstrated in this video, I think original GM modules like Roland SC-55 and Yamaha (both of which can be emulated with VST versions) still sound the best for classic game music. Newer commercial GM banks often sound "off" for music like this, especially Purity's traffic-jam-with-car-horns-beeping version of Grabbag.

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