Frontier (Elite 2) score, "DOSBox ECE" emulated MT32
2This clip plays three times the score of Frontier.
It runs in "DOSBox ECE" (enhanced community edition) which emulates the MT32 for which the music of Frontier is written.
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First it is played back with Ultramid which can display the proper names for the MT32 instruments (while the MS Midi Mapper disregards the MT32 to GM/SC sysex instructions to patch the instruments).
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Then it's played back using "PX player" (by Bristlehog on Vogons), which uses the "Miles Sound Drivers AIL2" to play Midi.
The instruments are patched to the GUS using MegaEm which isn't bad but has a few faults (which isn't surprising, the instrument sets differ much).
Thus it plays the score on a virtual GUS even when you can't play the game with GUS midi support since MegaEm requires EMS OFF and needs a memory extender like EMM386 and Frontier requires EMS ON and will not run with the EMM386 (to sad).
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Third time it's played back with GUS own "Playmidi" program.
The probelm here was that the player won't open it's window if i use "MegaEm" and run "Playmidi" in MPU mode (pipes midi to the "real" mpu and don't uses the GUS wavetables).
Anyway i liked to have GUS interpreting the MT32 and not the "Munt" emulation (similar as the second playback). To solve this problem i wrote a own patchlist which assigns the instruments of the GUS that they sound as close as possible to the MT32 set. It isn't possible to match them 100%, but it's not bad for a labor of an afternoon. For sure this and that instrument is still wrong.
A similar patchlist can also be used to patch the AIL2 driver "GF1MIDI" using the "Ultramid TSR" to act as close as possible like a MT32.
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roland_MT-32