MT-32 setup guide

The Roland MT-32 is a computer music synthesizer that was widely supported by PC games from 1988 until around 1992 when General MIDI replaced it. Unlike General MIDI, the MT-32 was always a high end luxury, even by PC gaming standards, and the vast majority of PC games which supported it also supported and defaulted to the much cheaper and more popular AdLib and Sound Blaster audio cards. To this day, DOS games continue to be distributed with the default Adlib settings, and most players experience these games this way.

Here is a comparison:
MT-32
Adlib

MT-32 MIDI and General MIDI are completely different standards, but use a similar format. Because of this, and because modern Windows PCs support General MIDI, configuring a game to use MT-32 will cause Windows to try to play the MT-32 music as if it were General MIDI, which will sound completely terrible. It's possible to use a genuine MT-32 on a modern PC by using a USB adapter, but this guide will focus on emulation through Munt.

The MT-32 went through many iterations and variants. This guide will discuss two of them; the very original model (sometimes called the rev0), and the CM-32L. There are plenty of others, but these two will cover all of your bases with regards to playing old games on a new computer. The difference between the two as far as this guide is concerned is that the CM-32L has some additional sound effects built into it and fixes a number of firmware bugs. There are also a very small number of games that simply don't work on a rev0. However, many games, especially those by Sierra and Dynamix, actually exploit the rev0's firmware bugs to produce sound beyond its intended ability, and they will not sound right on a CM-32L, or on anything but a rev0. Therefore, the MT-32 rev0 should be the default model to emulate, and the CM-32L to be used only for games which use its sound effects, and also for games known to be incompatible with the rev0.

Get Munt

Download and install Munt. This is an MT-32 family emulator, and will register on your system as a MIDI device. You will need to acquire ROMs, which are in a state of legal limbo. There are four ROM files relevant to you:

CM32L_CONTROL.ROM
CM32L_PCM.ROM
MT32_CONTROL.ROM
MT32_PCM.ROM

The "CONTROL" roms sometimes come in multiple revisions and may have a longer filename to reflect this. For instance, "MT32_CONTROL.1987-10-07.v1.07.ROM." For the MT32_CONTROL.ROM file, you will want the oldest revision possible. Anything with "1987" or "1.07" in the name is fine. SHA1 hash is b083518fffb7f66b03c23b7eb4f868e62dc5a987 if you're savvy.

Put these files somewhere. The directory where you installed Munt to is fine.

Configure Munt

Launch Munt and go to Options->ROM Configuration

Click on the ellipse button next to the ROM directory and navigate to wherever you put the ROM files, and select that folder. Munt should then look like this:

By default it should be selecting the MT-32 Control and MT-32 PCM. If it doesn't, then select them yourself. If you are going to play a game that uses the CM-32L, this is where you would go to change it and back.

Click OK, and leave Munt running in the background.

Find your Munt MIDI device number

Run DOSBox if you have it installed. Or if you have any GOG DOS games on your system, find the DOSBox folder and run it there.

Type this command:

mixer /listmidi

One of the lines in the output should say "MT-32 Synth Emulator" with a number on the left. Take note of that number.

Configuring games

Lastly, the games themselves sometimes must be configured to use MT-32 MIDI. Usually they are configured out of the box to use inferior sounding Adlib or Sound Blaster. For DOSBox games, there are two aspects here - the DOSBox configuration file needs to be configured to use your Munt MIDI device, and the game's setup program must be run and configured to use MT-32 mode for music. ScummVM also supports Munt, and simplifies the process, but not all games are supported by ScummVM.

Configuring DOSBox

If you have a standalone copy of DOSBox, you may find its configuration file here: %LOCALAPPDATA%\DOSBox

Edit the file "dosbox-0.74.conf." Look for this line:

midiconfig=

This line may also say "midiconfig=0". Change it to:

midiconfig=X

where "X" is the Munt MIDI device number that you found a few steps above.

Save it. Now your DOSBox copy will use Munt when playing MIDI. Some things to keep in mind, though. This only affects games that you have setup in DOSBox yourself. Any games purchased through GOG will come with their own configuration files, and you will either need to alter those yourself, or you will need to run those games with your own copy of DOSBox instead of GOG's. Also, any games running in DOSBox configured for General MIDI are going to play through Munt, and will sound very bad if they even work at all. Before playing General MIDI games you'll need to undo this change you just made.

Configuring DOSBox games

The method depends on the game, but DOS games typically have an installer program that allows sound configuration. GOG/Steam are sometimes nice enough to provide access to these setups, but sometimes not. There's no hard and fast rule about how DOS games are configured, so brush up on your DOSBox skills. Sometimes the setup programs are not included with the GOG/Steam versions, making it necessary to "borrow" files from an abandonware copy. GOG is usually better about this than Steam. In addition, the DOSBox configuration file for each game must be configured to use Munt for MIDI playback, or else it will just have Windows default MIDI playback which will sound awful.

I will provide a number of examples, and if you understand what these examples are doing and why, the same principles can be applied to other DOS games. In general, DOS games come with a setup utility that will let you configure sound and music devices, which are different things as far as these games are concerned, although quite a few games of this era only support music and not sound. Sound Blaster and Adlib were the most popular music products of the day, but these were was synth-based rather than MIDI-based, and when a game was composed with MT-32 in mind, the Sound Blaster / AdLib music was usually just an inferior conversion of the MT-32 music. Some games support MT-32 and Sound Blaster at the same time; they will use MT-32 for the music and Sound Blaster for sound effects when configured this way.

Example 1: Ultima VII on GOG

Download the non-Galaxy version. Don't launch, but go to the directory where you installed it.

-or-

Download through Galaxy. Don't play, but click More->Manage Installation->Show folder.

There should be a shortcut "Launch Settings." Run it, get this screen:

Press any key, get this screen:

Pick the "Roland MT-32 or LAPC-1" option.

Digital speech device should be Sound Blaster Pro. Pick default options for the rest of the settings.

Finally, this screen:

Press Y to confirm, press any key to re-confirm, and setup concludes.

Now, in the same directory as the "Launch Settings" shortcut, will be a file "dosboxULTIMA7.conf." Edit it. Look for this line:

midiconfig=

Change it to:

midiconfig=X

where "X" is the Munt MIDI device number that you found a few steps above.

Now launch the game, and it should be using Munt to play back music and some sound effects! You can also confirm it's working by pressing Alt+Enter to switch to windowed mode, and switching to the open Munt window (you left it running, right?), and it should look something like this, with the virtual LED screen blinking like mad whenever music plays.

Example 2: Star Wars: X-Wing on GOG

Sometimes the setup program is included, but GOG does not make it easy to access, and we'll have to do a bit of manual overriding.

We want the 1993 version of X-Wing. Not the 1994 Collector's CD version, which doesn't have the full MT-32 track set, and certainly not the 1998 version, which doesn't use MIDI at all.

Download the non-Galaxy version. Don't launch, but go to the directory where you installed it.

-or-

Download through Galaxy. Don't play, but click More->Manage Installation->Show folder.

Take a look at the files inside. The setup program is INSTALL.EXE. It's a DOS program, you can't run it directly, but you can reconfigure DOSBox to launch it.

There is also a file called "dosbox_xwing_single.conf." This file tells DOSBox what DOS commands to run initially. We're going to temporarily change it so that it runs the setup program instead of the game. Back it up, and edit it using your favorite text editing software. It will look like this:

[ipx]
ipx=false

[autoexec]
@echo off
mount c ".."
c:
cls
bwing.exe
exit

Change "bwing.exe" to "install.exe." Save. Now launch X-Wing. Instead of the game, you'll get the setup screen. Choose the Set Sound Board Configuration

Select Roland with SoundBlaster.

While you're here, change the machine speed to "FAST." Nothing to do with MT-32 support, just an optimal setting for the game.

Select Exit. You'll be asked if you want to review the Readme file, press N to decline. DOSBox will close and your setting is saved.

Now re-edit "dosbox_xwing_single.conf" and change "install.exe" back to "bwing.exe." Save.

Finally, find the file "dosbox_xwing.conf." Edit it. Look for this line:

midiconfig=

Change it to:

midiconfig=X

where "X" is the Munt MIDI device number that you found a few steps above. Save.

Launch the game, and you should get the full MT-32 soundtrack through Munt.

Configuring ScummVM games

ScummVM can enhance many games, but MT-32 MIDI support sometimes has to be enabled on a per-game basis. Some games on GOG come with ScummVM already configured, but some others come with DOSBox even though they support ScummVM. Even when an MT-32 game is supported in ScummVM, you will need to enable MT-32 support through some configuration, but it's easier than configuring DOSBox.

Example 1: Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis on GOG

GOG's copy of Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis is preconfigured with ScummVM.

Download the non-Galaxy version. Don't launch, but go to the directory where you installed it.

-or-

Download through Galaxy. Don't play, but click More->Manage Installation->Show folder.

Open the "scummvm" folder.

Copy your two MT-32 ROM files (but not the CM-32L files!) here. If you were playing a game that supported CM-32L effects, you would want to copy the two CM-32L files instead.

Launch the game, press CTRL+F5 to open the ScummVM main menu. Click "Return to Launcher."