Monkey Island 2 intro MIDI music comparison

Yamaha OPL-3: 00:03
Roland MT-32: 04:10
Roland SC-88: 08:15
Yamaha MU90: 12:20
Korg X5DR: 16:28
Roland SC-7: 20:30

A comparison between the sound qualities of the Yamaha OPL-3 FM synthesizer, the Roland MT-32, the Roland SC-88, the Yamaha MU90, the Korg X5DR, and the Roland SC-7. Scummvm was used for the gameplay video and music playback.

The OPL-3 was an inexpensive (and crude sounding) frequency modulation audio synthesizer included on late eighties and early nineties sound cards, like the Ad-Lib, the Sound Blaster 8 and 16, and the many clones. The rendition in this video is DosBox' emulation of the device, not an actual OPL-3.

The Roland MT-32 made its entry on the computer music scene in the late eighties and was marketed heavily by Sierra Online, developer of the famous Quest-series of adventure games. The MT-32 pre-dates the General MIDI standard, and has a different sound set that doesn't conform to the standard. Thus, game developers had to make special considerations if they were to support both the MT-32 and General MIDI units for their games' soundtracks.

The Roland SC-88 was the top-level item in the Roland Sound Canvas line of MIDI modules. The SC-88 uses Roland's specialized "GS" format when applicable.

The Yamaha MU90 was Yamaha's prosumer competition to the Roland Sound Canvas-line. The MU90 uses Yamaha's proprietary "XG" superset of the General MIDI format, when applicable.

Korg X5DR is a lesser-known unit and fairly rare, but holds up pretty well against the competition.

Roland SC-7 was an entry level General MIDI module by Roland. The current Windows Wavetable default MIDI playback device in Windows uses sounds from the SC-7 sound bank, although at lower quality and in mono. The SC-7 is a bare-bones unit that only contains the base sound set of General MIDI.

Видео Monkey Island 2 intro MIDI music comparison канала Espen Moe