This is a long shot, but I figure I'll have more luck finding someone on GOG who has tackled this issue before, rather than anywhere else.

So basically the short of the problem is that I'm trying to emulate the Roland MT-32 for MIDI playback in DOSBox, specifically using D-Fend Reloaded, but no matter what I try it simply doesn't work. Something like ScummVM has its own inbuilt MT-32 emulator so with access to the correct ROMS it works like a treat, which is great for Adventure games but not useful for anything else.

I have MUNT installed which allows you to select MT-32 emulation in D-Fend when configuring a game's audio settings, but as I mentioned it doesn't work. Just the standard MIDI playback continues. I've tried various different settings in the MIDI options in D-Fend to no avail.

I've heard that on previous versions of Windows you could use MIDI mapper to alter the default settings for MIDI playback in the OS but this was unfortunately removed in Windows 8.

So, is there anyone on GOG who can offer suggestions, or possible reading online to help me tackle this issue?

EDIT: Sorry I see you are aware of the problem with changing MIDI device in Windows.

I thinh this
http://coolsoft.altervista.org/en/virtualmidisynth#mainfeatures

should also help you as it contains midi mapper

D-Fend allows you to pick which MIDI driver it passes the data to.

You are correct that the games need to be configured, though.

I'd be more interested to hear whether he remembered to get the relevant MT-32 ROMs for use with MUNT. You can try using BASSMIDI.

The driver application, here, allows you to select the MIDI driver Windows uses.

Make sure you select the MT-32 support from the game's audio settings. General MIDI won't cut it, Soundblaster emulation will just use DOSBox's own OPL emulation.

Also, keep the MUNT window open. It doesn't HAVE to be open, but it does show if DOSBox is recognising the emulated MT-32 interface, which can be helpful.

Thanks for the responses guys.

I've tried both BASSMIDI and Virtual Synth before and neither helped with the issue. It makes me wonder if the default device has anything to do with the problem.

@staticblast: I do have the ROMS. As I mentioned in my OP I've used the MT-32 emulation built into ScummVM.

I was fiddling around in TIE Fighter's sound settings and was able to select MT-32 as a sound option which works correctly. Obviously there's no problem then with my MUNT setup.

The problem comes from something else like Space Quest I VGA which doesn't have in game sound configuration like TIE Fighter does. It seems D-Fend is ignoring the MT-32 settings for some reason. It's all very confusing.

EDIT: Didn't notice jamyskis post while I was writing this one. Yeah, as I said I tried fiddling with TIE Fighter's sound settings and got it to work, but with something like Space Quest which doesn't have in game sound settings I'm unsure how to change it. I've had MUNT open while running DOSBox and it shows the little popup, but still not correct audio output.

Are you certain about this? Have you looked inside game directory for some setup, install exe files? Or some cfg txt file? GOG has started adding shortcuts for sound setup not long ago after we complained OPL is their default sound driver. So it's possible there is sound setup prg - just no shortcut for it. Once I get home I can check it.

The copy of Space Quest I have comes from Steam since GOG doesn't offer the VGA version of the first one. As far as I can see, there are no internal settings to speak of. Everything I've found indicates it should use the MT-32 emulator.

I did have a fix for the Sierra games. I'll check what I did and get back to you later on that one.

Ah: DNF has it above here ^_^.

Great! That works like a charm for Space Quest, thanks a lot. I don't know how I'll go for other DOS games I want to run with MT-32 audio in the future, but for now I've got a solution.

EDIT: Cool, and thanks to you jamyskis

This is a known issue with Sierra's Quest games. If you need assistance with other games in the future, please remember to add the names of the games to the post. They might also have game-specific issues like this.

Apparently the Steam version has removed the utility to change Space Quest VGA sound card. In the original Space Quest VGA, there was an "INSTALL.EXE" which lets you chance game settings, including the sound output. For Roland MT-32 users, there were two relevant options for sound:

"Roland MT-32, MT-100, LAPC-1, CM-32L or CM-64"

or

"Roland MT-32 with CMS Soundblaster"

The first one plays both music and sound effects with Roland MT-32, while the second one plays music (and some sound effects) with Roland MT-32, but certain sound effects with Soundblaster, using digital samples.

So you should select the second one for the best of both worlds (superior music with digital sound effects). Hence, in RESOURCE.CFG you should have this line:

soundDrv = MTBLAST.DRV

If you put MT32.DRV as suggested earlier, then you will get no digital sound effects, I think. Everything will be played using Roland MT-32, including all the sound effects.

In all the DOS games I've seen, selecting the sound card (for music) happens in one of these ways, the first one being the most common:

1. In DOS(box), run the game configuration utility that lets you change various settings for your games, including the sound cards (sometimes they let you separately select one sound card for music (e.g. MT-32 or General MIDI), and another for sound effects (e.g. Soundblaster 16). The utility you should run could be named e.g.:

INSTALL.COM
INSTALL.EXE
SETUP.EXE
SETSOUND.EXE

or something else. Unfortunately it seems sometimes these have been dropped from GOG or Steam versions of the game, albeit I think at least GOG has later started adding them back to their DOS games, due to public outcry. Sometimes they even add a Windows shortcut in the Start Menu for running the sound setup utility, which is very nice.

2. When you run the game itself, in the beginning of the game it lets you select the sound card. E.g. Double Dragon 3, Laser Squad etc.

3. In some games, when you run the game, it tries to autodetect the sound card automatically. For instance if it detects the presence of a MPU-401 interface, then it assumes it means the system has a Roland MT-32 or LAPC-1 (which may be a wrong assumption, as later General MIDI cards have MPU-401 as well, but you don't want to play MT-32 music with them).

In these cases you can usually override that selection with some option. I think the original Monkey Island 2 was like this. If you have a MPU-401 interface present, then the game will automatically select Roland MT-32 music. To override the automatic selection, I think the options were:

MONKEY2.EXE A (to use Adlib or Soundblaster)
MONKEY2.EXE R (to use Roland MT-32, LAPC-1 or something similar)

4. In a few games, it might have been possible to change to sound card even inside the game, while playing it. I think e.g. Ringword: Revenge of the Patriarch was like this. You actually had to go in to the game options to change the sound card. I suggest MTBLAST.DRV because then you will get MT-32 music with digital Soundblaster sound effects.

That "sounds" indeed as a better solution ;-)

Wow, great post timppu! Thanks very much for taking the time to write it out. Definitely going to save it.