This is not a question, but instructions. I don't know if this was asked and covered in this subforum already, but with a quick look I didn't see it.

So, the GOG version of Lands of Lore 2 uses poorer Adlib/Soundblaster (OPL-2 FM synthesis) music for gameplay music. The game actually supports also superior General MIDI (and Roland MT-32?) music.

Unfortunately with the GOG version it seems there is no sound setup tool included. INSTALL.EXE and SETUP.EXE will return an error about a missing language file, and I also noticed the GOG version is missing LOLSETUP.EXE which actually might be the tool to change sound card settings after you have installed the game, I don't recall for sure.

Instead, you need to edit the file LOLSETUP.INI in the game installation directory (e.g. C:\GOG Games\Lands Of Lore 2\) with Notepad, and change the MIDI section to look exactly like this:

[MIDI]
DeviceName=MPU-401
DeviceDriver=56
DeviceID=0xa001
DevicePort=0x330

Save the file and rerun the game, and you should be hearing a better General MIDI gameplay music (the music during videos (intro etc.) is not affected as that is digital music, part of those videos).

By default the MIDI music is played with the mediocre Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth that comes with every Windows installation, so if you want it to sound even better, install VirtualMIDISynth on your PC and download a better General MIDI soundfont (e.g. ChoriumRevA or "Timbres of Heaven"). I am not going to teach here how exactly to do that, there are some other existing discussions for that, but it is not that hard and it is totally worth it.

If for some reason you want to try the Roland MT-32/LAPC-1 MIDI music support instead (if you have a real genuine 100% MT-32 compatible MIDI synth, or have installed the Munt MT-32 emulator on your PC), it is supposed to look like this then:

[MIDI]
DeviceName=Roland MT-32 or LAPC-1
DeviceDriver=56
DeviceID=0xa004
DevicePort=0x330

Note though, I didn't get this to work (using the Munt MT-32 emulator) so it might be the game doesn't actually support Roland MT-32 properly, even though it claims it does. I didn't see it listed in the list below either, so it might be there is no actual MT-32 support in this game after all:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_MT-32-compatible_computer_games

Thanks. Do you know if the game was composed for General MIDI or MT-32? One was usually a crappy conversion of the other.

No idea, but since the game is not listed in the MT-32 Wikipedia article, nor the MT-32 option seems to work at least for me, I assume they were first going to support both MT-32 and General MIDI, but decided to drop the MT-32 support at some point (without going through the effort of actually removing it from the sound setup).

I'm pretty sure also that General MIDI was their primary target because the sound setup seems to have separate drivers for various General MIDI cards. "MPU-401" is apparently referring to any General MIDI cards with intelligent-mode MPU-401 interface (Roland SCC-1 etc. etc. etc.), but then there are separate entries for some Ensoniq MIDI cards, Gravis Ultrasound, Soundblaster AWE-32 etc.

Not sure if later patches for the game changed/removed/added some sound options, those were what the vanilla unpatched retail version had.


EDIT: Oh, googling actually found this page:

https://www.facebook.com/notes/frank-klepacki/the-gear-i-used-to-compose-westwood-studios-games/10153478025859603/

At least the Lands of Lore 2 part says nothing about any MT-32 compatibles (e.g. JV-1080 appears to be some higher end MIDI synth, not for home use), but then I am unsure if that was used to compose the music for the videos, or the gameplay music, or both.

Hmm, I wonder if Frank would shed light to the MT-32 support in Lands of Lore 2, ie. did it ever exist? I don't have a Facebook account to ask him, though. :)

Ooh, nice. Like you said targeted for General MIDI then, cheers!

Wow, that's an awesome link. Thanks for sharing that gem.

Is the digital soundtrack in any way better than the MIDI-version?

Yeah, it's way better.