So is there music in ultima 6? I played it back in the amiga days so music is an essential part of it to me.

Apparently there isn't music in ultima 4, without a patch, due to it being the dos version. Looking up ultima 6 patches, the results generally say that not much is needed in the way of patches.

Apologies if this has been answered, I've been clicking the search button but nothing was happening.

Ultima 6 is the first DOS Ultima to have music, so yes, there is, indeed, music in Ultima 6 DOS.

Here's a decent link to the Ultima 6 soundtrack (on Youtube):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EKUrUdL2h1M

Thanks for the info everybody.
I've been reading about the different ports, and the information seems to say that the pc version had vastly superior music. Back in the day I played on the Amiga, and in those days I thought the Amiga had, well, indescribably better music capabilities than the pc, so this information is a bit of a surprise to me... but maybe it was nostalgia goggles or something. I didn't own a pc in the early 90's to run a comparison so maybe it was brand loyalty?
Is the wiki wrong in poo-pooing the Amiga soundtrack? Anyone know for sure?

http://ultima.wikia.com/wiki/Computer_Ports_of_Ultima_VI



But here's the Amiga soundtrack:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=132lDhM8qQs

The pc version sounds like a midi, while the Amiga version often sounds almost like real instruments, doesn't it?

A few things:

PC hardware improved over time, while Amiga hardware basically stagnated. In fact, these days PC hardware is so powerful that it can *emulate* the Amiga. Basically, Amiga hardware changed slower than PC hardware did (and, in particular, it stopped improving after a certain point), hence PC hardware was able to catch up.

On some platforms (PC being one of them), the actual sound card used (and in particular, its MIDI capabilities) can affect how the music sounds. If you have a good period* sound card, the music on PC will sound a lot better than it does in DOSBOX with default settings.

* By period, I am referring to sound cards that were common around the time the game came out.

So... default settings. Does that mean there's a way to adjust the music quality in the gog version of ultima 6?

You can try configuring it to use General MIDI and setting a software synth (I use fluidsynth on linux, there should be similar options on Windows and Mac). Most Ultima games also support Roland MT32 which can be emulated in a custom build of DosBox, but unlike General MIDI with many free banks available, the ROMs for MT32 are not free afaik.

So it sounds like this dos version uses an inferior midi out of the box, to the windows or amiga version.
Do we know why gog only released the dos version?

There is no windows version, and the amiga port was inferior due to hardware limitations.

If you want the best version of Ultima 6, you should look at the FM towns version, which is fully voiced in *both* English and Japanese (and the game does have an option for English or Japanese text as well).

Amiga music sounds to me like some kind of FM synthesis. MIDI will typically sound much better with proper hardware. Here is an example of MT-32 sound: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBO7kOEZ-CI

I never owned an Amiga, but I remember reading that was where a lot of the MOD / tracker / demoscene music started. Those are kind of similar to midi, except you could provide your own custom digital samples to use in the arrangement. A lot of electronica music was born out of that era because it sounded fantastic, especially combined with the creativity of some of those musicians.

Not sure if Ultima 6 fits into this category but the video previously linked does sound a bit like that style of music.

A few games with awesome MOD soundtracks include:
* One Must Fall 2097
* Crusader: No Remorse and sequel Crusader: No Regret
* Unreal
* Unreal Tournament
* Deus Ex

It is, however, voiced by Richard Garriott and pals, and we all know how that turned out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-d10n_zQR0

Yeah, fantastic music, but note that MOD music can be played on an IBM PC, too. At least that's what Crusader does.

I guess I'm struggling to express myself somehow. I'll try to sum up.

I've heard that the pc version had superior music to the amiga.
But I've listened to pieces of the linked pc soundtrack above, and the linked amiga track, and to my ears the amiga is much superior to the midi-sounding pc.

I'm not sure what's going on and I'm trying to work that out.

Maybe it's just taste? I grew up with amiga and loved the amiga U6 music.
Maybe the gog/dos version has inferior music to the superior windows version?