Thread with 39 posts
jump to expanded posthikari can have little a unnecessary purchase, as a treat
my unnecessary purchase arrived a few hours ago… i'm excited to pick it up!! :3
it'll kinda be my reward for releasing touchHLE v0.2.0… once i've done that later today :3
i now own a MULTITIMBRAL TONE GENERATOR from the famous ROLAND SC SERIES!!!
specifically the Roland SC-7. it's a heavily cut down version of the SC-55: (almost) no GS, no MT-32 patches, a lot less effect customisation, no sample editing. it's not even a "Sound Canvas", just "SC".
but you know what it is? very smol, and very cute. it's incredibly small and light for a 1992 piece of computer hardware. it has a little red LED that blinks at me when it receives MIDI messages. <3
it's about the same width as your average two-channel audio interface. a bit deeper though
i was scared this thing would sound just like Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth, but i gotta say, depending on the song it can sound vastly better. the SC-7 having reverb and chorus helps a lot for example, but it's not just that I think.
having a blast listening to shit like https://twitter.com/OnlyMIDIs/status/1370420689916862466 with real-time high-quality synthesis
PASSPORT.MID sounds fantastic on this thing, though to be fair I am comparing it to Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth. this song has a honky-tonk piano part with heavy chorus and heavy reverb that MSGS really lets down with its complete lack of effects
DOOM sounds good on it, of course. it doesn't sound quite as good as the SC-55: some of the samples are cut down a bit, it's noticeable on the electric guitar parts. but it's pretty good.
I now have it linked up to my PSR-350 and… Yamaha what the hell are these General MIDI mappings for XG sounds. why is the explosion sound effect mapped to a steel drum if capital tone fallback happens. what are you doing. stop
impromptu Theme Hospital stream let's go
let's enjoy the General MIDI sounds of the Roland SC-7 together!
future nobel peace prize winner Aung Sang Su Kyi approves of my hospital https://twitch.tv/hikari_no_yume
what are some other DOS games with General MIDI soundtracks?
I finally found the DOS FPS game I'd played the demo of as a kid!!! I could remember it being in 3D, with configurable sound card options, a kind of sci-fi æsthetic, some outdoor sections with brown being the predominant colour, but also prominant use of electric blue. based on those details I knew it had to be from the mid-to-late 90's. sure enough, it's Domination (1998), apparently also known Rex Blade: The Battle Begins.
playing it now, I understand why I didn't keep playing: it sucks
the reason i mention it in this thread is i figured it would have a General MIDI soundtrack, and it does. it has an SB16 OPL3 soundtrack, which sucks, and the option of General MIDI, which also sucks.
but one fascinating thing about Domination (1998) is that there's a "terminal" in the game, that you can walk up to. and it's an actual terminal! it looks like an Apple II, but it has cls
, dir
, help
, system
, ver
, and some other stuff I forget, including: rex++
, which is an honest-to-god fully-featured programming language??
let me remind you that this is a 3D shooty game. it's not even an action RPG!! what!!!!!
also DID THEY NAME THE MAIN CHARACTER (Rex Blade) AFTER REXX?????
i also made a chost™ https://cohost.org/hikari-no-yume/post/2716869-i-finally-found-an-o and a xhost™ https://twitter.com/hikari_no_yume/status/1698254427763655001 about this for those of y'all that are into that
WAIT IT'S EVEN MORE ABSURD THAT THIS IS IN THE DEMO VERSION
THIS IS NOT THE FULL GAME
uhh i should say shareware, it's "episode 1"
ok i'm gonna record a video of it because i don't wanna make you have to download and play this game just to know more
i've recorded it, encoded it and uploaded it, but it'll take half an hour or something before it's finished processing :)
video's up: https://youtu.be/cC8oECLUXzs
(it'll be in better bitrate in a couple of hours when youtube's finished ingesting my absurdly high-res upscale)
impromptu Theme Hospital stream ... THE SEQUEL!! (i'm picking up where I left off yesterday
let's enjoy the General MIDI sounds of the Roland SC-7 together!
come listen to some General MIDI grooves https://twitch.tv/hikari_no_yume
Maggie's branched out into industry 😔 https://twitch.tv/hikari_no_yume
i have written my first effect control SysEx MIDI message for my Roland SC-7!!! :3
i calculated the checksum by hand. the data was "00 00 00 00" so it was very difficult as you can see
taking my first, trembling steps into the wonderful world of music composition
https://soundcloud.com/hikari_no_yume/do-do-doot-doot-da-doot-doot
streaming me playing Theme Hospital again (with live, high-quality General MIDI synthesis from my Roland SC-7) https://twitch.tv/hikari_no_yume
aaaa i somehow resumed the previous game wrong and so i went back to the first level or something??? ;_;
impromptu DOOM (1993) stream, let's go
https://twitch.tv/hikari_no_yume
(with high-quality real-time General MIDI synthesis from my Roland SC-7)
I'm not very good at this game but it has good music and it's fun
i'm streaming me playing DOS games again! gonna play some more Theme Hospital and enjoy its General MIDI soundtrack, this time with my Yamaha QY70 doing the synthesis :3
stream over. this game is getting pretty difficult. turns out hospital layout might actually matter quite a bit
@hikari thanks for the stream!