Re: CRAP Poll: My Mouse Is...

On Mon, 03 Jun 2024 09:58:20 -0400, Spalls Hurgenson
<spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

Mostly, if I want to play MIDI I just rely on TiMIDIty
(https://timidity.sourceforge.net/) and whatever hundred-megabyte
patchset I downloaded years ago. It works well enough for most stuff
(although some XG/GM/Roland-specific stuff sounds a bit off). There's
also a Roland MT-32 emulator (although you'd need the ROMs for those)
if you want to play old-school Roland stuff. It isn't very good -being
forty-year tech- but if you want to experience what games sounded like
in the 80s and 90s, it's a cool tool.

The MT-32 was aimed at the "I might be an enthusiast one day" market
rather than being any sort of representation of sonic capabilities of
that era.

Actually a lot of Roland's studio grade stuff from the 80s and 90s is
still highly sought after (if you want an example of this, go to
Reverb.com and search for Jupiter 8...  Got $25,000 to burn?  You
could be the proud owner of one :)

That's actually an extreme example, but Rolands newer gear is mostly
not as well regarded as their older stuff.  Not because of quality or
that it necessarily sounds bad, it's just that they're almost entirely
committed to "virtual analog", so much of their newer hardware is
basically software in a box rather than discrete analog components.
Roland gets quite a bit of hate from the synth community for not
following along the lines of companies like Sequential or Oberheim in
joining the resurgence of analog popularity, releasing reissues of
older instruments, etc.

But hey, analog isn't everything.  Remember the Roland D-50?  Purely
digital (and available on the used market at reasonable prices), yet
still considered an iconic instrument.  And then there is Roland Cloud
which has software emulations of many of their older instruments (many
of which are surprisingly good).

The main point I wanted to make though is that in many cases the older
stuff just sounds better than most of the newer stuff.  Good and bad
gear existed back in the day, and good and bad gear is still regularly
released.

Back to the MT-32.  I can understand the excitement factor around it
back then, and at the price point it was a way for non-musicians to
dip their toe into MIDI and music technology.  But it never sounded
great.  And while I haven't hear the emulation you spoke of, I am
guessing it sounds even less exciting than the original hardware did,
because it is rare that software fully emulates the entire signal path
of original hardware. 

Yes, it can give you that "90% accurate" return to nostalgia as you
hear / remember sounds that are familiar and relatable... and that can
be quite cool.  But I would liken it to the difference of playing MAME
ROMS on a PC emulator versus the full experience of same game on a
brand new original cabinet sitting in a 1980's arcade running on the
very specific combination of control / display / audio hardware it was
designed for.  The emulation is experience is better than nothing most
of the time, but not quite as good.