Whoa, more questions on answers. I like that :nuts:
B) Renaming XMI to MID won't do anything, since MID files are a different format than XMI (MID is General Midi). What you could do is, after you install Virtual Sound Canvas, you can select it (in Windows XP) in
Sound and Audio Devices in Control Panel, under
Audio tab, as the default device for
MIDI music playback at the bottom (there should be something like VSC bla bla).
Then you go in WinAmp to the
in_midi.dll again and under the
Device tab also select VSC. Then you should be able to play the XMI files with WinAmp, but with the better quality than before.
C) You just click on Downloads, using my link to it above, and click on Mt32Drv.zip to download it. Keep in mind that you still need the original PCM ROM's of MT-32 which aren't provided with the download because of copyright issues.
D) First, I looked through music.lbx with Volkov Commander's hex-editor and when I found a XMI pattern (
IRINFO) I knew that XMI files are in this one. Old Dos games usually packed all the music in one file to keep it simple and organized, except when the music files were located simply in the game's folder as separate files, so I knew I don't need to bother with other files.
E) I suppose that in case of Master of Orion, the instrument patches are packed in similar way like the XMI's in some file, and I don't think you want to waste so much effort to search for them, especially if you don't know what to search for. Similarly it goes for other games.
But you don't really need these patches anyway, since playing the XMI files under VSC or one of the aforementioned modules would play them pretty much in 96-98% of the originally meant quality for those modules anyway.
You get 100% of the music quality anyway only if you hook up one of those modules to a soundcard with MIDI port under older Pentium-100 or similar, select that module in the game's install program as the music device (if it supports it), and listen the music ingame. DosBox is only emulating Soundblaster so it doesn't sound as true in it as under the real Soundlbaster (preferably Soundblaster 16 due to quality), same for the higher-quality MIDI modules.
About the further note, you're right. If you want creme de la creme of music from older Dos games, you gotta have one of those modules and an older computer as mentioned above, but recording it from ingame would be much more effort than you might want to invest your time into.
If you would like to compare the music from, let's say, Legend of Kyrandia, download it's music in MIDI format from
here (good recorded, normal Soundblaster quality, pretty close to original ingame Soundblaster music), or even better, play the game through (you can download it here) with music set to Soundblaster and listen to it's music, even DosBox will do. After you listened through it, and I suggest
only after you listened to it, download
these two archives with Legend of Kyrandia music, recorded in MP3's using the attached MT-32 and / or Sound Canvas (Sound Canvas ones are mixed together using Roland Sound Canvas SC-55 MKII and Roland MT-32 since the game originally didn't support SC yet), and compare the quality. If you listen closely, you'll notice that some of the Sound Canvas versions sound even slightly better than the according ones of just MT-32, while not being any less than the MT-32 original.
Not all Dos games have such big differences in MIDI device output (Westwood did quite some quality work on Legend of Kyrandia and Kyrandia II - Hand of Fate), but in
all of them you will notice an improvement in music quality if using Roland MT-32 or especially Roland Sound Canvas SC-55/SC MKII modules (where a game supports Sound Canvas, it's better than MT-32). I know since I own a Roland MT-32 myself, just not at the moment where I am right now.