Uploaded March 2021 | Updated September 2026, 54 minutes ago
Hello friends, today I'll present you my new "MT-32". I always wanted to have one but I really won't pay the amount of money these units were sold for right now. For a real MT-32 prices above 200€ are common and there are not many units available. So - thanks to this thread on vogons - i look a while for a Roland RA-50 realtime arranger and found one for a reasonable price. The smile won't leave my face fo a while because I am so satisfied with the unit :-) The RA-50 contains same hardware as the MT-32 and therefore sounds the same. But you need to know that the RA-50 don't have the programmable text screen - meaning that there are no messages appearing on the screen. And you need to modify the unit if you like to easily switch between RA-50 or MT-32 mode. If you don't modify it, you also can access the MT32 mode by pressing some buttons - but then the all-naotes-off command isn't supported. I don't know exactly what will be the result in games, but this isn't a big deal as softMPU does have a software-solution for this if you select RA-50 there. For me as I obtained some soldering skills already, I didn't hesitate and just opened the unit, drilled a hole and installed a switch. Then I took my soldering iron and soldered the wires as shown in the vogons thread. The tricky part was to carefully cut a printed circuit line (I feared to damage something)
To be sure everything was fine, I checked all connections with the multimeter. As the unit was open already, I also replaced the CR2032 battery for good as the old one was emty and started leaking.
Note: If you connect your midi cable from the PC, it is important that you use the arranger input and not the keyboard input.
Conclusion: Great budget-MT-32 as a nice modification project.
The game:
Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers is a point-and-click adventure released in 1993 by Sierra. The Game was created by Jane Jensen. The music was composed by her husband Robert Holmes. I like the game as well as the music very much - thats why i chose this one for the demonstration.
If you consider to buy the game, it is available at gog and steam for small money.
listen - enjoy - like - subscribe
Ernie
PC-SOUND-LEGACY
Hello friends, today I'll present you my new "MT-32". I always wanted to have one but I really won't pay the amount of money these units were sold for right now. For a real MT-32 prices above 200€ are common and there are not many units available. So - thanks to this thread on vogons - i look a while for a Roland RA-50 realtime arranger and found one for a reasonable price. The smile won't leave my face fo a while because I am so satisfied with the unit :-) The RA-50 contains same hardware as the MT-32 and therefore sounds the same. But you need to know that the RA-50 don't have the programmable text screen - meaning that there are no messages appearing on the screen. And you need to modify the unit if you like to easily switch between RA-50 or MT-32 mode. If you don't modify it, you also can access the MT32 mode by pressing some buttons - but then the all-naotes-off command isn't supported. I don't know exactly what will be the result in games, but this isn't a big deal as softMPU does have a software-solution for this if you select RA-50 there. For me as I obtained some soldering skills already, I didn't hesitate and just opened the unit, drilled a hole and installed a switch. Then I took my soldering iron and soldered the wires as shown in the vogons thread. The tricky part was to carefully cut a printed circuit line (I feared to damage something)
To be sure everything was fine, I checked all connections with the multimeter. As the unit was open already, I also replaced the CR2032 battery for good as the old one was emty and started leaking.
Note: If you connect your midi cable from the PC, it is important that you use the arranger input and not the keyboard input.
Conclusion: Great budget-MT-32 as a nice modification project.
The game:
Gabriel Knight - Sins of the Fathers is a point-and-click adventure released in 1993 by Sierra. The Game was created by Jane Jensen. The music was composed by her husband Robert Holmes. I like the game as well as the music very much - thats why i chose this one for the demonstration.
If you consider to buy the game, it is available at gog and steam for small money.
listen - enjoy - like - subscribe
Ernie
PC-SOUND-LEGACY
