This is the soundtrack to the 1989 DOS port of the 1986 NEC PC8800 game Silpheed, published in America by Sierra Online. One of the options for audio output this game supported was the Roland MT-32 MIDI module, which had become somewhat of a luxury audio device for the PC, since it provided better audio for games than an Adlib or SoundBlaster card, since it was basically the cut down synth engine of the Roland D50 keyboard. This module predates General MIDI by several years, and as such MT32 games and music sound wrong on GM devices an vise versa.

I noticed that the Rockathon soundfont’s drum kits have a mapping of sounds more similar to the MT32 than to General MIDI (having a half hit hat sound instead of a pedle hit, most notably) so I was wondering how an MT32 game might sound on it. The MIDI download of Silpheed I’ve got has a couple versions, and one of them, someone adapted the patch numbers to work with the AWE soundcard series, and these provided the best results. It’s not the most accurate, but its an interesting take on the OST.

Here, you’ll hear an A/B comparison between the MT32 original (recorded from the MUNT emulator since I can’t afford a real MT-32) and the Rockathon soundfont. You’ll hear the first two songs from the Silpheed OST.

At the end I also tacked on a bit of the Space Quest III OST on the MT32 alone, as another test of MUNT.