Midi Devices Explanation

[Trusty McLegit]

There are currently a lot of available midi devices in gzdoom, and it's not very obvious what the difference is between them. I can tell they sound different, but I'm not sure what the specific goal/purpose of each is. What are the strengths/weaknesses of each midi device, and when should someone use one over the other?

[Graf Zahl]

It all amounts to taste. Choose what you like.

Roughly they can be put in 3 groups:

1. FM synths (OPL, ADL, OPN) These work without sound fonts.
2. GUS patch set SW synths (Timidity++, GUS, WildMidi)
3. SF2 SW synths (FluidSynth)

Timidity++ can use SF2 but converts them to GUS format when reading.

[Trusty McLegit]

Okay, but for example do some of them emulate say a Soundblaster or a Roland sound canvas? I know OPNMIDI emulates the YM2612 chip.

[Wohlstand]

Okay, but for example do some of them emulate say a Soundblaster or a Roland sound canvas? I know OPNMIDI emulates the YM2612 chip.

Yeah, OPNMIDI uses YM2612 chip emulator to play MIDI, it was my dream which I have implemented by myself.

"OPL Synth Emulation" and "libADLMIDI" both emulating YMF262 (OPL3) (the chip used in SoundBlaster sound cards)

Nothing in listed synths simulates Roland. RSC is WaveTable synthesizer.

Anyway, a trick if you wish to have sounding LIKE RSC: take Awave Studio (or anything that able to convert DLS format into SF2) thing and open "C:\Windows\system32\drivers\gm.dls" file, then "save collection as", and choose SF2 format. Then, try to use the result with the FluidSynth synthesizer. I bet, it will work well while MS's synthesizer implementation sucks (it's still same as in Windows 98!!! even in Windows 10) and doesn't use GS standard well.

(Trivia: I never liked RSC's bank sounding as it's hearing like a cheap bootleg toy made in China. Especially M$'s implementation. With FM-Synths myself I can better express the music I creating sometimes)

P.S. As "OPL Synth Emulation", ADLMIDI and OPNMIDI are using emulators of chips are working on CPU, there are software synthesizers too as there are don't using any hardware except of CPU to generate the sound. All other GUS or FluidSynth synthesizers are WaveTable synths (WT).

EDIT: Fixed my typo: YMF262 is OPL3, YMF2612 is nonsense

[leileilol]

"OPL Synth Emulation" and "libADLMIDI" both emulating YMF2612 (OPL3) (the chip used in SoundBlaster sound cards)

OPL3 is YMF262 - no 1. The only other Yamaha chip ever involved with a Sound Blaster would be YM3812, which is the chip DMX cared most about. The typical canonical Doom FM experience would be OPL2 at best. OPN2 would only be relevant for a more authentic 32x farttrack

[Wohlstand]

OPN2 would only be relevant for a more authentic 32x farttrack

I did some research for myself, and I have found that 32x's Doom port has worse sounding, and that looks because of laziness to make a proper music bank for the YM2612 chip...