Cakewalk by Bandlab no longer includes TTS-1. An option for now could be using the Sonar Home Studio Demo version on steam. This doesn't appear in search, though you can get the link from store.steampowered.com/app/543510/SONAR_Home_Studio/. Once the Sonar Home Studio Demo is installed, TTS-1 is available in both the Sonar Home Studio Demo, as well as Cakewalk by Bandlab, if Cakewalk by Bandlab is installed after Sonar Home Studio.
Cakewalk by Bandlab no longer includes TTS-1. An option for now could be using the Sonar Home Studio Demo version on steam. This doesn't appear in search, though you can get the link from store.steampowered.com/app/543510/SONAR_Home_Studio/. Once the Sonar Home Studio Demo is installed, TTS-1 is available in both the Sonar Home Studio Demo, as well as Cakewalk by Bandlab, if Cakewalk by Bandlab is installed after Sonar Home Studio.
Amazing tutorial! Now, my DosBox setup is complete, with MT32 (Munt), Gravis Ultrasound, Covox, and finally, the legendary Sound Canvas. All hot-swappable from inside the DosBox so there is no need to muck about with the config file and restart. I just write an appropriate [config -set “midi midiconfig=1(or 2)] as the first line of the batch file that calls the executable, in accordance with what game sounds best on which hardware (e.g. Ultima 7 sucks on SC, while Albion is horrible on MT32) and Bobbin’s my uncle! The batch files were already there as I needed to mount/unmount CD images, change memory and CPU settings etc., so adding a single extra line is no work at all. And now it’s all conveniately automated. Thank you, once again.
The Hyper Canvas and the TTS-1 don't sound much like the oldschool Sound Canvas though that these games were mostly composed with and were meant to be heard on. Still a neat free way to play some nice music, much like using a nice SoundFont. It might be a tad misleading to say that this is the same as a Sound Canvas, Roland made or not. But it certainly is a nice easy free alternative.
I followed along, but at 7:52 I get no audio at all out of the preview. What could I be missing? It looks like there was a cut in the video at 7:41 and the TTS-1 now lists various instruments instead of Piano1 all the way across. What happened there?
Make sure the audio output is set correctly in Cakewalk. (See at 6:25) if the audio is set properly there, once you create the Instrument, it should default to the sound card set in the audio window.
In regards to the change in sound names, I would have just run a midi file through it to test it was working off camera. No settings would have been changed at that point.
@@TechToTunes I did of course. Well I still don't know what was wrong with Cakewalk, but I did get Hyper Canvas working in Falcosoft midi player. Thanks for the response.
You sir are a hero. I still prefer MT-32 / Munt if supported because it hits the sweetspot of having good quality sound but still retain the videogamey synth vibes which I love. But there is no denying that Sound Canvas sounds really good, better than most generic soundfonts.
Thanks for the info, never knew there's a free version of cakewalk. btw you can specify which midi port to use in dosbox, so you can lose the midimapper.
Cakewalk by Bandlab no longer includes TTS-1. An option for now could be using the Sonar Home Studio Demo version on steam. This doesn't appear in search, though you can get the link from store.steampowered.com/app/543510/SONAR_Home_Studio/. Once the Sonar Home Studio Demo is installed, TTS-1 is available in both the Sonar Home Studio Demo, as well as Cakewalk by Bandlab, if Cakewalk by Bandlab is installed after Sonar Home Studio.
This is amazing, thank you - I thought being able to play music with the MT-32 option via Munt was an upgrade from the Sound Blaster in Quest for Glory IV, but wow, this is awesome. That said, I seem to be having some trouble with the game not playing sound effects or speech - it seems to be ignoring the virtual Sound Blaster card (set separately from the music device). Any ideas/suggestions?
They are definitely two separate things. SB card has its settings and MIDI separate to that. Maybe volume settings may be an issue. Check the mixer in Windows to see if DosBox volume is set up as SB sounds would come through DosBox, MIDI sounds through the DAW/Munt. See how you go.
@@TechToTunes wait midi to usb adapter is a thing? I totally didn't know about that. Well in that case I'd get ether an older sound canvas or a MT 32. That and a buckling spring model M would make my Dosbox setup complete. I've already have a period correct ps/2 Microsoft ball mouse and a original gameport garvis gamepad pro I found thrifting new complete and in the original box. Naturally I needed a gameport to usb adapter for it of course. Thankfully by some fluke we still had a radio shack branded one from back in the day around.
You could also probably do this with FL Studio by using LoopMIDI to direct DOSBox to Fruity LSD, though it's still the GS Wavetable samples, actually sounds decent with the effects enabled though. Also good to know Cakewalk is now totally free, thanks for notifying viewers.
That would definitely work. There are many ways it could be done. When I noticed Cakewalk was free and knowing TTS-1 was in there, I couldn't resist. :) I was a big fan of Hypercanvas back in the day. Cheers!
@@TechToTunes Right, actually DID get that to work AND accidentally discovered this dl for the original Hyper Canvas, so can now route basically anything to plugins in FL, just have to make sure the MIDI Port is set to 1 and not 0, got it to work with S-YXG50 too: www.mediafire.com/file/8qe28w142inukwm/edirol+hyper+canvas+vsti+dxi+v+1.6.0+air.rar
I did something similar to this a year or two ago, but I had to go the most painful route of pirating obscure software to get the SoundCanvas plugin to work. It was a complete nightmare. This is such a simpiler way of doing it and I wish I had know about this back then. EDIT: Unfortunately, Cakewalk has been updated and what he's describing with it is no longer possible. Reply to this if you're interest in me sharing what my solution is, that does still work.
Thank you very much, the sound is really wonderful. All SoundFont files that I have found on the Internet in the past are not of the same quality as the original SC-55. Is it possible for Roland to sell only the sound source file (soundfont) to the end user (separately from Sound Canvas VA)?
They did sell it before in the VSC range, which you can still find out there is you look hard enough. That's a VST which can be used with a basic VST player.
This is a cool solution, but if you want an actual accurate SC-55 soundfont without paying, there NOW IS ONE. What happened is that the original SC-55MKII's ROM was extracted, and decrypted, and was used for the soundfont's creation (previous attempts tried to use recorded SC-55 samples or used samples from something like the Microsoft GS wavetable synth, which produced pretty inaccurate results due to not being the same sample as the one used for the actual SC-55, those samples were from the cut-down SCC-1 sound card, albeit in very low quality and new Windows versions screwed over the synth even more): www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/118828-updated-now-on-github-the-most-accurate-sc-55-soundfont-out-now/ Use it with VirtualMIDISynth. Also there's an AWE32 soundfont if you plan on playing Heretic/HeXen (it's soundtrack was composed on that, not SC-55 unlike DOOM/Strife): archive.org/download/soundfonts_201910 (select the AWEROMGM.sf2, also use with VirtualMIDISynth)
Sound fonts are ok, but for the MT-32 they just aren't good enough as many games actually utilise the memory area of the MT32 to upload unique patches for the game. Sound fonts don't replicate that and the resulting sound can be way off. Both solutions are free which is the best part! :) I use the SC-55 font on the Mister FPGA and it works really well.
@@TechToTunes MUNT should work too. And the problem with atleast the games I play is that basically none of them were composed on the HyperCanvas, all of them were composed on a SC-55 (DOOM, ROTT, DUKE3D etc.) so it won't really sound as the composer(s) intended on the HyperCanvas.
@@asais1024 HyperCanvas is a reproduction of the Sound Canvas by Roland. Have a listen to it and you will see. MUNT is great for MT32 sound tracks only. It doesn't emulate General MIDI / GS or the Sound Canvas sound set.
@@TechToTunes Now after relistening the Hyper Canvas sounds closer to the samples on the SC-88 or later modules rather than the SC-55. The overdrive guitar on the SC-88 and the HyperCanvas is basically the same. (I used E1M1 to compare the guitars and they're basically the same)
Got this working today with the 2020.04 (Build 179, 64 bit) version of Cake Walk. But, how did you get KQ5 to sound so good?? Due to having sourced the installer via GOG, I had to do a hackney install.exe copy from another Sierra game to see the setup but there's only Adlib and MT32. In the absence of a SC choice again, how was this accomplished? Custom instrument map in CW?
This is Kings Quest 6. It may be that the GOG version is missing the General MIDI driver. The file you need is GENMIDI.DRV, which is in the version I have. That provides a General MIDI option. Google will be your friend :) Also check out sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/Patches-Updates-Misc/UpdatedSoundCardDrivers.html
@@TechToTunes So it is! I was playing around with KQ5 and running into a 4.map error after bringing over the GENMIDI.DRV file. But that's another story... onto 6. So oddly enough, I changed the RESOURCE.CFG to GENMIDI.DRV but the weird thing is that in DOSBox or ScummVM (even after setting global MIDI to use the loopMIDI port) it still comes out using Adlib. Either missing something or the GOG binaries are a bit janky. Oh and great video too, mate!
First of all thank you very much and I have been able to make it work with BreakThru! in windows 3.11 ... But, I gave it a try with the Zorro game (that i have in another dosbox independent) and I wouldn't know if it was me when I accidentally pressed a key in the process or it was the game itself but ... now it doesn't work anymore .. not even with it breakthru! game. It's a bit strange... everything seems in order.
I could see that using the Volume Menu with the Music On it sends a lot of bytes to loopMidi, maybe because of it it hangs and crashed.... I think it's safer to put the Music Off before adjusting the volume in the game of Zorro to prevent this... Beware of Zorro Bugs (?)...
TTS is a plug in that takes midi data and converts it to the sound of a Roland Sound Canvas, specifically the HyperCanvas software they made years ago. Exporting MIDI would be part of Cakewalk. It can export MIDI. I haven't done a tutorial but I could probably put something together if it is specific. What do you mean export midi with different sound? MIDI doesn't actually have sound, it controls other devices to make the sound.
@@TechToTunes thanks for your reply, like making 1 midi song with different type of sound intruments in different channels , like in van basco player you can see when you play a midi song you can see channel 1 to 16 and every channels it assigned with different instruments
@@Fghjk-hs9zd TTS is also broken down into 16 channels, which is the 16 different instruments that you can see. Each track is one channel. I have a new system coming in soon, I will start up videos again then and may put something together that may help.
Awesome setup and tutorial! But can I get Windows 95 version of all the required Software as I want to get Midi out of my Retro PC without Dos Box as I have real Dos? was looking to just buy a Roland SC-55
I have found Windows 95 to be a limitation in many ways, especially drivers, even compared to Windows 98. There is a way though to get SoundCanvas on Win98 and that is using Hypercanvas. I may do a video soon on that.
On the website, it states false positives are occurring. Just ensure you get it direct from the author's site. He even publishes a virus report with each file. coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper
you can use Dosbox or you can use a MIDI interface to another computer. For Dosbox, you would edit the config file to use the midi driver pointing to Cakewalk.
SC88 is basically SC-55 with more. All the SC55 sounds are in the SC55 sound bank. I can't remember if there was a setting for sound banks and I don't have it installed at the moment as I just upgraded my machine.
You gave me one of the few things I needed in my life.
Now I can finally make music with a free legal Sound Canvas.
Thanks a lot.
You're very welcome! I have many more videos planned moving forward :)
Bad news about Cakewalk, it's now missing the TTS-1 VST, and there are no previous versions available.
Cakewalk by Bandlab no longer includes TTS-1. An option for now could be using the Sonar Home Studio Demo version on steam. This doesn't appear in search, though you can get the link from store.steampowered.com/app/543510/SONAR_Home_Studio/. Once the Sonar Home Studio Demo is installed, TTS-1 is available in both the Sonar Home Studio Demo, as well as Cakewalk by Bandlab, if Cakewalk by Bandlab is installed after Sonar Home Studio.
A new installation of the free Cakewalk is now missing the TTS-1, since March 2024 😟
Cakewalk by Bandlab no longer includes TTS-1. An option for now could be using the Sonar Home Studio Demo version on steam. This doesn't appear in search, though you can get the link from store.steampowered.com/app/543510/SONAR_Home_Studio/. Once the Sonar Home Studio Demo is installed, TTS-1 is available in both the Sonar Home Studio Demo, as well as Cakewalk by Bandlab, if Cakewalk by Bandlab is installed after Sonar Home Studio.
Amazing tutorial! Now, my DosBox setup is complete, with MT32 (Munt), Gravis Ultrasound, Covox, and finally, the legendary Sound Canvas.
All hot-swappable from inside the DosBox so there is no need to muck about with the config file and restart. I just write an appropriate [config -set “midi midiconfig=1(or 2)] as the first line of the batch file that calls the executable, in accordance with what game sounds best on which hardware (e.g. Ultima 7 sucks on SC, while Albion is horrible on MT32) and Bobbin’s my uncle!
The batch files were already there as I needed to mount/unmount CD images, change memory and CPU settings etc., so adding a single extra line is no work at all. And now it’s all conveniately automated.
Thank you, once again.
Happy to help out and great to hear it has worked for you. I will be doing more videos shortly, once I recover from my small hospital stint this week.
The Hyper Canvas and the TTS-1 don't sound much like the oldschool Sound Canvas though that these games were mostly composed with and were meant to be heard on. Still a neat free way to play some nice music, much like using a nice SoundFont. It might be a tad misleading to say that this is the same as a Sound Canvas, Roland made or not. But it certainly is a nice easy free alternative.
I followed along, but at 7:52 I get no audio at all out of the preview. What could I be missing?
It looks like there was a cut in the video at 7:41 and the TTS-1 now lists various instruments instead of Piano1 all the way across. What happened there?
Make sure the audio output is set correctly in Cakewalk. (See at 6:25) if the audio is set properly there, once you create the Instrument, it should default to the sound card set in the audio window.
In regards to the change in sound names, I would have just run a midi file through it to test it was working off camera. No settings would have been changed at that point.
@@TechToTunes I did of course. Well I still don't know what was wrong with Cakewalk, but I did get Hyper Canvas working in Falcosoft midi player. Thanks for the response.
You sir are a hero. I still prefer MT-32 / Munt if supported because it hits the sweetspot of having good quality sound but still retain the videogamey synth vibes which I love. But there is no denying that Sound Canvas sounds really good, better than most generic soundfonts.
Many games were written on the Sound Canvas and sound best on it!
Thanks for the info, never knew there's a free version of cakewalk. btw you can specify which midi port to use in dosbox, so you can lose the midimapper.
I have tried with some GOG games and it sound awesome!!! Thanks!
Sadly TTS-1 no longer included in Cakewalk
Cakewalk by Bandlab no longer includes TTS-1. An option for now could be using the Sonar Home Studio Demo version on steam. This doesn't appear in search, though you can get the link from store.steampowered.com/app/543510/SONAR_Home_Studio/. Once the Sonar Home Studio Demo is installed, TTS-1 is available in both the Sonar Home Studio Demo, as well as Cakewalk by Bandlab, if Cakewalk by Bandlab is installed after Sonar Home Studio.
This is amazing, thank you - I thought being able to play music with the MT-32 option via Munt was an upgrade from the Sound Blaster in Quest for Glory IV, but wow, this is awesome. That said, I seem to be having some trouble with the game not playing sound effects or speech - it seems to be ignoring the virtual Sound Blaster card (set separately from the music device). Any ideas/suggestions?
They are definitely two separate things. SB card has its settings and MIDI separate to that. Maybe volume settings may be an issue. Check the mixer in Windows to see if DosBox volume is set up as SB sounds would come through DosBox, MIDI sounds through the DAW/Munt. See how you go.
@@TechToTunes I'll look into that - thank you!
I'd love to find (I forgot the model of the top of my head) the sound canvas with usb for my retro gaming pc.
Oh and a model M keyboard.
A model M is on my list as well. Any Roland module will connect to a USB port with a simple USB midi adapter, like the Roland UM-1.
@@TechToTunes wait midi to usb adapter is a thing? I totally didn't know about that. Well in that case I'd get ether an older sound canvas or a MT 32. That and a buckling spring model M would make my Dosbox setup complete. I've already have a period correct ps/2 Microsoft ball mouse and a original gameport garvis gamepad pro I found thrifting new complete and in the original box. Naturally I needed a gameport to usb adapter for it of course. Thankfully by some fluke we still had a radio shack branded one from back in the day around.
You could also probably do this with FL Studio by using LoopMIDI to direct DOSBox to Fruity LSD, though it's still the GS Wavetable samples, actually sounds decent with the effects enabled though. Also good to know Cakewalk is now totally free, thanks for notifying viewers.
That would definitely work. There are many ways it could be done. When I noticed Cakewalk was free and knowing TTS-1 was in there, I couldn't resist. :) I was a big fan of Hypercanvas back in the day. Cheers!
@@TechToTunes Right, actually DID get that to work AND accidentally discovered this dl for the original Hyper Canvas, so can now route basically anything to plugins in FL, just have to make sure the MIDI Port is set to 1 and not 0, got it to work with S-YXG50 too: www.mediafire.com/file/8qe28w142inukwm/edirol+hyper+canvas+vsti+dxi+v+1.6.0+air.rar
In case people want to not need to dl cakewalk just for this purpose, kind of annoying that you have to make a whole new account and everything.
I did something similar to this a year or two ago, but I had to go the most painful route of pirating obscure software to get the SoundCanvas plugin to work. It was a complete nightmare. This is such a simpiler way of doing it and I wish I had know about this back then.
EDIT: Unfortunately, Cakewalk has been updated and what he's describing with it is no longer possible. Reply to this if you're interest in me sharing what my solution is, that does still work.
this still works though.
Yup, just downloaded the latest version, works like a charm.
8:45 thats music!!
AWESOMEEEE!!!! Thanks a lot! Great tutorial!
Thank you very much, the sound is really wonderful. All SoundFont files that I have found on the Internet in the past are not of the same quality as the original SC-55. Is it possible for Roland to sell only the sound source file (soundfont) to the end user (separately from Sound Canvas VA)?
They did sell it before in the VSC range, which you can still find out there is you look hard enough. That's a VST which can be used with a basic VST player.
This is a cool solution, but if you want an actual accurate SC-55 soundfont without paying, there NOW IS ONE. What happened is that the original SC-55MKII's ROM was extracted, and decrypted, and was used for the soundfont's creation (previous attempts tried to use recorded SC-55 samples or used samples from something like the Microsoft GS wavetable synth, which produced pretty inaccurate results due to not being the same sample as the one used for the actual SC-55, those samples were from the cut-down SCC-1 sound card, albeit in very low quality and new Windows versions screwed over the synth even more):
www.doomworld.com/forum/topic/118828-updated-now-on-github-the-most-accurate-sc-55-soundfont-out-now/
Use it with VirtualMIDISynth.
Also there's an AWE32 soundfont if you plan on playing Heretic/HeXen (it's soundtrack was composed on that, not SC-55 unlike DOOM/Strife):
archive.org/download/soundfonts_201910 (select the AWEROMGM.sf2, also use with VirtualMIDISynth)
Sound fonts are ok, but for the MT-32 they just aren't good enough as many games actually utilise the memory area of the MT32 to upload unique patches for the game. Sound fonts don't replicate that and the resulting sound can be way off. Both solutions are free which is the best part! :) I use the SC-55 font on the Mister FPGA and it works really well.
@@TechToTunes MUNT should work too.
And the problem with atleast the games I play is that basically none of them were composed on the HyperCanvas, all of them were composed on a SC-55 (DOOM, ROTT, DUKE3D etc.) so it won't really sound as the composer(s) intended on the HyperCanvas.
@@asais1024 HyperCanvas is a reproduction of the Sound Canvas by Roland. Have a listen to it and you will see. MUNT is great for MT32 sound tracks only. It doesn't emulate General MIDI / GS or the Sound Canvas sound set.
@@TechToTunes Yea after rethinking it this is probably a better solution than messing around with soundfonts or munt.
@@TechToTunes Now after relistening the Hyper Canvas sounds closer to the samples on the SC-88 or later modules rather than the SC-55. The overdrive guitar on the SC-88 and the HyperCanvas is basically the same. (I used E1M1 to compare the guitars and they're basically the same)
Got this working today with the 2020.04 (Build 179, 64 bit) version of Cake Walk. But, how did you get KQ5 to sound so good?? Due to having sourced the installer via GOG, I had to do a hackney install.exe copy from another Sierra game to see the setup but there's only Adlib and MT32. In the absence of a SC choice again, how was this accomplished? Custom instrument map in CW?
This is Kings Quest 6. It may be that the GOG version is missing the General MIDI driver. The file you need is GENMIDI.DRV, which is in the version I have. That provides a General MIDI option. Google will be your friend :) Also check out sierrahelp.com/Patches-Updates/Patches-Updates-Misc/UpdatedSoundCardDrivers.html
@@TechToTunes So it is! I was playing around with KQ5 and running into a 4.map error after bringing over the GENMIDI.DRV file. But that's another story... onto 6. So oddly enough, I changed the RESOURCE.CFG to GENMIDI.DRV but the weird thing is that in DOSBox or ScummVM (even after setting global MIDI to use the loopMIDI port) it still comes out using Adlib. Either missing something or the GOG binaries are a bit janky. Oh and great video too, mate!
OMG, this is awesome! Thanks!
First of all thank you very much and I have been able to make it work with BreakThru! in windows 3.11 ... But, I gave it a try with the Zorro game (that i have in another dosbox independent) and I wouldn't know if it was me when I accidentally pressed a key in the process or it was the game itself but ... now it doesn't work anymore .. not even with it breakthru! game. It's a bit strange... everything seems in order.
I think the loopMidi application collapse... now it's working again.
I could see that using the Volume Menu with the Music On it sends a lot of bytes to loopMidi, maybe because of it it hangs and crashed.... I think it's safer to put the Music Off before adjusting the volume in the game of Zorro to prevent this... Beware of Zorro Bugs (?)...
do you have a tutorial on cakewalk of how to export midi with different channel and different sound on it? is that what TTS do?
TTS is a plug in that takes midi data and converts it to the sound of a Roland Sound Canvas, specifically the HyperCanvas software they made years ago. Exporting MIDI would be part of Cakewalk. It can export MIDI. I haven't done a tutorial but I could probably put something together if it is specific. What do you mean export midi with different sound? MIDI doesn't actually have sound, it controls other devices to make the sound.
@@TechToTunes thanks for your reply, like making 1 midi song with different type of sound intruments in different channels , like in van basco player you can see when you play a midi song you can see channel 1 to 16 and every channels it assigned with different instruments
@@Fghjk-hs9zd TTS is also broken down into 16 channels, which is the 16 different instruments that you can see. Each track is one channel. I have a new system coming in soon, I will start up videos again then and may put something together that may help.
@@TechToTunes thank you so much 😊😊😊
Awesome setup and tutorial! But can I get Windows 95 version of all the required Software as I want to get Midi out of my Retro PC without Dos Box as I have real Dos? was looking to just buy a Roland SC-55
I have found Windows 95 to be a limitation in many ways, especially drivers, even compared to Windows 98. There is a way though to get SoundCanvas on Win98 and that is using Hypercanvas. I may do a video soon on that.
@@TechToTunes did you ever get around to doing this!?
@@AidensFarm24 Unfortunately I haven't. It's been quite hectic over the last few years. When I get some time I will revisit it and post it here.
you are genius. thank you so much
Why did MIDIMapper give me a trojan?
On the website, it states false positives are occurring. Just ensure you get it direct from the author's site. He even publishes a virus report with each file. coolsoft.altervista.org/en/midimapper
Time to buy an SC-55!
do i need dosbox for this?
you can use Dosbox or you can use a MIDI interface to another computer. For Dosbox, you would edit the config file to use the midi driver pointing to Cakewalk.
AWESOME! Thank you very much.....🤙😀
Where is woman of thumbnail?
So is this just for the SC-88/SC-88 Pro soundbanks? Or is there an SC-55 soundbank as well?
SC88 is basically SC-55 with more. All the SC55 sounds are in the SC55 sound bank. I can't remember if there was a setting for sound banks and I don't have it installed at the moment as I just upgraded my machine.
I love you