--Ultima VII: The Black Gate/Forge of Virtue General MIDI music support-- V1.1 o What Thou needest: A general MIDI (preferably GS compatable) synthesizer running on a MPU-401 compatable interface. o What it does: Changes all the music from the intro and menu and game music into General MIDI and GS compatable sequences. It also changes a few sound effects from the game if you have a GS synth. o What it does not do: It does not change the majority of the sound effects to sound correctly (It probably would be better if you turn the non-midifile sound effects off completely). It does not change the music & sound in the endgame sequence. It does not create world peace. o How wilt thy set it up: After unzipping the contents of the .ZIP file into a directory type: setupgm C:\u7 (Where c:\u7 is the directory where Ultima 7 resides) You must run Ultima 7 install program and MAKE SURE that your music sound card is set to Roland MT-32/LAPC-1. Then run Ultima 7, and enjoy, and then visit the Ultima Dragons home page http://www.udic.org (or the Ultima info page: http://www.udic.org/ultima)! --- Notes --- Unbelievable, people will do darned near anything when a new Ultima hasn't come out in a while . After converting music files from Ultima 6, 7.5, and the underworlds I thought it would be a good challenge that others could enjoy to convert the native Ultima 7 music and sound effects into General MIDI, so people could hear it correctly on the new wavetable music cards. I once had a Roland LAPC-1 and enjoyed the quality of the music & sound effects in The Black Gate and I thought others would like better music than FM synthesis. I've been an Ultima fan since Ultima I, and even liked Pagan (patched of course). What you see here is what I accomplished. It is music only (excepting a few sound effects in the rain/wind/shipyards/caverns). I tried to change the sound effects, but found that Ultima 7 has them embedded within the program executable itself or in the Usecode, which I did not touch. This is dissapointing because I had came up with quite a few good GM/GS sound effects that could have been used in U7. The reason Ultima 7's sound effects are incorrect on GM wavetable cards is the fact that it uses some commands unique to a true Roland MT-32 or LAPC-1 that are not found anywhere else to change the sounds. (I could have done a really great job if the sound effects were digitized--but alas...) I also attempted to change the Endgame's music and sound effects, but it uses an OLD version of John Miles' AIL library, and my newer MIDIFORM program does not seem to create the correct multisequence XMI files that the endgame needs. If anyone (from inside or outside Origin) knows how to change the sound effects in the game, I'd really like to know. Also, as a bonus, I threw in the MIDI files from the introduction and endgame, credits, quotes, and menu screens because I haven't seen them anywhere else. I hope you enjoy these files, and don't forget to turn the sound effects off in the options menu (press s), otherwise you may get some weird--unintended-- effects. Again, anyone who has info on how to change these I'd be in much gratitude. These files have been edited from scratch, I used no prior MIDI file collection in editing the music. The sound effects, rain and wind, will only play correctly on a GS synthesizer (it will sound like ocean waves on non-GS synthesizers) What I have in audio equipment is: Roland SCC-1 and a Soundblaster AWE-32, I know that people with SBAWE32s probably wont be able to run U7 in GM mode because of the huge TSR it needs to emulate MIDI. (However, its a great excuse to get the Roland SCD-15 Daughterboard--make sure its a SCD15!) All this on a Pentium 133 (Moslo moslo moslo) and Windows '95. I didn't do all of this manually, thank goodness, as I wrote some barely functioning programs to do the lion's share of the conversion and file flexing. For part of the conversions, I used mttogm12, a program that converts MT-32 music files to GM music files that I wrote about three years ago. After that, I manually changed and added effects and a bit of percussion, and other changes in Cakewalk Pro for Windows and with my MIDI keyboard. It really wasn't too difficult, and took only about an hour or so of my time each day over about a week to complete. Now on to work on the Serpent Isle--this one is all JM's AIL stuff and makes it more complicated. Don't forget to check out the Ultima Dragons at the web page: http://www.udic.org Or THE definative Ultima web page at: http://www.udic.org/ultima Or THE Ultima newsgroup: alt.games.ultima-dragons See what Origin is doing at: http://www.ea.com/origin.html Disclaimer: I do not work for Origin-yet? (I'm a beach bum going to school in Florida who spends entirely too much time on this kind of crap) so whatever you do, do not bug their customer support if you are using these files on Ultima 7-- bug me or post to the alt.games.ultima-dragons newsgroup. --- Version 1.1 - corrects problem of crash if you try to play a lute --- To reach me on questions/comments regarding these files: Mike 'Newt' Cornelius -=(UDIC)=- Newton Dragon 2401 S. Atlantic Ave. New Smyrna Beach, FL 32169 The Outdoor Sportsman BBS (407)635-9590 28.8k, n81 Internet E-mail : Mike.cornelius@outdoor.com America On-Line : MikeNewt@aol.com Prodigy : KBND17B@Prodigy.com Microsoft Network: Mike_Cornelius@Msn.Com