Sam & Max Adlib - over-exaggerated vibrato?

[MusicallyInspired]

Specifically on the top-rightmost Snuckey's location on the USA map in Sam & Max Hit the Road for the outdoor theme the bass instrument seems to be playing with a hyper-sensitive vibrato. But in DOSBox Adlib it sounds much more subtle. Present, but definitely more subtle and sensible (to my musical ears). I'm not sure which one is more inaccurate though? Perhaps it's supposed to be that way, but I doubt it. I only noticed it while watching a playthrough on YouTube and thought "wait...I don't remember it like that." So I tried it in my build of ScummVM (a recent daily build) and sure enough it had that much vibrato for me as well. But in DOSBox it sounds much more like I remember it as a kid on my 486. I pause to submit a bug ticket if this is not in fact a bug, but to my ear it certainly doesn't sound authentic. The MT-32 soundtrack also does not behave this way in DOSBox or ScummVM. So it's unlikely the Adlib was intended to sound like this either.

I've only noticed this on that Snuckey's location outdoor theme so far but for all I know this could be an issue elsewhere too. Is this a known thing? Did anybody else notice lol? I can make a comparison recording if need be.

[eriktorbjorn]

It seems to have something to do with "Sam&Max OPL3 support", becaues if I disable that in audio/adlib.cpp's MidiDriver_ADLIB::property() function, I don't get that vibrato. In particular, the AdLibPart::pitchBend() function handles the input parameter quite differently.

If I change "_pitchBend >> 1" to "_pitchBend >> 5" in the OPL3 case, it sounds more reasonable to me. But I don't know if that's the correct fix, or if I'm just wallpapering over the actual bug.

[eriktorbjorn]

As I suspected, that minimal change of mine was not correct. NMIError has now fixed it properly, so it should work in future nightly builds and 2.5.1 if that's ever released. (It seems likely to me that it will be at some point.)

[MusicallyInspired]

Wonderful! Good to see such a longstanding issue finally be fixed. I wonder how many other oversights have gone unnoticed like this over the years.

[eriktorbjorn]

Wonderful! Good to see such a longstanding issue finally be fixed. I wonder how many other oversights have gone unnoticed like this over the years.

Probably a lot. Particularly in more obscure setups or game versions (I assume most people use MIDI, not AdLib, for Sam & Max) or games that aren't as popular. I know I made two fixes recently for missing instruments and missing music that primarily affected the Macintosh version of Monkey Island 2, and there's an open bug report about the AdLib music in Waxworks.

One bug at a time...