problem with music in Monkey Island 1

[dolavnit]

I tried to play The Secret Of Monkey Island in scummvm because i had problem with the sound in the game.
Now the sound works fine, but the problem is that the music is in very poor quality.
When I played through the DOS the music was in great quality except it was random (sometimes music works and sometimes dont) and there were no sound effects.
I tried to mess with the sound options in scummvm but it didn't work.
Is there some way to play the game with the high quality music?

[eriktorbjorn]

Is there some way to play the game with the high quality music?

It's always difficult to know what people mean by poor or high quality. To some, it seems that "high quality" means "the version of the music I heard the first time I played it" and "low quality" means "everything else".

Could you be a bit more specific about which version of the game you are playing? I assume it's the DOS version, but there are at least three different DOS versions:

There's the 16-colour floppy version. I don't have it myself, but from what I understand it should support emulated PC Speaker, PCjr and Adlib music. There is supposedly an official patch to add MIDI music.

There's the 256-colour floppy version, which I believe has the same music as the 16-colour version, but doesn't need a patch for the MIDI music.

There's the 256-colour CD version, which uses CD audio for the music.

For the floppy versions, the music driver setting matters. In theory, the MIDI music should provide the highest quality, but unless you have a Roland MT-32 ScummVM will have to use approximations of the intended instruments. (Support for General MIDI would not appear until later games.) The name of the MIDI music driver varies depending on your operating system, but if you're running Microsoft Windows it's probably Windows MIDI, or something like that.

If that doesn't work, Adlib should sound a bit better than PCjr, which should sound a lot better than PC Speaker. It may also be that there are fewer music tracks for PC Speaker and PCjr, but I can't test that at the moment.

Since the CD version uses pre-recorded music, the music driver setting has no effect.

[dolavnit]

About the quality, in the first time through DOS the music sounded like modern pc games, and in the scummvm like on very old computer.
How can I know which version of the game is it?

And I tried to use the windows-midi setting which disabled any sound at all, and then the adlib setting which was the same as the default.

if this anyhow helps, when Sound didn't work for me in DOS mode, I ran the game using start->run "..monkey.exe" R which enabled music only.

Also, before posting this thread I looked on other threads and some says that ripping the music from the CD should solve sound problems. If so, how do I do that?

[eriktorbjorn]

And I tried to use the windows-midi setting which disabled any sound at all, and then the adlib setting which was the same as the default.

If there's a difference between Adlib and Windows MIDI, I guess it's the floppy version. Have you checked the Windows volume settings? I believe there's a separate one for MIDI, though I'm not sure what it's called. Though if that's the problem, I don't know why it'd work outside of ScummVM...

Also, before posting this thread I looked on other threads and some says that ripping the music from the CD should solve sound problems. If so, how do I do that?

If it's the floppy version, you don't.

[PsYcO]

it is called MIDI

there are 2 possible reasons, since the volume control is working

1. data corruption - try recopying the data from the source
2. the music isn't there - either cause it isn't ripped or it isn't on the HDD

there is an explanation in the FAQ for ripping the MI tracks

[eriktorbjorn]

it is called MIDI

On the Windows XP box I'm sitting at right now, there's no "MIDI" volume setting. There is a "Synthesizer" volume setting, though.

2. the music isn't there - either cause it isn't ripped or it isn't on the HDD

there is an explanation in the FAQ for ripping the MI tracks

If I understood him correctly, he gets music with the Adlib driver, just not the music he expected. If so, it should be the floppy version, in which case there aren't any music tracks to rip.

[PsYcO]

good point i got the wrong end of the stick.

yes im still in win2k mode, sorry again.

could it be a subjective thing? different speakers, worse hearing or just bad memory.
how can you notice a difference in midi sourced tracks?

[dolavnit]

So in order to have music i need to play the CD version?

[dolavnit]

OK, I did it and it works great now.
Thanks for all the help!

[eriktorbjorn]

OK, I did it and it works great now.
Thanks for all the help!

So, just out of curiosity, what did you do?

[dolavnit]

I got the cd version of the game that contains the music in MP3.
The game works fine with all the sound on scummvm.

[clem]

I got the cd version of the game that contains the music in MP3.
The game works fine with all the sound on scummvm.

no. the CD version does not contain the music in mp3.

[PsYcO]

suspicious forum rule 0 behaviour?

[dolavnit]

How can a game that is free for a long time can be warez.
And anyway, I own the actual CD in the original box.

[md5]

Monkey Island has never "been free for a long time", so yes it's warez and illegal to be distributed