It was because of this channel demo I ended up buying two of these. (I put in two best offers on ebay thinking they wouldn't accept them and both did... oops) It's an awesome device for old games.
That's awesome! I basically had the same thing happen when I first picked this one up. I got the one shown in the video through an accepted offer through Reverb.com. Then a few days later I won a goodwill auction on a second one for the same price! LOL. I ended up installing a GoTEK into that second one and sold it to a musician that was looking for one in good working condition and he wanted it because I had installed the GoTEK in it already. Glad you liked the video and thank you for watching!
Thank you for this informative video. I had an MT120 before going on to E Magic Notator and Roland SC88 and SC88pro using an Atari back in the 90s. Lots of happy times.
Just came across your channel, glad I did. I have to say you sound very similar to Earl Evans from Retro Computing Roundtable. Looking forward to watching more!
Thank you for the comment and welcome to the 'Tower'! I'm not familiar with Earl but will have to check out his channel! I'm woefully behind on any new videos and that has simply been due to projects at my regular day job and modification work commissions on other retro gaming enthusiasts consoles.
I would very much get one if I didn't have a 55MkII already but it's still a super charming piece of machinery. I've noticed that sellers online have mostly taken out the floppy drive to replace it with a usb slot. Also, hold on close to your SCB card. They're really becoming a rarity.
I just got one but I want it for MIDI playback and hopefully to control my other MIDI instruments for performance. I also hope that all or most functions work when I get it. Thanks for the diagnosis video to check it out.
Ah that E1M1 sounds terrific!!! Can you play canyon.mid, clouds.mid and passport.mid from win3x and win9x? those games are on DOS (Sonic2, Gunstar Heroes, A.burner, etc???
I could do a video with more examples using this module, but those songs honestly sound the same as they do on the SC-55 since this is essentially an SC-55 with the ability to play Midi files internally and without the options to adjust the sounds that the standalone modules tend to offer. Also to answer the question on the Sega music. Those are just midi files I found that sound really good through this module. Most of them feature sounds for use with an SC-55 or other sound canvas type module. I've started to create diskettes containing certain genres for use to playback when working on other projects in the background..etc. Been very happy with it!
How does it compare to the MT 300 and how long after did the 300 come out after 200? What model number was the last MT floppy disk drive sequence to come out?
Hey Bill, the MT-300 came out several years after the MT-200 and so the MT-300 features a larger ROM bank of sounds and supports more notes at once to be played as compared to the MT-200. Far as I know, the last of these kinds of devices to be released was the MT-90S and MT-90U.
@@IvoryTowerCollections yes, I saw those 2 being sold online. One has a disk drive, the S model discontinued, of course, and the other one uses the USB.
@@IvoryTowerCollections I was going to buy the one with the disk drive the 90 S but it didn’t wasn’t sure about whether I could use it with my sound canvas SC 155. And then I saw the MT 200 but then I saw an empty 300 on RUclips. A guy was talking about it, but there aren’t any on eBay I would prefer the mt-300.
@@IvoryTowerCollections did I tell you I bought this saw emulator for my Roland sb55 that Hass to be installed in the SB 55 sound brush by way of using the USB. It’s for situations like mine and others who sound brush has gone bad the disk drive and so you insert this emulator by way of USB drive this way it bypasses any error messages because you’re not using floppies anymore but getting your music by way of USB
I recently got this unit and wanted to learn more about it! Also i think the Roland SoundBrush SB-55 deserves a shout out aswell, altough the floppy drive is a 720k one..
Though I've not seen a SB-55 myself. That is basically an SC-55 without the external controls and LCD panel I believe? Or is it just an add-on that works with an existing SC-55 already? There are actually quite a few devices like that that existed then and up through to the 2000s with basically the MT-90 series being the last of the Music Tutors. Do you know if the SB-55 can actually accept a 1.44mb drive or is that a firmware/hardware limitation?
@@IvoryTowerCollections Yes you can use the sb-55 midi out as a pass trough to the sc-55 or any other compatible soundcanvases with midi in and audio out ports. The sb-55 gives also the function to record midi to floppy, but so far i haven't been lucky finding good 720k dicss to try it. My plan was to try a 1.44mb drive or gotek, but now that i have found the mt-200 with 1.44mb drive i think gonna leave it as original.
I have a Roland sound brush SB55 for 30 years and the disk drive keeps showing errors. I use it with my Roland sound canvas SC 155. Because I need another disk drive can I connect the MT 200 to my sound canvas SC 155 midi out so I can use the sounds from my SC 155 sound canvas instead?
It is very likely possible that you could use the midi-out of the MT-200 into the midi-in of the SC-155 and be able to play back .smf and .mid files from the MT-200 but using your SC-155 for the sounds. The specifics for that I'm not sure on as I'm not familiar with the SC-155 and how it might differ from the sound bank of the MT-200. In looking at the specs between them, they seem quite similar in their ability and that makes sense as both the MT-200 and SC-155 are from around the same year.
I picked one of these up with a MT-100 and MC-50 8 years ago. Can't believe people are trying to sell them for 200$ now. With that being said I love these things. There's some cheesy sounds in there for sure but thats why I enjoy it. I still use it occasionally for an extra layer in a dawless jam. Never messed with the floppies beyond saving house tracks i painstakingly tried to create on just the unit. I tried to copy over some game midi files that seemed to be the correct format and they wont show up on the mt-200 led. Is there something special I need to do?
How did you format the floppy disk that you copied the files to? If you used Windows to format the disk, the MT-200 won't recognize it. You have to format the floppy through the MT-200 itself and then strangely enough, Windows can still read it and write to it. At that point, the .mid file should be selectable to be played. That is basically how do it, only I use a floppy emulation device in my MT-200 now. But the same basic rules apply.
Does it show how many many songs are on the midi smf disk, the name of the midi song, and does it have a forward button to go to the next song, or do you have to dial?
It doesn't show a listing of them no. But to advance to the next song, you do have to be on the Song option and use the alpha dial to select the next song. There is a jukebox like most where you can press a combo of buttons and it will play all of the songs in order on the disk.
Bottom line, my friend which unit would you think would be better the MT 200 or the 90 S? I bought the 90 S and I canceled it. It just looked kind of odd cheap or something or wasn’t sure if I could connect my sound canvas to the back anyways thank you very much for all your comments and replies I truly appreciate it. Take care be safe.
@Bill Last Yes it does show the current song being played in the LCD but if it is larger than the 8.3 naming format, then it will be truncated. In fact you can see this in the later parts of the video when I'm playing back the songs as I show what is on the LCD display at the time of playback.
@Bill Last The MT-90S and MT-90U have a larger sound bank and lots more polyphony or voices they can play. But, they are more limited as they were really designed around the teaching aspects more than being used as small all in one sequencers. As a result, they ONLY feature a midi-in and do not have a Midi-our or thru. Basically you are limited to the internal sounds from the module. I actually have a new MT-90u I use in my work lab. But it is more for the jukebox like playback than for anything serious.
I recently got a MT-120 and wanted to play my old General MIDI DOS games through it, however I am now worried after watching your video as the MT-120 only has two MIDI ports - MIDI in and MIDI out (no AUX IN, THRU etc). However, I did read the following in the MT-120 manual which seems that the MIDI IN can be set to accept more than just the piano data, so I think that I should be able to experience the full SC55 MIDI sound capability, do I understand this correctly? This unit's sound source supports both General MIDI and GS. Song data which carries either of these logos can he accurately reproduced (when the Piano switch is set to Int) . www.polynominal.com/Roland-mt120/Roland-Mt120-Manual.pdf
Looks like you are correct. If you set the switch in the back to INT then sounds and message data received on the Midi-In go to the GS sound source within the module. The other to make sure of is that you have the Midi out set to channel 1 only and not 1 - 16. On my MT-200s (Yes I have more than one of these...) that setting when set to 1 - 16 will prevent any sound from my module at all even though my understanding is that it should only affect the Midi out. I don't have the 120 obviously but I believe it to be a similar module with the addition of the input jacks that make it easier to attach a second module if you ever get one and the lack of the rotary alpha dial in favor of the rocker buttons. Might check my other videos that delve into a bunch more detail on the operation of my MT-200 and how I use it as I'm sure some of the information if not a bunch is applicable to the MT-120 as well. Be sure to message me here if you have any other questions and I will do my best to answer.
Ah that's great news and thanks for the tip on setting the Midi out channel, I'm just waiting for my 15-pin gameport to Midi cable to arrive from Ebay then I'll test it out. Thanks for the advice, I found this video very helpful and am going to watch the others also! I've played around with the unit by connecting a mini Xbox Rockband 3 keyboard controller to the MT-120, it's quite fun messing around with the different instruments and creating some drum loops etc.
@@johngrobler2706 Did you make it work? I encountered the manual a little bit confusing but somehow ended making it work! ruclips.net/video/M-oGb76lf4A/видео.html
@@RetroTinkerer Cool, I see that you got it to work! Did you had to do anything specific on the PC side, I've tried mine but only got it to play a single instrument at a time (piano). I guess it may be the channel issue explain by Ivory above.
@@johngrobler2706 that was the way mine worked by default, I had to check the manual and change the way it handle MIDI input... I would need to check the manual as I don't remember, if you find it confusing (I did) and need some help let me know.
No..the MT-200 doesn't have any built in songs to use as demos. Originally these came with a diskette or two that likely included some GM and GS midi files but I don't know if that has been archived anywhere on the net.
Using he midi connections it likely can but it would most likely be limited to only using the instrument banks of the MT-200 and not the synth sounds from the Gr-33. Also possible that the banks of instruments on the GR-33 that you might select wouldn't match up or be present on the MT-200 given is an older device. But I only speculating. Perhaps another person will see this comment and be able to reply with more information.
@@IvoryTowerCollections I kind of figured the GR33 could use the instrument banks from the MT 200, like it does from a keyboard or other midi sources. It would sure be handy to be able to hook into it and use the record feature though. It could be handy for a lot of applications for sure. I would imagine you are right about the age difference ( and they say age is only a number eh? lol) Just trying to brainstorm (more like brain fart) to find new uses for equipment. Appreciate the input.
You mean using the GR33 as a controller in this case vs a keyboard? That could likely work and if you try it out sometime, be sure to update the comments with your findings!
The MT-200 does feature a midi-thru port on it so allow you to daisy chain another synth module from it. However, what would happen is that both devices would be getting the midi data at the same time. So as a result, the MT-200 could generate errors on the display if it is sent something it doesn't quite understand. It would also still require you to have a means to control the audio output separately. Additionally, for the daisy chaining of modules to work, would require both modules to be powered on at the same time.
@@IvoryTowerCollections so now you’re saying it will not work the way I wanted to because I thought earlier you said it would work. Do you know how to make it work because I’d rather have the sounds coming from my Roland SC 155 because they’re probably a lot better quality than the sounds in the MT 200 what do you think? Do you think the sounds instruments in the mt200 are comparable to my Roland, SC 155 sounds?
I've never listed to an SC-155 in person so I can't judge on the quality of the instruments in the sound bank it has. What I do know and can compare is that the MT-200 seems to have the same sound bank as the SC-55mk II. But the MT-200 lacks some of the effects of the SC-55 modules and is limited to a tempo playback of 250bpm. The MT-200 can act as both a midi sound module or standalone sequencer. But I'm pretty sure that if you were to connect the Midiout from the MT-200 to the Midi In of your SC-155, and then playback Midi music from the MT-200, that it would be processed through your SC-155. But I'm only taking a guess as again, I've not see or worked with the SC-155.
The MT-200 is only a 24 voice or polyphony GM & GS module and I mention that in this video. As to the why, I can only suspect it is due to it being an early GS module device as such I don't believe 28 voices/poly was available until the SC-55mkII? It is also important to remember that even with 24 voices, that many of the instruments used, are stereo samples. As a result, they take up 2 voices when played back. So if you compose a song using all stereo 2-voice samples, you would only be able to hear up to 12 instruments including your percussion samples at once.
Thanks, not a big deal I guess but I have Firmware version 1.02 92/06/09, yours had 2.01 version. I went through the sound diagnostic test you had on another video where you had 28 voices, mine only went up to 24, all other tests passed. Guess I won't be able to fully test it till I get my floppy drive working. Not a problem, the polyphony will not be a big deal with me.
The main selling point for these back in the day was that they are stand alone sequencers. So with a midi piano or keyboard you can create your own compositions without a computer even being required. And it can play back midi files directly from the floppy drive again without the need for a computer. So when it was new back in the early 90s it was quite a space saving and lower cost solution. Today, it is just handy to for its built in midi playback functionality. But yes, there are plenty of emulators and other programs available where you can use soundfonts to do similar things. But for those who perhaps still use older computers and want to remain era correct in their technology, this is a very decent alternative for use as an external sound canvas module.
Outrun splash! What a great tune on the MT-200
Thank you for breaking it down in an understandable way
It was because of this channel demo I ended up buying two of these. (I put in two best offers on ebay thinking they wouldn't accept them and both did... oops) It's an awesome device for old games.
That's awesome! I basically had the same thing happen when I first picked this one up. I got the one shown in the video through an accepted offer through Reverb.com. Then a few days later I won a goodwill auction on a second one for the same price! LOL. I ended up installing a GoTEK into that second one and sold it to a musician that was looking for one in good working condition and he wanted it because I had installed the GoTEK in it already. Glad you liked the video and thank you for watching!
Thank you for this informative video. I had an MT120 before going on to E Magic Notator and Roland SC88 and SC88pro using an Atari back in the 90s. Lots of happy times.
Just came across your channel, glad I did. I have to say you sound very similar to Earl Evans from Retro Computing Roundtable. Looking forward to watching more!
Thank you for the comment and welcome to the 'Tower'! I'm not familiar with Earl but will have to check out his channel! I'm woefully behind on any new videos and that has simply been due to projects at my regular day job and modification work commissions on other retro gaming enthusiasts consoles.
@@IvoryTowerCollections It's a podcast, which I think you'd enjoy a lot. I'm happy to be here! Now I'm back from work I'll continue to watch. Cheers!
Awesome ♫
I would very much get one if I didn't have a 55MkII already but it's still a super charming piece of machinery.
I've noticed that sellers online have mostly taken out the floppy drive to replace it with a usb slot.
Also, hold on close to your SCB card. They're really becoming a rarity.
I just got one but I want it for MIDI playback and hopefully to control my other MIDI instruments for performance. I also hope that all or most functions work when I get it. Thanks for the diagnosis video to check it out.
Ah that E1M1 sounds terrific!!!
Can you play canyon.mid, clouds.mid and passport.mid from win3x and win9x?
those games are on DOS (Sonic2, Gunstar Heroes, A.burner, etc???
I could do a video with more examples using this module, but those songs honestly sound the same as they do on the SC-55 since this is essentially an SC-55 with the ability to play Midi files internally and without the options to adjust the sounds that the standalone modules tend to offer.
Also to answer the question on the Sega music. Those are just midi files I found that sound really good through this module. Most of them feature sounds for use with an SC-55 or other sound canvas type module. I've started to create diskettes containing certain genres for use to playback when working on other projects in the background..etc. Been very happy with it!
Manuel -- here you go! ruclips.net/video/ZwPEdGAcuRM/видео.html
Also, thank you so much for doing this video.
How does it compare to the MT 300 and how long after did the 300 come out after 200? What model number was the last MT floppy disk drive sequence to come out?
Hey Bill, the MT-300 came out several years after the MT-200 and so the MT-300 features a larger ROM bank of sounds and supports more notes at once to be played as compared to the MT-200. Far as I know, the last of these kinds of devices to be released was the MT-90S and MT-90U.
@@IvoryTowerCollections yes, I saw those 2 being sold online. One has a disk drive, the S model discontinued, of course, and the other one uses the USB.
@@IvoryTowerCollections I was going to buy the one with the disk drive the 90 S but it didn’t wasn’t sure about whether I could use it with my sound canvas SC 155. And then I saw the MT 200 but then I saw an empty 300 on RUclips. A guy was talking about it, but there aren’t any on eBay I would prefer the mt-300.
@@IvoryTowerCollections do you think the 90 S would be better than the MT 200?
@@IvoryTowerCollections did I tell you I bought this saw emulator for my Roland sb55 that Hass to be installed in the SB 55 sound brush by way of using the USB. It’s for situations like mine and others who sound brush has gone bad the disk drive and so you insert this emulator by way of USB drive this way it bypasses any error messages because you’re not using floppies anymore but getting your music by way of USB
I recently got this unit and wanted to learn more about it! Also i think the Roland SoundBrush SB-55 deserves a shout out aswell, altough the floppy drive is a 720k one..
Though I've not seen a SB-55 myself. That is basically an SC-55 without the external controls and LCD panel I believe? Or is it just an add-on that works with an existing SC-55 already? There are actually quite a few devices like that that existed then and up through to the 2000s with basically the MT-90 series being the last of the Music Tutors. Do you know if the SB-55 can actually accept a 1.44mb drive or is that a firmware/hardware limitation?
@@IvoryTowerCollections Yes you can use the sb-55 midi out as a pass trough to the sc-55 or any other compatible soundcanvases with midi in and audio out ports. The sb-55 gives also the function to record midi to floppy, but so far i haven't been lucky finding good 720k dicss to try it. My plan was to try a 1.44mb drive or gotek, but now that i have found the mt-200 with 1.44mb drive i think gonna leave it as original.
I have a Roland sound brush SB55 for 30 years and the disk drive keeps showing errors. I use it with my Roland sound canvas SC 155. Because I need another disk drive can I connect the MT 200 to my sound canvas SC 155 midi out so I can use the sounds from my SC 155 sound canvas instead?
It is very likely possible that you could use the midi-out of the MT-200 into the midi-in of the SC-155 and be able to play back .smf and .mid files from the MT-200 but using your SC-155 for the sounds. The specifics for that I'm not sure on as I'm not familiar with the SC-155 and how it might differ from the sound bank of the MT-200. In looking at the specs between them, they seem quite similar in their ability and that makes sense as both the MT-200 and SC-155 are from around the same year.
@@IvoryTowerCollections thank you!
I picked one of these up with a MT-100 and MC-50 8 years ago. Can't believe people are trying to sell them for 200$ now. With that being said I love these things. There's some cheesy sounds in there for sure but thats why I enjoy it. I still use it occasionally for an extra layer in a dawless jam. Never messed with the floppies beyond saving house tracks i painstakingly tried to create on just the unit. I tried to copy over some game midi files that seemed to be the correct format and they wont show up on the mt-200 led. Is there something special I need to do?
How did you format the floppy disk that you copied the files to? If you used Windows to format the disk, the MT-200 won't recognize it. You have to format the floppy through the MT-200 itself and then strangely enough, Windows can still read it and write to it. At that point, the .mid file should be selectable to be played. That is basically how do it, only I use a floppy emulation device in my MT-200 now. But the same basic rules apply.
Does it show how many many songs are on the midi smf disk, the name of the midi song, and does it have a forward button to go to the next song, or do you have to dial?
It doesn't show a listing of them no. But to advance to the next song, you do have to be on the Song option and use the alpha dial to select the next song. There is a jukebox like most where you can press a combo of buttons and it will play all of the songs in order on the disk.
@@IvoryTowerCollections does it show the name of the song that is being played?
Bottom line, my friend which unit would you think would be better the MT 200 or the 90 S? I bought the 90 S and I canceled it. It just looked kind of odd cheap or something or wasn’t sure if I could connect my sound canvas to the back anyways thank you very much for all your comments and replies I truly appreciate it. Take care be safe.
@Bill Last Yes it does show the current song being played in the LCD but if it is larger than the 8.3 naming format, then it will be truncated. In fact you can see this in the later parts of the video when I'm playing back the songs as I show what is on the LCD display at the time of playback.
@Bill Last The MT-90S and MT-90U have a larger sound bank and lots more polyphony or voices they can play. But, they are more limited as they were really designed around the teaching aspects more than being used as small all in one sequencers. As a result, they ONLY feature a midi-in and do not have a Midi-our or thru. Basically you are limited to the internal sounds from the module. I actually have a new MT-90u I use in my work lab. But it is more for the jukebox like playback than for anything serious.
I recently got a MT-120 and wanted to play my old General MIDI DOS games through it, however I am now worried after watching your video as the MT-120 only has two MIDI ports - MIDI in and MIDI out (no AUX IN, THRU etc). However, I did read the following in the MT-120 manual which seems that the MIDI IN can be set to accept more than just the piano data, so I think that I should be able to experience the full SC55 MIDI sound capability, do I understand this correctly?
This unit's sound source supports both General MIDI
and GS. Song data which carries either of these logos
can he accurately reproduced (when the Piano switch is
set to Int) .
www.polynominal.com/Roland-mt120/Roland-Mt120-Manual.pdf
Looks like you are correct. If you set the switch in the back to INT then sounds and message data received on the Midi-In go to the GS sound source within the module. The other to make sure of is that you have the Midi out set to channel 1 only and not 1 - 16. On my MT-200s (Yes I have more than one of these...) that setting when set to 1 - 16 will prevent any sound from my module at all even though my understanding is that it should only affect the Midi out. I don't have the 120 obviously but I believe it to be a similar module with the addition of the input jacks that make it easier to attach a second module if you ever get one and the lack of the rotary alpha dial in favor of the rocker buttons. Might check my other videos that delve into a bunch more detail on the operation of my MT-200 and how I use it as I'm sure some of the information if not a bunch is applicable to the MT-120 as well. Be sure to message me here if you have any other questions and I will do my best to answer.
Ah that's great news and thanks for the tip on setting the Midi out channel, I'm just waiting for my 15-pin gameport to Midi cable to arrive from Ebay then I'll test it out. Thanks for the advice, I found this video very helpful and am going to watch the others also!
I've played around with the unit by connecting a mini Xbox Rockband 3 keyboard controller to the MT-120, it's quite fun messing around with the different instruments and creating some drum loops etc.
@@johngrobler2706 Did you make it work? I encountered the manual a little bit confusing but somehow ended making it work! ruclips.net/video/M-oGb76lf4A/видео.html
@@RetroTinkerer Cool, I see that you got it to work! Did you had to do anything specific on the PC side, I've tried mine but only got it to play a single instrument at a time (piano). I guess it may be the channel issue explain by Ivory above.
@@johngrobler2706 that was the way mine worked by default, I had to check the manual and change the way it handle MIDI input... I would need to check the manual as I don't remember, if you find it confusing (I did) and need some help let me know.
Just brought one today question. Are there any built in Demo in the unit instead of off the Diskettes? Thanks
No..the MT-200 doesn't have any built in songs to use as demos. Originally these came with a diskette or two that likely included some GM and GS midi files but I don't know if that has been archived anywhere on the net.
@@IvoryTowerCollections Ok Thanks for the info
Do you know if a roland GR 33 will hook into it for recording purposes?
Using he midi connections it likely can but it would most likely be limited to only using the instrument banks of the MT-200 and not the synth sounds from the Gr-33. Also possible that the banks of instruments on the GR-33 that you might select wouldn't match up or be present on the MT-200 given is an older device. But I only speculating. Perhaps another person will see this comment and be able to reply with more information.
@@IvoryTowerCollections I kind of figured the GR33 could use the instrument banks from the MT 200, like it does from a keyboard or other midi sources. It would sure be handy to be able to hook into it and use the record feature though. It could be handy for a lot of applications for sure. I would imagine you are right about the age difference ( and they say age is only a number eh? lol) Just trying to brainstorm (more like brain fart) to find new uses for equipment. Appreciate the input.
You mean using the GR33 as a controller in this case vs a keyboard? That could likely work and if you try it out sometime, be sure to update the comments with your findings!
Can I connect my Roland sound canvas SC 155 to the back midi out so I can play those sounds instead?
The MT-200 does feature a midi-thru port on it so allow you to daisy chain another synth module from it. However, what would happen is that both devices would be getting the midi data at the same time. So as a result, the MT-200 could generate errors on the display if it is sent something it doesn't quite understand. It would also still require you to have a means to control the audio output separately. Additionally, for the daisy chaining of modules to work, would require both modules to be powered on at the same time.
@@IvoryTowerCollections so now you’re saying it will not work the way I wanted to because I thought earlier you said it would work. Do you know how to make it work because I’d rather have the sounds coming from my Roland SC 155 because they’re probably a lot better quality than the sounds in the MT 200 what do you think? Do you think the sounds instruments in the mt200 are comparable to my Roland, SC 155 sounds?
I've never listed to an SC-155 in person so I can't judge on the quality of the instruments in the sound bank it has. What I do know and can compare is that the MT-200 seems to have the same sound bank as the SC-55mk II. But the MT-200 lacks some of the effects of the SC-55 modules and is limited to a tempo playback of 250bpm. The MT-200 can act as both a midi sound module or standalone sequencer. But I'm pretty sure that if you were to connect the Midiout from the MT-200 to the Midi In of your SC-155, and then playback Midi music from the MT-200, that it would be processed through your SC-155. But I'm only taking a guess as again, I've not see or worked with the SC-155.
You know why my MT-200 only has 24 polyphony and not 28?
The MT-200 is only a 24 voice or polyphony GM & GS module and I mention that in this video. As to the why, I can only suspect it is due to it being an early GS module device as such I don't believe 28 voices/poly was available until the SC-55mkII? It is also important to remember that even with 24 voices, that many of the instruments used, are stereo samples. As a result, they take up 2 voices when played back. So if you compose a song using all stereo 2-voice samples, you would only be able to hear up to 12 instruments including your percussion samples at once.
Thanks, not a big deal I guess but I have Firmware version 1.02 92/06/09, yours had 2.01 version. I went through the sound diagnostic test you had on another video where you had 28 voices, mine only went up to 24, all other tests passed. Guess I won't be able to fully test it till I get my floppy drive working. Not a problem, the polyphony will not be a big deal with me.
Not sure what this does that a computer can not do
The main selling point for these back in the day was that they are stand alone sequencers. So with a midi piano or keyboard you can create your own compositions without a computer even being required. And it can play back midi files directly from the floppy drive again without the need for a computer. So when it was new back in the early 90s it was quite a space saving and lower cost solution. Today, it is just handy to for its built in midi playback functionality. But yes, there are plenty of emulators and other programs available where you can use soundfonts to do similar things. But for those who perhaps still use older computers and want to remain era correct in their technology, this is a very decent alternative for use as an external sound canvas module.