MS Synth - Is It Really That Bad?

On October 22, 1996, something terrible happened:  Roland licensed the Sound Canvas sound set for use as the default MIDI synthesizer for Micro$oft Windows operating systems.  This sound set was based on the Roland SC-55.  Many (but not all) classic video game soundtracks that used General MIDI were intended to be heard with the Roland SC-55.  If this sound set was based on the legendary SC-55, then it should have been perfect, right?  Nope.  Why was this relatively terrible?  Read on...

Roland had previously released the "Virtual Sound Canvas" earlier in 1996.  The VSC was Roland's official software emulator for the SC-55.  It featured reverb and chorus effects.  The quality of the instruments was not as good as the instruments from the real SC-55, but it was better than nothing, at least.

Anyway, this Sound Canvas sound set was then licensed for use in MS Windows, and was now known as the "Microsoft GS Software Wavetable Synthesizer", or simply MS (or MS) Synth.  The sounds were stored in a "gm.dls" (DownLoadable Sound format) file.  The gm.dls was 3.28 MB.  It had 495 samples, 235 instruments, and 235 presets.  And it sounded awful, or rather, that was my first opinion of it.

The MS Synth's Sound Canvas set was of sad quality.  It used mostly the same sounds from the Virtual Sound Canvas; the instrument sounds were still poor, and many of them still sounded nowhere near the quality of the real SC-55.  The MS Synth did not even support reverb or chorus effects!*  And to add insult to injury, some of the instruments in the MS Synth were actually worse than the Virtual Sound Canvas.  The result was that the MS Synth, with its licensed Sound Canvas set, was disappointing and very underwhelming.  The amazing (at the time) sound of the SC-55, was now reduced to a cheap, dry, plastic, ugly, MS software synthesizer.

In 2000, Roland released a new Virtual Sound Canvas.  It was basically the same quality as the previous VSC, but still better than the MS Synth, and it now had three sound sets to choose from:  SC-55 (354 sounds + 10 drumsets), SC-88 (546 sounds + 15 drumsets), and SC-88Pro (902 sounds + 26 drumsets).

Now, years later, with newer Windows operating systems like Windows 7 and Windows 8, the same MS Synth is still used.  They did not bother to ever properly update it.  Even though Roland released newer versions of the VSC, Windows still uses the horrendous MS Synth from 1996.

Even on the most recent Windows, the default MIDI synthesizer for playing back MIDI sounds cheap and unrealistic.  It is unfortunate that Windows had to end up with such a low quality sound set, especially when there were many other much "better" GM sound sets available...

Is it really that bad?  For a long time I considered the MS Synth to be the worst MIDI synthesizer ever.  Its lack of effects, its low quality sounds...I thought that just about every other GM sound set (from sound cards, modules, etc.) sounded better than the MS Synth.  I got sick of the MS Synth's sound, and developed an aversion to it.  AWE32, Gravis UltraSound, even FM Synthesis, everything was better than it, in my opinion.

Well, the MS Synth is now considered "authentic", and many MIDIs that are intended for playback on a Windows system with no fancy other GM synths, are optimized for it.  So, even though it's not amazing, it ended up being the default intended sound for MIDIs from games like Atomaders, Astrobatics, and Alien Sky, and even DOOM PWADs (composers for PWADs generally make sure their MIDIs are balanced for the MS Synth).

I still prefer to avoid the MS Synth, unless I'm composing MIDIs intended for balanced GM sound sets.  I still prefer using other sound sets for playback however, like Gravis, or Yamaha, or even the VSC.

When compared to huge realistic sound sets or the original SC-55 hardware, the MS Synth really is pretty dull.  On its own however, it is very well balanced and therefore perhaps the best synth (after real SC-55 hardware) to use for composing perfectly balanced MIDIs (unless one is composing MIDIs intended specifically for certain realistic soundfonts).

* The GM.DLS file is also available as a soundfont called scc1t2.sf2.  The soundfont version can be loaded into a good quality software synthesizer such as CoolSoft VirtualMIDISynth, which features effects such as reverb and chorus.