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I think it was in Daniel's interview with Clint Bajakian, where he mentioned that the Adlib versions were (always?) some kind of manual down-convert from the Roland tracks.

It would be absolutely terrible if someone sent me a private link to the DropBox archive. So please someone definitely don't do that.

Both DOTT and Hit the Road were both still made for a Roland thing 🙂 - just not MT-32, but Roland SoundCanvas (55, I believe, but Zaarin knows better). I don't think there has been a MIDI-based SCUMM game ever that was originally composed (or arranged) for SoundBlaster or Adlib. But of course, that doesn't mean people aren't allowed to prefer them. 😁

I do personally prefer the adlib/soundblaster versions. Mainly for nostalgic reasons I suppose, but I really like the smooth and organic sound of it. For anyone interested about 90's PC music history (Adlib, Soundblaster, MT32, MIDI, you name it..), I highly recommend reading "History of PC game MIDI" (attached file). When I composed the soundtrack for Lucy Dreaming (a point and click adventure in pixel art), I did a lot of research about how to make music that could sound "era genuine". This article helped me a lot and it was basically the start of my journey in that kind of music. A few month later I ended up composing a dual soundtrack for the game (Roland MT-32 and Adlib/Soundblaster) 😂 History_of_PC_Game_MIDI.pdf

I think it was Hit the Road I was thinking of that was made on/for general midi as opposed to a Roland thing. Zaarin, whose name I can never remember on this forum, would know better than me. (@s-island) And my Mac music memories were MI2 and FOA.

Which games in particular? ScummVM has supported the Mac instruments from Loom, Monkey Island 1, Monkey Island 2, and Fate of Atlantis for quite some time. A more accurate player for Loom, and a completely new player for Last Crusade appeared in the development version recently, so I'm hoping that means a Monkey Island 1 will follow. But I believe Day of the Tentacle and Sam & Max also had custom Mac instruments, and those aren't supported at this time. I'm always hoping someone who has actually heard the real thing could check it out to see how accurate it is. At least in the games that use iMUSE, each piece of music can appear in several forms, each tagged with an identifier to specify what hardware it's intended for. The DOS versions of Monkey Island 2 and Fate of Atlantis have music tagged as ADL (AdLib), ROL (MT-32), and even some SPK (PC speaker). Day of the Tentacle has ADL, ROL, and GMD (General MIDI). In Sam & Max, everything appears to be simply tagged as MIDI. Based on some very quick testing, so feel free to correct me.

I’ll always have a fondness for the scratchy and weird Mac instrument library the early LucasArts games had because that’s what I grew up with, but at this point my favorite is the MT-32 version. It’s the only version of Monkey Island 2 you can actually turn up the volume for and it sounds better and better. (Also, I thought by the DOTT or Hit the Road era they had moved on to composing for SoundBlaster/Adlib cards? My memory was that MT-32 was the baseline in the early days but eventually they moved off it. Maybe not?)

It's answered in some of the 4 hour conversations Including some of the ones I already recorded and have yet to release (with Sierra composers Neal Grandstaff and Mark Seibert) The short answer is: The composers composed for the Roland and then "downgraded" them for Adlib and downgraded again for the PC speaker. A lot of the times I prefer the Adlib / Soundblaster versions because that's how I remember them from my childhood.

We do! We. Do. 😠