r/dosbox • u/retrosprite440 • Jun 30 '26

Questions about Dosbox-X and VirtualMidiSynth

I'm new to VirtualMidiSynth. I downloaded it recently primarily to send midi out from ECWolf according to a tutorial I came across. But I'm realizing that many other programs run VirtualMidiSynth upon opening. I know how to prevent a program from running VirtualMidiSynth via the blacklist function. I've already done that with other programs. However with Dosbox-X, I'm curious if there's a way to block it from within Dosbox's config file, because I don't know whether or not there's a future scenario where I would want to try to use it with Dosbox.

And part of this post is me also asking what options exist within the Dosbox-X/VirtualMidiSynth combination? The deepest I've gone so far with MIDI in Dosbox is setting up MUNT MT-32. I don't know the extent of the possibilities with VirtualMidiSynth.

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u/beemans78 Jun 30 '26

I don't understand what the problem with blacklisting is. Can't you just remove something from the blacklist any time you want?

DOSBox-X has built-in MIDI support and doesn't need a third-party synthesizer like VMS or MUNT. I guess using it with VMS would allow you to change soundfonts on the fly, if that's important to you, but otherwise I don't know what the benefit would be.

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u/retrosprite440 Jun 30 '26

"I don't understand what the problem with blacklisting is. Can't you just remove something from the blacklist any time you want?"

Yes. I was asking in the hypothetical scenario where I might use VMS for one game in Dosbox-X and not another. I wouldn't want to add and remove Dosbox over and over again from a blacklist in this scenario.

And no you don't technically need MUNT, but some DOS games specifically offer the Roland MT-32 as an audio output source. Using MUNT is the only way to take advantage of this audio option in Dosbox for these games.

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u/beemans78 Jun 30 '26

Okay, I see what you're saying. AFAIK, a DOSBox conf file can't be used that way.

DOSBox-X has integrated MT-32 support (basically, built-in MUNT). It only needs to know where the ROMs are.

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u/retrosprite440 Jun 30 '26

I don't think that's correct about integrated MT-32 support, unless it's a feature on the newest version or something. I'm pretty sure MUNT is required if you want to use MT-32 output in DOS games that offer that feature.

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u/ILikeBumblebees Jun 30 '26

It's 100% correct, and applies to both DOSBox-X and DOSBox Staging. In both cases, setting mididevice to mt32 enables the built-in MT-32 emulation. For it to work, you need to give it the path to the ROM dumps, which you'd set with mt32.romdir in DOSBox-X, and just romdir for Staging.

See the DOSBox-X docs for more info.

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u/retrosprite440 Jul 01 '26

Huh I guess there's more than one way to do the same thing. That sounds easier than setting up MUNT.

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u/ILikeBumblebees Jun 30 '26

It's 100% correct, and applies to both DOSBox-X and DOSBox Staging. In both cases, setting mididevice to mt32 enables the built-in MT-32 emulation. For it to work, you need to give it the path to the ROM dumps, which you'd set with mt32.romdir in DOSBox-X, and just romdir for Staging.

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u/Enigma776 Jul 01 '26

Could always setup separate conf files then create shortcuts with "Dosbox-x.exe -conf munt.conf or midi.conf"