To be honest, I don't understand the logic of an 'authentic' experience which is unsatisfactory, i.e. an MT-32 or SC-55 recording which has dropped notes. Surely the objective of an out of game recording is to *remove* such unsatisfactory experiences. SQ5's Main Theme runs out of time in game to play the full piece, and then the Introduction omits the Glockenspiel part to play sound effects. Should we delete 20 seconds off the former, and the Glock part on the latter, to have an 'authentic' experience?The recordings I'm making will use a single MT-32. I'm trying to record the "authentic experience", recreating what you'd have heard while playing the original game on a single target synth.
Sierra composers did have daisy chained devices, and quite often they never heard the tracks in game to see how it worked out. Many times, they had moved on to other projects! Pretty sure Rudy Helm was gone from Sierra before QFG3 even launched, and Neal Grandstaff was working at Dynamix (on a MIDI score for RAMA, that was shelved) by the time SQ6 finally shipped.
If there were polyphony issues, it was a *mistake*, not a feature- Rob Atesalp told me the other day he was proud he never had polyphony issues with any of his scores (he painstakingly made sure there weren't, and I'm pretty sure he's right). Same goes for distortion in games like Colonel's Bequest and KQ4.
One I forgot when mentioning specific devices- QFG4 was likely composed for a SC-55mkII, and runs out of notes in a few places on an original SC-55. There are only isolated examples in other games (perhaps one in GK1).
The Sierra MT-32 scores with polyphony issues I can remember are LSL3 (eg Bambi), LSL5 (eg Closing Theme), PQ3 (eg Closing Theme). I haven't played with real hardware for a LONG time though, so I'm sure I've forgotten several.