Below are details of each sound card and their respective hardware configurations.

Creative Labs Sound Blaster AWE32

Address: 220
Interrupt: 5
DMA: 1/7
MIDI Port: 310
EMU8000: 620
FM: 388

Except for the MIDI port I went with mostly stock hardware settings for the AWE32. This was to ensure broad compatibility with DOS games.

Since the CT3980 version of this card has genuine OPL, it's the primary FM synth card for Adlib support. I haven't installed any extra RAM or an external wavetable card yet, but I may in the future.

For simplicity sake I'm using the UNISOUND driver instead of the Creative Labs driver.

Gravis UltraSound PnP

Address: 260
Interrupt: 11
DMA: 6
SB emulation, MPU-401, FM: disabled

To set up the GUS PnP, I first disabled a lot of the extranous features (SB emulation, MPU-401 support, Adlib) using IWAVECFG. The GUS was then configured with any free hardware resources.

In testing, I discovered that to avoid issues with games that auto-detect Sound Blaster support (e.g. Wolfenstein 3D), I need to initialize the GUS PnP before initializing other cards like the AWE32.

Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 Home Studio Pro (SC8600) + Yamaha DB51XG daughterboard

Address: 240
Interrupt: 7
DMA: 3
MIDI Port (internal): 320
MIDI Port (external): 300
MIDI Interrupt: 10
FM: 388

The Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 was the biggest challenge to set up. After some experimentation, I ended up using a combination of UNISOUND and the stock DOS drivers to initialize this card. In AUTOEXEC.BAT I run UNISOUND first, followed by the Maxi Sound initialization which loads the firmware and sound bank.

For whatever reason, the Maxi Sound driver doesn't properly enable the external wavetable whereas UNISOUND does. And vise-versa, the Maxi Sound driver is needed to load the sound bank for the internal wavetable.

At the moment I've connected a Yamaha DB51XG daughterboard to this card as an alternative to the Roland sample set.

Sound card details and hardware configuration (continued):

Reveal Sound FX Wave 32 (Ensoniq Soundscape clone)

Wave Port: 534
MIDI port: 340
MIDI interrupt: 15
DMA: 0
SB emulation: disabled

For the Reveal card I used the regular Ensoniq Soundscape DOS drivers. They seem to work fine with this card.

The Reveal card does use different IRQs than the standard Ensoniq Soundcape (e.g. IRQ 15 instead of IRQ 10). Though for this set up it doesn't seem to make a difference.

This particular card required some repair work as it was initially missing a capacitor and the main IC had a lot of loose pins.

Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16

Interrupt: 3
DMA: 5
SB emulation: disabled
MPU-401 support: disabled

Had to juggle a few DMA channels to get the PAS16 working, but it seems fine with the IRQ 3 and DMA 5 combination.

Roland SCC-1

MIDI port: 330
Interrupt: 2/9

Since the Roland SCC-1 is intended to be the main MIDI-out for any external modules (MT-32, CM-32L), I kept the settings stock for compatibility reasons.

I've done some tweaking to BIOS settings and tried to optimize performance.

BIOS Settings

Cache Timing - Read: 2111 Fast
Cache Timing - Write: 0 WS

DRAM Wait State - Read: 1 WS
DRAM Wait State - Write: 0 WS

I tried 0WS for DRAM Read, but this resulted in the system failing to boot.

Benchmarks

3D Bench 1.0: 71.4
PC Player Bench (320x200): 15.3
Doom (high detail): 36.1
Quake (320x200): 10.1
Duke Nukem 3D (320x200): 26.0

For general Doom-style games from 1993 to 1995 the system performs well enough. Even Duke Nukem 3D is quite playable at 320x200. Quake not so much. A Pentium OD would probably help more with that game, but at that point a full-blown Pentium is a better option anyway.

Need's a PAS card then you'll cover just about all the options found in games sound setup menu.
Will be interested in finding out which cards are best in which games.

cool.
really like the end result.
been thinking for some time to put together a sound cards sandwitch.

few questions on the practicality side:
- Do you have specific workflows or use cases that touch on R SCC-1 and Y SW60XG, or both are in place just because ?
- Similarly about the MaxiSound and SoundWave cards ?
- Any particular games/apps that target the GUS ?

This is an awesome build. I also loved reading the Midi General build. Can't wait to see the finished setup.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-07, 23:46:

Need's a PAS card then you'll cover just about all the options found in games sound setup menu.
Will be interested in finding out which cards are best in which games.

Hey there, what’s a PAS card?

cloverskull wrote on 2024-01-08, 03:16:

Hey there, what’s a PAS card?

Mediavision Pro Audio Spectrum

Like alot of cards from this era, has cleaner sound then Creative cards but not fully Sound Blaster compatible.
I only mentioned it here as just about all other cards typically included in a game's setup is represented, it doesn't really add anything.

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-07, 23:46:

Need's a PAS card then you'll cover just about all the options found in games sound setup menu.
Will be interested in finding out which cards are best in which games.

That's an intriguing idea. 😀

I have both a regular PAS and PAS16 I could try. I suppose the PAS16 would make more sense given the era this system is best with (e.g. 93 to 95).

I could probably swap out the SW60XG and then add another XG wavetable daughtercard for Yamaha sounds instead.

pshipkov wrote on 2024-01-08, 01:35:

cool.
really like the end result.
been thinking for some time to put together a sound cards sadwitch.

Thank you! Multi-sound card builds like this are a lot of fun and make for an interesting challenge.

few questions on the practicality side:
- Do you have specific workflows or use cases that touch on R SCC-1 and Y SW60XG, or both are in place just because ?

The Roland is mainly for an easy MIDI interface for external modules. I like the mini-DIN jacks they have versus using gameport adapters.

The SW60XG is more or less just because. Though I do like the Yamaha soundset for some games.

- Similarly about the MaxiSound and SoundWave cards ?

The Maxi Sound provides SB Pro support (via the ESS chipset) and the native sound bank is really good. The Reveal card doesn't really have a specific purpose other than being supported with games of that era.

- Any particular games/apps that target the GUS ?

Demos, trackers (e.g. Scream Tracker, Impulse Tracker) and Epic Megagames games. I tend to put a GUS in every DOS build I do for this reason. 😁

chrismeyer6 wrote on 2024-01-08, 01:36:

This is an awesome build. I also loved reading the Midi General build. Can't wait to see the finished setup.

Thank you! I'm going to keep tinkering with it and see how it ultimately ends up. 😀

Did some more experimenting and testing over the past couple days.

PAS16 Install

The first involved removing the Yamaha SW60XG and replacing it with a Media Vision Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (PAS16).

While I had IRQ 3 free, I ended up having to do some DMA juggling to get it to work. This included re-assigning the high DMA channel to 7 for the AWE32, which enabled me to use DMA 5 for the PAS16. I also disabled Sound Blaster and MPU support on the PAS16.

Yamaha DB51XG daughtercard

Since I still want a Yamaha MIDI synth, I opted to replace the DreamBlaster X16GS with a Yamaha DB51XG daughtercard. I also re-assigned the external MIDI port on the Guillemot card to 300, to match the previous SW60XG port.

I also tried the DreamBlaster X16GS with the AWE32, but unfortunately could not get any MIDI playback. If I tried to use any MIDI port other than 300, I would get a report of a MPU-401 error by game setup programs. If I set to 300, I would simply get silence.

I even tried installing the official Creative Labs drivers, but then I ran into the nightmare of Creative's plug 'n play manager spazzing out and rewriting all my settings.

I haven't really attempted to use wavetable headers on AWE32 cards before. From doing some research, it seems like GM playback is problematic at best with the AWE32. I'll probably just forego it. If I really do want another daughterboard, I can always swap out the SCC-1 for an MPU-401AT instead.

MT-32 Testing

Finally, I set to work on configuring the SCC-1 for external module playback. I especially wanted to see if I could get full MT-32 support including for games that are IRQ dependent. This meant juggling more IRQ settings. I had previously set the Reveal (Ensoniq Soundscape) card to use IRQ 9, which created a conflict with the SCC-1.

For whatever reason, setting the IRQ to 15 in the hardware setup didn't work. But on the other hand, setting it in the .INI file and then just having it initialize on bootup did work.

Doing that, as well as disabling the IRQ functionality on the video card enabled me to isolate IRQ 2/9 solely to the Roland SCC-1. Tested it with a handful of MT-32 games including Frederik Pohl's Gateway, and this system fully works with the MT-32 now.

My challenge now is how I'm going to mix all the audio sources.

The primary goal is to be able to mix any MIDI source with any digital audio source.

With the original set up of 4 cards with digital audio and 2 MIDI sources, I planned on a combination of an Edirol M-10MX and an external switch box. MIDI devices would go to the switch box, then output to the M-10MX mixer along with the 4 digital audio sound cards. Since the mixer handles 10 channels (5x stereo), that's an ideal setup.

With 5 digital audio sources (now including the PAS16), I need an extra pair of audio channels to mix everything. I could potentially go the route of submixing or alternatively break out a much larger mixer.

Great build, i have similar sound card oriented PC (P166MMX) but i "only" have 4 sound cards (AWE 32, SW60XG, SCC1, GUS ACE + MP32Pi).
Audio mixing was big problem until i built an 4 channel mixer + equaliser to 5.25 bay, from chinese aliexpress components. Everything works exellent now.

So you have completed "the list" nice, I've always wanted to do this but lack the hardware and it's fair amount of money for what is really a pointless quest.
Other games have more options, soundscape been common off top of my head, could be fun to see how many games you can complete the list for 😀

(At least in Doom, I never counted the 3 external midi options, General Midi, WaveBlaster, Sound Canvas. From what I understand all 3 just send the same commands to the midi interface not changing anything to better suit the named device)

chinny22 wrote on 2024-01-10, 23:42:

So you have completed "the list" nice, I've always wanted to do this but lack the hardware and it's fair amount of money for what is really a pointless quest.
Other games have more options, soundscape been common off top of my head, could be fun to see how many games you can complete the list for 😀

Certainly for games like Doom with relatively few audio options, supporting them all is do-able. But as you say, the number of options with later games tends to increase quite a bit for some of them. Trying to have a single system to support all audio choices in a game like Descent, for example, probably not feasible.

(At least in Doom, I never counted the 3 external midi options, General Midi, WaveBlaster, Sound Canvas. From what I understand all 3 just send the same commands to the midi interface not changing anything to better suit the named device)

I've noticed similar things in other games with both MIDI and FM sources. For example, Warcraft's music options include a variety of FM choices, but they all just output to port 388.

I suppose this was just to make it easier for the end user to ensure they pick the correct option for whatever sound card they had.

psychofox wrote on 2024-01-10, 08:22:

Great build, i have similar sound card oriented PC (P166MMX) but i "only" have 4 sound cards (AWE 32, SW60XG, SCC1, GUS ACE + MP32Pi).

Thank you! That's a solid line up of audio options you have, and covers all the top tier choices.

Once one has Sound Blaster Pro compatible + GUS + Sound Canvas + MT-32, that covers the best of almost every single game for 90s DOS.

Audio mixing was big problem until i built an 4 channel mixer + equaliser to 5.25 bay, from chinese aliexpress components. Everything works exellent now.

That sounds like a cool project. So you have a mixer installed directly into a 5 1/4" bay? How does audio get routed into it?

I set up a mixer to be able to fully mix all 6 sound cards, plus external modules. For this I need something with 14 channels and happened to have an Allan & Heath ZED14 mixer on hand.

It's a bit over-the-top size-wise, but it is nice to control over the audio signals including EQ for each device. I may keep this for future projects as the aux routing options will make it easy to do audio recording.

Man that mixer is almost as big as the PC! but it's just lying around then makes perfect sense.
I run audio extension cables from the back of each PC and manually plug the speakers into which ever PC I'm using at the time, takes a lot less space but naturally no ability to mix different sources