I've just tested a Maui card. IMHO, I'd place it alongside an AWE32 in terms of wavetable audio quality, for General Midi music in a DOS game.
Bottom line: disappointing.

retro games 100 wrote:

I've just tested a Maui card. IMHO, I'd place it alongside an AWE32 in terms of wavetable audio quality, for General Midi music in a DOS game.
Bottom line: disappointing.

Dissapointing it is then... still I am kinda curious as to how it sounds, as I never heard any 'ICS Wavefront' chipset music. Any chance you could record a mp3? (Preferably the song from descent so I can compare it with the others, example) IIRC Silent Loon has the same Midi engine on his Turtle Beach Tropez classic soundcard.

Another thing, Can you upload custom soundbanks for use in Dos games?

Re: MP3 Descent recording - please could you provide me with an idiot's guide to doing this? Thanks. (Please note that the soundcard is currently installed on a 486 running DOS 6.22)

Re: uploading custom soundbanks for Dos games - my guess is that you can't. I've skimmed through the printed manual, and I can't see anything to do with that.

Below is a photo of the Maui's initialization information. At the end of this info, it mentions samples. This initialization takes about 25 seconds to perform!

A friend of mine had a Maui back in the 90's. He said it took awhile to load at DOS startup, but was pretty happy with the sound. This was way before I "collected" wavetable boards, so I never bought one. Once the Roland SCD-15 daughterboard came out, there was no reason to look elsewhere!

Now though.... variety is the spice of life.

retro games 100 wrote:

Re: MP3 Descent recording - please could you provide me with an idiot's guide to doing this? Thanks. (Please note that the soundcard is currently installed on a 486 running DOS 6.22)

Actually the link gerwin gave above will give you some idea (the author also did recording while the cards were in a 486).
edit: sorry, the link above is the conclusion page, look at the second page instead or...
here's the full-page link

You'll be recording in analogue, so take your best sound card with the highest quality line-in to take the signal from the source being recorded.

Interconnect from TB Maui card Line-out -> recording sound card's Line-in

Choose your software. You may record in .wav then encode to MP3 afterwards, if your software doesn't offer real-time MP3 encoding.

Happy recording! 😀

valnar wrote:

... Once the Roland SCD-15 daughterboard came out, there was no reason to look elsewhere!

After only just listening to a few samples, i have to disagree 😀 ... From a few sources, I compared Descent intro samples from SCC-1, Yamaha DB50XG and Dream SA9407, and i like the SCC-1 the least. The Yamaha has the edge here, though it sounds more like 80's disco while the Dream is more techno with heavier beat. There is this part somewhere between the 30th to 40th second or so, where the Yamaha clearly wins--the riffs on the other two are slightly muted. On the whole though, the Dream SA9407 fits the character of the game the best. Just my opinion of course.

Then again in other titles, things might change. I am not yet familiar with any one of them, but i can safely assume that no one is the "overall" winner. Just a specific wavetable setup for a specific composition/title, to each person's taste or preference.

So "keep looking (and listening) elsewhere" indeed! 😉

Btw valnar, is that name "SCM-15AT" familiar to people? I'm afraid it isn't even printed on the actual PCB--might be safer to say "MPU-401AT + SCB-55" or just the SCB-55 instead.

@archsan, thanks very much for the soundcards information link. Regarding making a recording of the Descent music with a Maui soundcard, I have a possible plan of action. On the back of the Maui, there is a "headphone sized" port labelled OUT, and I could put a cable in there, and feed it in to the back of my modern XP-based box which has a Creative X-Fi soundcard in it. I'm sure there's some Creative software I've got with a Record button on it - I did a full install of the X-Fi software. I would do this immediately, except for one minor snag - I've got no "headphone sized" male-to-male lead.

I was wondering if I could swap out my DOS 6.22 HDD on the 486, and use a Win98SE HDD instead - then, run Descent inside a "dos box", and then run a Win98 app which could record the music?

Other than the above idea (which unfortunately doesn't sound all that promising), I would have to buy a cable.

Edit: The win98 recording idea is completely daft, because I'd need 2 soundcards. I need to get myself a cable instead...

Stereo 3.5mm 'minijack' cable? Are you sure you don't have one lying around (from a set of computer speakers perhaps, usually with green plugs)? It's cheap though. As long as you use a short enough (3ft or less) cable, signal degradation should not be an issue.

archsan wrote:

Stereo 3.5mm 'minijack' cable? Are you sure you don't have one lying around (from a set of computer speakers perhaps, usually with green plugs)? It's cheap though. As long as you use a short enough (3ft or less) cable, signal degradation should not be an issue.

I understand that I need a cable with a 3.5mm male plug on one end to go in to the "OUT" port on the Maui, and a 3.5mm male plug on the other end of this cable, which will go in to a port on the back of the X-Fi soundcard. Unfortunately, I don't have this type of cable. I use a pair of headphones for testing my soundcards, but I do have access to a pair of multimedia speakers. Unfortunately, on these speakers, the cabling is not suitable for this recording experiment as they use a "phono type" plug.

I'm the one who gets confused. Do you mean the Maui has phono/RCA line-out?

archsan wrote:

I'm the one who gets confused. Do you mean the Maui has phono/RCA line-out?

No, on the back of the Maui, there are 3 ports. 1 looks like a serial port. I have the cable for this. It's actually the MIDI port. The other 2 ports on the back of the Maui are labelled IN and OUT. They are both 3.5mm ports. I plug my headphones in to the IN port. I was hoping to plug another cable in to the OUT port, so that this cable would then go in to the back of a Creative X-Fi soundcard (on my XP-based box), for recording purposes, but unfortunately I don't have a male-to-male 3.5mm cable.

I was explaining that I am unable to use the cabling on some multimedia speakers I have here for the Descent music recording idea, because it uses cabling which isn't suitable for the from Maui -> to -> X-Fi soundcard.

Sorry then, i thought most multimedia speakers will have the (stereo) minijack interconnect cable. I mean, with all the PC soundcards you've got and you don't have one male-to-male minijack cable?? 😁 ☮️

Btw, shouldn't the headphone goes into your X-Fi's SPK/LINE OUT or something, if you want to also listen/monitor while recording?

archsan wrote:

Sorry then, i thought most multimedia speakers will have the minijack interconnect cable. I mean, with all the PC soundcards you've got and you don't have one male-to-male minijack cable?? 😁 ☮️

Btw, shouldn't the headphone goes into your X-Fi's speaker out or something, if you want to also listen/monitor while recording?

OK, I'm going to have to get one of these things. (I'm afraid I need about 3 metres in length.)

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt … _fvi%3D1&_rdc=1

Regarding your "headphone / X-Fi / listen to recording" comment. Sure, I don't see a problem there.

I just installed Descent, and listened to the opening music using the Maui. I would describe the overall quality as "a bit lifeless - lacking sparkle".

...Never mind.
Btw do you know of any link to a sample of KORG wavetable playing Descent intro? It would be great to compare that to Yamaha XG and Dream.

On a related theme, I've just tested a Tropez card, and somewhat unsurprisingly it sounds the same as the Maui. During DOS boot-up, the card's Wavesample ROM capacity is displayed as an identical value to that of the Maui. This particular Tropez soundcard has no onboard RAM SIMMs. I briefly tested the SoundBlaster Pro digital effects inside Descent's Setup utility, and it sounded poor.

Sorry for causing you all this trouble Retro Games 😁, but I figure you don't dislike messing around with soundcards this way?

retro games 100 wrote:

On a related theme, I've just tested a Tropez card, and somewhat unsurprisingly it sounds the same as the Maui. During DOS boot-up, the card's Wavesample ROM capacity is displayed as an identical value to that of the Maui. This particular Tropez soundcard has no onboard RAM SIMMs. I briefly tested the SoundBlaster Pro digital effects inside Descent's Setup utility, and it sounded poor.

Which chipset or PCB markings does that Tropez card have? There are about four cards form Turtle Beach with the name Tropez in it.

archsan wrote:

Btw do you know of any link to a sample of KORG wavetable playing Descent intro? It would be great to compare that to Yamaha XG and Dream.

I uploaded one some time ago, it has the midi file from that particular descent track: Midi: Dream and Topwave-32 samplesets

Below Descent intro played by TB Tropez Classic and Ultima Underworld 1 intro played by the Tropez with MT32 compatible patchbank loaded.
I used an Audigy 2 and Audacity (under Ubuntu) to record it.

Maybe we should move this to an extra thread?

to moderator: Are there any copyright issues about posting those sound samples (for historical purposes & soundcard comparison)? If so, i will remove the files.

EDIT: As I'm not sure about copyright issues in this case, I've deleted the attachements. Anyone who needs sound examples for private purposes can contact me v. pm.

@gerwin,

>>I figure you don't dislike messing around with soundcards this way?

Your assumption is absolutely correct! 😀

>>Which chipset or PCB markings does that Tropez card have?

Please see attached photo - the Tropez (Rev 2.0) card is at the top, the Maui at the bottom. Also, on the back of the Tropez card is a sticker which reads: "FCC ID: JMN-TBS-TROP-PC00"

@Silent Loon,

Your Descent recording sounds a bit better than my Maui & Tropez cards. However, I am testing my cards in DOS with no specific patchbanks loaded.

...und hier ist das Handbuch, stating "honkin' game compatability"! Yay! 😁