review:
http://www.ibiblio.org/GameBytes/issue19/grev … ews/smwave.html

The 'CGW Ultimate Soundcard' article you posted reviews the Soundman Wave, but it doesn't get a good rating there.

I do not have a Soundman wave. But I do have another OPL4 soundcard from that time, being an exotic Audiotrix Pro. It is an interesting card, but the midi music sounds quite a bit different from a Roland-Soundcanvas.

Too bad I didn't keep Logitech's demo audio CD. 😉

This may not the most applicable example of the OPL4, as relates to the Soundman Wave, but recordings of the "44-voice" AudioTriX Pro demonstration tunes can be found here.

While both the Logitech and AudioTriX use Yamaha's YRW801 sample ROM, and despite the fact that natively-composed music sounds quite nice, playback of SC-composed music is only tolerable, in my opinion - and this, despite the fact that MediaTriX did some "tweaking" in order to obtain the FAT Seal...

Also, since the Soundman Wave uses Media Vision's flawed JAZZ16 chipset (the whole card looks like a MV design to me...), it's plagued with a hanging MIDI note problem.

Nice overview you linked too.

Sorry for drifting off topic, and dragging in the the info from that link, but what is the link between Mediatrix and Adlib then? They are both Canadian allright, but their existence overlaps, as Adlib also sold several sound card models after the Adlib Gold that are newer then the Audiotrix Pro. Being the Adlib MSC 16 and 32 and ASB 32 and/or 64.

Audiotrix Pro is a nice card, The CS4231 gives good SNR and also gives solid WSS compatibility. Genuine OPL3 FM music and odd but genuine+compatible OPL4 Midi music. As a bonus it has solid SB compatibility (but no SB-Pro Stereo, except in windows 3.1).
Fortunatly I managed to find the drivers/software on driverguide. Really the last mirror on the net for that one.
(My particular card is without any extra modules. It is in a plain box with a label that reads "Audiotrixpro soundcard for DEC Celebris" and "Property of ATM Ltd". I think the cards date stamp is 11-1994)

gerwin wrote:

...what is the link between Mediatrix and Adlib then?

The story, from what I've gathered, it is basically this:

Ad Lib Inc., having declared bankruptcy, officially closed their doors on 01-May-1992. Their assets were put up to auction by the Canadian government, and MediaTriX, though a bidder, lost out to a "German conglomerate" (referred to in the Wikipedia article*). With new owners, Ad Lib Inc. was then resurrected as Ad Lib MultiMedia Inc., and the majority of prior employees were dismissed, including the Ad Lib Gold engineering team.

Ad Lib Multimedia Inc. went on to ship the remaining Ad Lib Gold stock, and later released the mediocre (Taiwanese-designed?) MSC/ASB 16/32/64 cards.

The End.

Except...

MediaTriX, seizing an opportunity, hired the former Ad Lib engineers, who later designed the innovative and successful AudioTriX Pro and 3D/XG cards. Furthermore, the same composers responsible for the Ad Lib demonstration tunes, since inception, also continued to provide their talents to MediaTriX.

Through MediaTriX, the Ad Lib legacy lived on.

Audiotrix Pro is a nice card...

Agreed. 😀

I've not had one long, but I'm already quite fond of it. Despite my complaining about the wavetable ROM, it's a very well-designed card, both from a hardware and software perspective.

(* - There seems to be an abundance of ignorance in this article, especially as relates to the Ad Lib Gold, so be forewarned.)

Thanks for this info Cloudschatze! Kinda nice to have a piece of Adlib history in the Audiotrix Pro. I already liked it because both the CS4231 and OPL-4 chip deserve a place in my humble sound card collection.

I also noticed your picture of an AudioTrix 3D-XG, I am kinda curious as to what chips are on the host card. The wavetable obscures it.

gerwin wrote:

I also noticed your picture of an AudioTrix 3D-XG, I am kinda curious as to what chips are on the host card. The wavetable obscures it.

Beneath the DB60XG is a Yamaha YMF715E (OPL3-SA3).

swaaye wrote:

So, way back in '93 or '94, I ordered a demo CD from Logitech that explained to me how awesome wavetable was for gaming. Had some tunes on it in both FM and supposed Soundman Wave output.

While reading a bunch of old newsgroup stuff today, I stumbled into a complaint-filled thread about how the non-FM recordings on that Logitech demo CD weren't of the Soundman Wave, or even the OPL4, at all.

Is this officially an anti-Soundman thread yet? 😏

Hi,
I got the Logitech Soundman Wave a few days ago but cannot find any drivers. Could anyone who has the card please send me the drivers or upload them somewhere? I would need the DOS, Win3x and W9x drivers.
Thanks in advance,
Fab

I have a boxed Soundman Wave with drivers, but will return from a vacation only after 10th of July.

Oh that's cool. Would be very nice if you can make images direct from the floppies. Maybe you can upload the whole set of disks to vogondrivers.com.
Btw. I tried other OPL4 cards before (miro PCM12 and Yamaha SW20) and both had a rather bad signal to noise ratio. My hope is that the Soundman wave has a better ratio and a clearer output signal. The built quality looks 100% MediaVision so I think MV produced this card and as far as I can tell there is no quality MediaVision card which is noisy (applies not to the ThunderBoard but that was a budget card while the Pro AudioSpectrum was their high end product).

Cheers
Fab

I've made it to the Soundman Wave box. Alas, the original driver floppy disk is not there. The previous owner had non-original floppy with drivers supplied. I don't know whether is it an exact copy of the original one, but nevertheless. I tried to upload to Vogonsdrivers but there was some error while uploading. Will upload ASAP.

Driver diskette has been uploaded to Vogonsdrivers.

Drivers I found online

shock__ wrote:

Drivers I found online

Thanks, but despite its name, this package only contains Windows 95 drivers and three pieces of software bundled with SoundMan Wave.

Trouble is I don't know where to get DOS drivers, which should contain SMWSET.SYS file needed to init the soundcard.

So far only Win95 drivers are available. I also have a driver update for Win 3.1 (which is useless without the original Win 3.1 driver package), and nothing for DOS.

bristlehog, I hunted around and found the DOS and original Windows 3.1 and Windows 95 drivers for the Logitech SoundMan Wave on the hated DriverGuide. (Haven't thoroughly virus-scanned what was downloaded but I reasonably trust it. Used their downloader, declined all things it wanted to do, downloaded inside a sandbox VM, and virus-scanned after: I should be okay.)

They had this to say:

This driver is only for the Logitech SoundMan Wave card. It is a Full set with all drivers from DOS/W3.1/W95 along with the upda […]
Show full quote

This driver is only for the Logitech SoundMan Wave card. It is a Full set with all drivers from DOS/W3.1/W95 along with the updated Windows drivers and HTML help/FAQ files. Enclosed are the 3 disks for the Logitech SoundMan Wave card. These drivers are NOT for the Logitech SoundMan card which is a different card than the Logitech SoundMan Wave model. Updated Windows/DOS drivers are at http://www.logitech.com, these are version 1.0 which shipped with the cards.

Disks are named:

• SndWave1 <---Install
• SndWave2
• SndWave3

I looked through your upload, and what files you had were already included.

This is 99% the same as what shock__ found. And you're wrong, I think: SMWSET.SYS is found within soundwa1.zip in shock__'s and inside install_discs\SndWave1 in mine - you need to run the installer to decompress or otherwise rename it from SMWSET.SY%.

Moved a few files around inside it and uploaded here: http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=758

[EDIT] just repacked them to avoid confusion.

Aha, seems I've missed something. I will test the DOS drivers when I have time.

Logitech SoundMan Wave Technical Reference (March 1994)
Courtesy of Bitsavers.org.
http://www.vogonsdrivers.com/getfile.php?fileid=818

Stiletto wrote:

Logitech SoundMan Wave Technical Reference (March 1994)

Great find, Stiletto!