The more I look at it the more it looks like an adapter board for someone trying to make a standalone XG box. I've passed up a lot of cheap opportunities (doublefish/garfield) and now these things seem to be hard to find. I guess I'll have to resort to begging on Amibay. Sorry for the wasted post.

Indeed that looks a board that when populated it can power a Waveblaster Daughterboard and provide midi in/out connections in order to make it a "standalone" device.
You might want to look for a MU-10 , it's a DB-60XG in a box.

I was looking at the MU-10. That's where temptation kind of takes over. It justs seems like if I get an MU-10 I might as well get an MU-80 and if I get an MU-80 I might as well get an MU-2000. 😀

If this is for gaming reasons then anything better than the MU-10 is going to be a waste... unless ofcourse you are going to use it to compose

I just mean that now that absolutely everything is considered rare, baseline prices (that I've seen) for a lot of things like this seem to be $100. In my mind if I'm spending $100 I might as well spend $200-$300. Plus I haven't seen very many MU-10s on ebay. I've been working my way over to Amibay slowly, but I feel weird buying off a forum. Waste or not, the more expensive ones seem to be more readily available since everyone jumps on the cheap option. It seems like MT32s went for $50 for a long time and now the ones I see seem to go for $100+.

ah, now I see your point 😉

regarding AmiBay, don't feel weird 😀 make a thread in the "Wanted Hardware / Other" section , take a good look at the feedback of the person that offers you an item and don't use paypal-gift option , you'll be fine... there are several retro-pc related people there, I'm sure a DB-50XG or 60XG will be easy to find

Yeah, it's just the hype that is created on forums like this and via youtube...

If you want a XG synth you can check out the free S-YXG50, IMO quite authentic to DB50XG.

I could play around with the software one a bit to see how I like it. I think a version came with my YMF719 card. What's the minimum system requirements for a good steady playback? It would probably be on Win98.

You can disregard the "XGlite" (or whatever) one that came with ISA cards, it's garbage... though speaking of cards, the PCI ones (YMF724) have a good hardware XG synth and should be affordable to get.

The free S-YXG50 package needs 2k/XP so it wouldn't be of use to you if you intend to use it with 98. An option for obtaining that synth for 9x would be the PC version of Final Fantasy VII, it came with S-YXG70 IIRC.

In the US MT-32s are very common and cheap on Craigslist. Sometimes as low as $25: usually $50.
http://sacramento.craigslist.org/ele/4394663612.html
http://austin.craigslist.org/msg/4335110821.html
https://modesto.craigslist.org/msg/4420239282.html
http://binghamton.craigslist.org/msg/4420981766.html
http://bham.craigslist.org/msg/4398433498.html
http://philadelphia.craigslist.org/msg/4386637238.html

Same applies to the FB-01. MU-01 appears rare.

Will California Craigslist customers ship to Oklahoma? I'll have to check my local Craigslist, but I'm not sure if they'll be as common in the sticks. I'll check into FF7, but I think it may be on the rare list outside of the Steam version. Is a YMF724 comparable to a DB50XG? I thought you had to get a SW1000XG or whatever the standalone card was called. Sorry to rapid fire so many questions, everyone kind of came in at once. Thanks for your help.

Here is a thread with some info on YMF724. I believe WF192 came with S-YXG50 as well.

SW1000XG is a higher spec card.

A lot of the sites I've seen say the lite version of the software synth was the S-YXG20. Was there a regular version and a lite version of the S-YGX50? My YMF719 card is an Xwave 128 and the certificate that came with it just says S-YXG50 ver 2.0. The YMF724 could be an interesting option too, but it seems like they aren't as good as a DB50.

I'm not sure about the S-YXG50, all I know is that there are 2 MB and 4 MB sample sets for it. I don't recall many differences when comparing those. The 4 MB one wasn't really distinguishable from my DB60XG clone, it even has the same clipping issues with high volume.

About your card, maybe some ISA ones came bundled with S-YXG50 then. I have a YMF719 as well, Genius branded, and downloading the 9x drivers from the Yamaha site only gave me that XGlite synth. While it works in 9x DOS it sounded quite horrible even on highest quality settings. I don't know if the 9x S-YXG50 will work in DOS games, but it's worth trying out if you have the CD for it.

The conversation has taken another turn, but I figured I'd mention that I sourced the PCB and components for the Elektor design several years ago, and completed one such build. The AC transformer used for this design is exceptionally difficult to find in non-European voltages.

That is cool. Sorry if things strayed off-topic.