Hello.
Registered here with the main purpose of simply saying "thanks"!
This mixer is just what the doctor ordered and i really wish something like this existed in the old days!

Using an audigy1, external mt32-pi for midi and internal ymf715 for mpu out and opl3.
SB16-emulation from the audigy, it is "good enough" for my purposes.

One small question/suggestion though. Would it be possible to add an option for manually setting a register?
(I read that you lost contact with the programmer, I can figure it out myself but it would help if you could find the part in the source code that accesses the card and sends commands)

There are gobs of weird settings internal to the card to mess with, presumably only crazy people would bother but i do have a use case,
in that I would try to get i2s working with external non-creative things.
Supposedly the audigy has an improvement compared to the older live series, it SHOULD be possible to change from master to slave mode.
But I need to send direct commands to the card to test it.

/bofr

PARUS wrote on 2020-12-20, 11:05:

Yesterday I've run 0.49 version on my old Pentium-2 i440. The EMS volume was 8192-32768 and no problems, no decreases. Later I will recheck it on "hub" chipsets. What config do you using?

Namrok wrote on 2020-12-13, 23:47:

In fact, running emm386 with just NOEMS caused my computer to reboot as well. Which is a new one to me.

It is abnormally. NOEMS is one of regular usual modes for EMM386. What config do you using?

Following up on this old issue, as lately I've spent some time messing around with the machine again.

Running EK1M only reduces my EMS memory to 2MB if it's ran after SBEINIT.COM is run for the SBLive. Running SBLive after I've run EK1M doesn't get me much since it undoes whatever EK1M set. Not really seeking a solution, as my use case still doesn't need EK1M and SBLive drivers at the same time. But it was an extra data point I thought I'd throw out there.

hi parus,
I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freezes instantly (440bx board).
I have no issues with Audigy + Orpheus or SB Live without Orpheus, the mixer works great in that case.

Your mixer is the only reason I use SB Live, I want to use it in DOS to output audio on 5.1 channels, using the Orpheus card as source. It works great with Audigy, but not with SB Live.

any idea what to do to troubleshoot this issue? Thanks.

mihai wrote on 2021-08-10, 22:32:

hi parus, I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freeze […]
Show full quote

hi parus,
I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freezes instantly (440bx board).
I have no issues with Audigy + Orpheus or SB Live without Orpheus, the mixer works great in that case.

Your mixer is the only reason I use SB Live, I want to use it in DOS to output audio on 5.1 channels, using the Orpheus card as source. It works great with Audigy, but not with SB Live.

any idea what to do to troubleshoot this issue? Thanks.

I have this issue as well, usually when rebooting from dos. The problem goes away if i boot into windows 95 and then reboot to dos.
I on the otherhand am using it with a CMI8330 card and an AWE32

theominousmrv wrote on 2023-01-13, 05:27:

mihai wrote on 2021-08-10, 22:32:

hi parus, I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freeze […]
Show full quote

hi parus,
I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freezes instantly (440bx board).
I have no issues with Audigy + Orpheus or SB Live without Orpheus, the mixer works great in that case.

Your mixer is the only reason I use SB Live, I want to use it in DOS to output audio on 5.1 channels, using the Orpheus card as source. It works great with Audigy, but not with SB Live.

any idea what to do to troubleshoot this issue? Thanks.

I have this issue as well, usually when rebooting from dos. The problem goes away if i boot into windows 95 and then reboot to dos.
I on the otherhand am using it with a CMI8330 card and an AWE32

Current solution ive found is launching SBEINIT in your autoexec before ekm049. Seems to keep the freeze away.

theominousmrv wrote on 2023-01-14, 05:34:

theominousmrv wrote on 2023-01-13, 05:27:

mihai wrote on 2021-08-10, 22:32:

hi parus, I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freeze […]
Show full quote

hi parus,
I am using the mixer with a SB Live (0100 or 0220) + an Orpheus card. Once I initialize the SB Live, the system freezes instantly (440bx board).
I have no issues with Audigy + Orpheus or SB Live without Orpheus, the mixer works great in that case.

Your mixer is the only reason I use SB Live, I want to use it in DOS to output audio on 5.1 channels, using the Orpheus card as source. It works great with Audigy, but not with SB Live.

any idea what to do to troubleshoot this issue? Thanks.

I have this issue as well, usually when rebooting from dos. The problem goes away if i boot into windows 95 and then reboot to dos.
I on the otherhand am using it with a CMI8330 card and an AWE32

Current solution ive found is launching SBEINIT in your autoexec before ekm049. Seems to keep the freeze away.

The EK1M mixer is quite buggy (and unlikely to be fixed 🙁) when attempting to initialize it after just powering on the computer. See here for a better workaround that doesn't require SBEINIT: Re: SB Live and Orpheus not playing nice together!

Apparently running any DOS program that has "native" support for the SBLive! prior using the mixer mitigates the issues.

This is a life saver! I found another use case for it: connecting the motherboard's internal speaker to a SB LIVE.

Because I wanted to have the internal speaker sound (mono) output on both speakers, I had to use the TAD connector that does just that... Going through any other "in" connectors would have used only one speaker to output sounds from INT_SPK. The default sbemixer does not control TAD volume level and leaves it on mute. But with "-ai tad ##" it totally works!!

Gmlb256 wrote on 2023-01-15, 20:28:

theominousmrv wrote on 2023-01-14, 05:34:

theominousmrv wrote on 2023-01-13, 05:27:

I have this issue as well, usually when rebooting from dos. The problem goes away if i boot into windows 95 and then reboot to dos.
I on the otherhand am using it with a CMI8330 card and an AWE32

Current solution ive found is launching SBEINIT in your autoexec before ekm049. Seems to keep the freeze away.

The EK1M mixer is quite buggy (and unlikely to be fixed 🙁) when attempting to initialize it after just powering on the computer. See here for a better workaround that doesn't require SBEINIT: Re: SB Live and Orpheus not playing nice together!

Apparently running any DOS program that has "native" support for the SBLive! prior using the mixer mitigates the issues.

I tried this and it seems to work (my issue was more the lack of EMS, not freezing), but the problem for me is that I'm trying to use my Live! for General MIDI to bypass the hanging-note bug that my SB16 model has, and with the MPXPLAY solution, the Live!'s MIDI synth (or MIDI Out) isn't initialized. I'm mostly trying to get it set up where I can play something like Blackthorne in DOS mode with my SBLive! providing GM while my SB16 provides SFX. Is there another solution that I can try that will mitigate this problem?

I feel like if EK1M wasn't so memory-hungry this wouldn't be a problem, but we don't have the source code to the project and I don't know how active PARUS is anymore, so I'm kind of just stuck at the moment with my DOS-mode configuration.

OpenRift wrote on 2024-04-22, 04:21:

I tried this and it seems to work (my issue was more the lack of EMS, not freezing), but the problem for me is that I'm trying to use my Live! for General MIDI to bypass the hanging-note bug that my SB16 model has, and with the MPXPLAY solution, the Live!'s MIDI synth (or MIDI Out) isn't initialized. I'm mostly trying to get it set up where I can play something like Blackthorne in DOS mode with my SBLive! providing GM while my SB16 provides SFX. Is there another solution that I can try that will mitigate this problem?

I feel like if EK1M wasn't so memory-hungry this wouldn't be a problem, but we don't have the source code to the project and I don't know how active PARUS is anymore, so I'm kind of just stuck at the moment with my DOS-mode configuration.

Since you're using the DOS drivers for the SBLive!, using an external mixer is a solution to this problem. I have been using a passive one (like this) and it does the job for me, avoiding having to run EK1M.

BTW, Blackthorne requires slowing down the CPU as the music playback won't work properly regardless of which MIDI device is used. 😉

Gmlb256 wrote on 2024-04-26, 00:04:

OpenRift wrote on 2024-04-22, 04:21:

I tried this and it seems to work (my issue was more the lack of EMS, not freezing), but the problem for me is that I'm trying to use my Live! for General MIDI to bypass the hanging-note bug that my SB16 model has, and with the MPXPLAY solution, the Live!'s MIDI synth (or MIDI Out) isn't initialized. I'm mostly trying to get it set up where I can play something like Blackthorne in DOS mode with my SBLive! providing GM while my SB16 provides SFX. Is there another solution that I can try that will mitigate this problem?

I feel like if EK1M wasn't so memory-hungry this wouldn't be a problem, but we don't have the source code to the project and I don't know how active PARUS is anymore, so I'm kind of just stuck at the moment with my DOS-mode configuration.

Since you're using the DOS drivers for the SBLive!, using an external mixer is a solution to this problem. I have been using a passive one (like this) and it does the job for me, avoiding having to run EK1M.

BTW, Blackthorne requires slowing down the CPU as the music playback won't work properly regardless of which MIDI device is used. 😉

That does sound like a good idea, tho I think I'd need one with multiple outputs; one that goes to speakers, and the other that goes to my main computer.

As for Blackthorne, I thought the music thing was mostly just a problem when running the game in Windows. When I tried it in DOS it seemed to work okay iirc, but I'll have to check again.