Has anyone ever not had stuck / wrong notes from a Roland DB on a Sound Blaster DB header? If so please let me know which card. Maybe I can do something with the first post of this thread.

Your best bet is to simply use two cards. One for speech and one for driving your DB.

If you're driving an external unit, an AWE64 is a good option as it doesn't have this bug anymore.

swaaye wrote:

Has anyone ever not had stuck / wrong notes from a Roland DB on a Sound Blaster DB header? If so please let me know which card. Maybe I can do something with the first post of this thread.

Sure, why would it be any different from external modules anyway. it is the exact same midi signal.
All my Soundblasters have messed up midi with any daughterboard: CT2800, CT2860, CT2940, CT2950.
The AWE64 Gold does quite a bit better, but still cannot run TIE-Fighter with sound FX and midi music. My AWE64 Gold has horrible OPL3 output.

The CT2800 and CT2860 have faint ringing noises in their sound FX channel.

The CT2940 and CT2950 are very usuable when they have a true OPL3-L and are combined with a Roland MPU-401AT or similar. In Fact: that is the best setup I could find.

Yeah I have not had any luck with my SCD15 on any SB card that I've tried. Even an original version of the SB16 with the oldest DSP. It works perfectly with ESS and Aureal boards however.

Just installed my sb16 clone, which has creative chips - 1701, 1747, 1745-S - with a db50xg daughterboard. The dsp is v413.

So far no hanging notes though I haven't used it all that much but certainly no immediate hanging notes and nothing after playing hexen warp 02 for 5-10 minutes.

Is there likely to be a difference with it not being creative, or should I expect trouble?

o/t: Was slightly surprised that card just installed from default 98 drivers and runs fine, as I couldn't find specs or jumper settings . Model is an sf16-mcd-02, so appears to be a Media Forte SoundForte card; mcd of course indicates mulitple cd interface. Nearest on stason is sf16-fmr, but whatever, card works so i'm happy].

Got at least two stuck notes on my SoundBlaster Vibra16 CT2260 when trying out my newly-acquired NEC XR385 on it. I'm really starting to develop an intense dislike for the SoundBlaster 16 now. Either the cards are prone to the hanging notes, they use CQM instead of OPL3 or both. 😒

I've said as much in previous posts. If you want to use MIDI don't even bother with a sound blaster. I use a YMF719 with my XR385 and SC-55.

That sums it up Ace...

You have a few choices:

You can use two cards, just make sure they don't share any resources. Because the hanging note bug is squashed if you only play MIDI (no speech on the same card).

Get a Roland MPU401AT or one of the few clones and use this as your dedicated MIDI card. Set the MIDI port of your Sound Blaster to 300 to avoid any conflicts.

Or go external with an AWE64 Gold. Also no hanging bug note on that card, but you got to live without the OPL3.

Or get a clone card and see if you find one that you're happy with.

I just go with a MPU401AT, external Roland gear and an AWE64 GOLD for speech and that combination works very well.

For OPL3 I just use my Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, but I'm really more into MIDI anyway.

Getting a Roland MPU-401/AT is probably good advice; the hard part will be to find such a card.
Are there any clones of the MPU-401/AT? With the WaveBlaster header I mean.

Hey, does anyone know if Asound cards have a hanging note bug? They're SB-16 compatible. I have an ALS-100 that still works. If nobody has an answer, I'll test it next weekend.

I've experienced this problem with my AWE32, it's a CT-3990 card. But it only seems to happen with certain games while using my Yamaha XG clone daughterboard. I tend to use my Sound Canvas for most of the Midi tunes. I had an old 17xx something SB-16 in there prior to the AWE32, same hanging note problems. The AWE32 is the ISA model, without jumpers.

I wonder if it would make sense to run a SB64 and a SB32 AWE with DB side by side.
Use the 64 for digital and the SB32 for either Midi or OPL3.
The SB AWE 32 (non PNP) takes IRQ5... and the AWE 64 PnP takes whats left.

Yes that should work really well.

See the AWE64 as the main Sound Blaster card and the AWE32 as the OPL / MIDI card and configure it that way.

So the AWE64 should go 220/7/1/5/300 and the AWE32 whatever else is left like 240/5/3/?/330.

And the best thing is that the FM address of the AWE64GOLD can also be changed. So no conflict whatsoever 😀

Am I the only one too emotionally attached to the SB16 that I don't even consider changing it? 😜

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

And the best thing is that the FM address of the AWE64GOLD can also be changed. So no conflict whatsoever 😀

Are you aware that there are multiple FM addresses. The usual 388h and the soundblaster base address+offset (220h).

Yes and on the AWE64 you can change 388 to something else!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yes and on the AWE64 you can change 388 to something else!

There are games that send FM to 220h+offset, and will in your example go through the AWE64, regardless of 388h, or what it has been changed to.

gerwin wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Yes and on the AWE64 you can change 388 to something else!

There are games that send FM to 220h+offset, and will in your example go through the AWE64, regardless of 388h, or what it has been changed to.

But the AWE64 sits on 240 + different offset now.

Just to clarify I'm not talking about just changing 220 to 240 but also changing 388 to something else.

It works as in some games like Descent you can specify the 388 address and set it to something else.

In your previous example you put the awe64 on 220h as the main soundblaster.

Maybe you misunderstand the "offset", let me explain:

388h was defined by Adlib for OPL2. Later 388h+1 was used for an additional OPL3 stereo channel IIRC.

Creative Labs defined the Sound Blaster I/O range. It is just one continous range which starts with the base address: for example 220h,220h+1,220h+2,220h+3 etc.. And that range includes two new FM ports.

Some games allow you to choose the FM address, some send FM to the classic Adlib range, but some send FM to the creative labs I/O range.

DOH! Other way round of course 😀

AWE64 goes to A240 and the AWE32 to A220.

But regarding the offset you confused me even more. 😊

The other option is to mute FM on the AWE64. Because otherwise FM will come out of both cards.