You should add a 10µF e-cap there in place of the ceramics, with positive side towards the sound chip, that will eliminate all the highpassing issues. I suggest it to be done to all the inputs to increase sound quality, you will get rid of the highpassing and also distortion caused by the MLCC dielectrics (these are not C0G/NP0 types).

The CD audio volume is really odd. It's fine as long as the WSS Mixer in setupsa is active but once switching to the SB Mixer, the volume is dropping. Adlib volume is adjusted with the WSS sliders and playing CD audio (CD drive play button) while launching a game with Adlib as soundcard gives full CD volume. So the card is able to output CD audio in higher volume, just doesn't want to do so in SB mode.

YMF71x switcher between WSS and SB mixer according to what side was last accessed. WSS mixer has much finer settings than the SB mixer and SETUPSA doesn't actually expose you the real decibel figures. My SETYMF does, you can find it here : http://www.tmeeco.eu/TKAYBSC
Running an SB game or sound test beforehand will switch to SB mixer values and the Adlib only game will then use those values unless it somehow triggers WSS mode for the sound card which is unlikely.
That reminds me, I don't actually explicity make sure the card is in SB or WSS mixer state in SETYMF when the program exits. I'll have to look into it.

I can't get FX Sound in any Doom series games with my YMF719 If I select an external MIDI Device in Doom's SETUP.EXE . I've tried with two different board (GENIUS brand) in two different systems. I got MIDI Music but no FX Sound. If I select Sound Blaster as Music Card I have both, music and FX...SETUPSA seems to be OK. Not Windows or DOSBox, just plain DOS. Any clue?
UPDATE: An ESS1868 Card works perfect..

I've finally gotten around to trying out the low pass filter mod on my Labway OPLSAx card (described here Re: Yamaha YMF71x SB Pro Mixer Bug Issue Fix) - mine is the same card as the OP except mine has the YMF718-S chipset, not the 719. The layout is exactly the same though.

I've used 0805 6.8nF SMD capacitors as suggested but hear no difference in the output - it's still the same, dry, unfiltered sound I've always experienced with the various YMF71x cards I've tried. I've re-done the mod a couple of times and tried doubling up the caps - zero difference. I've set up the mixer as suggested (SetupSA) and tried Tiito's alternative config tool.

Has anyone else successfully done this mod? I've pulled off more difficult soldering jobs than this so am confident that I've done it right - surely I would have done one channel right at least!

YMF711/718 has slightly different pinout as far as those capacitors go, the caps of interest are on pins 97 and 98 rather than 99 and 100 of 715/719

Dang it and I lifted a pad removing those caps so I might have messed up this card for no good reason - pretty sure I'd read a comment further back in this thread that stated the 718 version of the Audition 32 was layed out in the same way as the 719, and therefore the labels on the caps was the same too (C11 and C19 were suggested).

Thanks Tiido that helps - my enthusiasm's all used up for now but I have another YMF719 card here with a different layout again so I'll put it aside for a rainy day. Great initialisation and mixer software BTW 👍

Hiya @Tiido just having another look at this. So according to the datasheet for the YMF711 (which you mentioned is the same as the YMF718 that I have) - pins 99 and 100 are described as SBSHL and SBSHR respectively. The caps for this line are described as 'SBDAC sample / hold capacitor'.

I'm just wondering what I've messed up by removing them and if I need to replace them - do you know what this function is? The YMF715 datasheet doesn't mention this function at all.

Thanks for any help.

EDIT: I can confirm that although the layout for the YMF718 version of the 'Audician 32' OPLSAx cards looks exactly the same as the YMF719 based cards (OP had a 719 version) the chipset has the SB filter on different lines, so it's caps C12 and C20 that should be replaced, not C11 and C19. I can also confirm that it sounds fantastic with some filtering - I think I'm finally ready to accept these cards as a great option.

LIke real SBpro and Yamaha DACs for the FM chips, there is only single actual DAC which output is multiplexed to create a stereo output, and the sample & hold capapcitors hold the output steady while the other channel is being updated. Lack of those capacitors will add high freq noise on the output.

Tiido wrote on 2021-01-11, 06:14:

Lack of those capacitors will add high freq noise on the output.

Lolz that explains the high pitched squeal I was hearing! Thanks again Tiido, this is why I love Vogons 👍

So for the record I replaced all 4 caps with 6.8nf SMDs on my YMF718 card in the end, so that's pins 97-100 on the main chip, and caps labeled C11, C12, C19, and C20 on the Audician 32 cards. These pins are combined to 99 and 100 on the YMF719 chipset, so just C11 and C19 are applicable there. On other cards with a different layout just follow the lines from the relevant pins on the main chip and find the relevant capacitors - I used a multimeter to confirm.

Thanks again to James-F for working out this mod.

@carlostex where are you dude? You can say 'I told you so' now, these cards are great 😁

Interesting mod, I will probably try it as well in spare time. I have another question concerning Audician cards - I have a model with QDSP wavetable chips, would it be possible to mod the card so I could add a waveblaster header and the card would pick either the QDSP wavetable or waveblaster if present? I know ESS cards work that way but I have no idea if YMF cards do it too or if Audician's design allow it.

At best you have to sever the MIDI TX line and add a switch to choose between onboard and WB header. Though an electronic method is also possible using a multiplexer chip and taking advantage of the fact that all WB cards connect a row of grounds together, so you can separate one of them on the host card and use as a signal to determine if a WB card is present or not.

Well I was interested in a case there are just some caps or 0Ohm resistors missing (it is visible that the ceramics capacitors near waveblaster connector are configured differently than on the card without QDSP). It's probably still more convenient to have different card with waveblaster header and just swap it if needed. 😒

badmojo wrote on 2021-01-11, 08:27:

@carlostex where are you dude? You can say 'I told you so' now, these cards are great 😁

Haha i'm here buddy!!

Currently i'm rocking out a Orpheus, because with the added PCMIDI i can save a slot. But if i had a YMF card with intelligent MPU i would be rocking it instead. These Yamaha chips still remain my favorite after all these years. If i knew my electronics i would definitely design my YMF card suited to my personal needs.😁😁

Funnily enough i'm not a big fan of the filtering, i would probably go with a lower uF value, maybe 2.2uF would be enough for me. I like the clarity of the sound and its ability to go to high sampling rates without breaking a sweat.

Major disadvantage of YMF is lack of ADPCM 8-2 and 8-3. It is a common misconception that OPL3-SAx chipsets lack ADPCM completely because it is clear on the datasheet that 8-4 ADPCM is fully functional. (To anyone wondering 8-4, 8-3 and 8-2 ADPCM is the terminology used in the datasheet, none of that 2.6bits ratio nonsense for the 8-3 mode)

Other than lack of those 2 modes, used in soooo many games that a single hand can count, for me it is the best SB Pro clone. There is a Patch for Duke 2 which makes all the sounds play on OPL3-SAx just great.

@badmojo you have vouched for the ESS cards and i like them too myself. The 1868 does it all for me, and the Guillemot SC8600 is my favorite ESS card. Enjoy your YMF!

carlostex wrote on 2021-01-12, 21:44:

Other than lack of those 2 modes, used in soooo many games that a single hand can count, for me it is the best SB Pro clone. There is a Patch for Duke 2 which makes all the sounds play on OPL3-SAx just great.

@badmojo you have vouched for the ESS cards and i like them too myself. The 1868 does it all for me, and the Guillemot SC8600 is my favorite ESS card. Enjoy your YMF!

Yes I saw that Duke2 patch - to be honest I care so little about that game that I'll probably just solve the problem by deleting it 😂

And yes I do loves my ESS's! I admit that although ESFM is great, having a real OPL3 will let me sleep slightly easier at night. I also really like WSS support in DOS.

badmojo wrote on 2021-01-13, 04:50:

I also really like WSS support in DOS.

WSS is such an underrated feature. It's supported more than people think, especially by games which use the Miles Sound System.

Fun fact: the Sound Blaster driver in certain Sierra games is speed sensitive, but the WSS driver is not. A good example of this is Space Quest V.

Well, there is ESS Audiodrive 16bit support in some DOS games but many of them use that horrible filtering. If there would be a way to remove it, it would be a nice option.

All in all, good card with Yamaha, Crystal or ESS chip would be great solution. All of these IC's have their strengths and weaknesses however almost anything is better than SB16 and it's derivates (apart maybe from AWE64 but those cards have different set of problems).

I'm really looking forward for Tiido's ultimate YMF sound card, which will utilize the Yamaha chip to it's full potential.

Yes I was surprised at how many games support the ESS but it's not as clear cut as WSS support because some only work with a ES688 or ES1688 based card (i.e. no the later ES1868) and then as you say some use that bizarre level of filtering which makes it unusable.

RE the added filtering on the YMF71x cards - it was mentioned already in this thread but its worth noting again that the filter can be turned off easily by any utility that manipulates the SBP mixer, and this is great for some games like Duke3D which sound super muffled with the added filtering. I've popped the relevant command line call into a bat file that gets called before / after the game load 👍I'm also making sure to call the same util to set the mixer back to my levels after games like DOOM, etc that max out the mixer.

Good times!

I wonder how I missed this thread. Looks like it got going right around the time when I got my Audician 32 card for experimenting. I should definitely check and fix the SBPro mixer volume issue, and maybe do the hardware mods too at some point.

That hardware mod is must-have for these cards IMO - older titles sound great with the filtering and for newer ones with better samples you can just turn the filter off via software.