SC-55 is my favorite but that may be bias due to so many games music likely being developed using a sound canvas to begin with. Kind of like how older Sierra games will make an MT-32 your synth of choice..

Yamaha MU80 XG may be another popular choice for computer related audio. Final Fantasy VII sounds wonderful on it. MU90 has more instruments included.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Ycnjhw1Uk

Also since you mention sound cards, I'm a huge fan of EMU8000 (Awe32).. If you can get 32mb on them and run the nicer fonts like masterpiece, they really make some games sing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKZspDPjpo

Personal taste applies but I love how Doom 2 sounds in that one

BeginnerGuy wrote:

SC-55 is my favorite but that may be bias due to so many games music likely being developed using a sound canvas to begin with. […]
Show full quote

SC-55 is my favorite but that may be bias due to so many games music likely being developed using a sound canvas to begin with. Kind of like how older Sierra games will make an MT-32 your synth of choice..

Yamaha MU80 XG may be another popular choice for computer related audio. Final Fantasy VII sounds wonderful on it. MU90 has more instruments included.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5Ycnjhw1Uk

Also since you mention sound cards, I'm a huge fan of EMU8000 (Awe32).. If you can get 32mb on them and run the nicer fonts like masterpiece, they really make some games sing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWKZspDPjpo

Personal taste applies but I love how Doom 2 sounds in that one

I actually do have some experience with Yamaha. An old Sony Vaio I have has a Yamaha card built right in, and Duke Nukem 3D sounds amazing with it. I think I might actually prefer it to the Sound Canvas version. Something about those guitars and drums.

And I think I would have loved the Sound Blaster Awe32 growing up, but I've since met this friend who is very into the classic metal scene, and through exposure from him, I've kinda goten picky at how my synth guitars sound.

High end Yamaha are fantastic, using the digital output of my MU2000 to a good amp is incredible. Also Love my Akai SG01k. It is amazing in stuff like Doom, but terrible with orchestral stuff. Casio and Korg are fun to toy with. A Dreamblaster X2 is a great choice as well with the various sound banks available now.

I have a Kawai Gmega. When it sounds bad it's terrible but when it sounds good it beats out all my others, including korg, akai, casio and roland stuff. Its brass/string (think modern jazz) are outstanding, less so for industrial music (think doom) where the korg/sc55 rule. And thats the rub - no one module rules them all, they each are "best" for a specific arrangement or track. Descent on the yamaha mu2000 is ethereal.

SuperDeadite wrote:

High end Yamaha are fantastic, using the digital output of my MU2000 to a good amp is incredible. Also Love my Akai SG01k. It is amazing in stuff like Doom, but terrible with orchestral stuff. Casio and Korg are fun to toy with. A Dreamblaster X2 is a great choice as well with the various sound banks available now.

I remember the videos out around the time the Dreamblasters were being made. I loved the sound of the X1 samples from Phil's videos, but the X2 sounded like a step backward to me. Are there any recordings of some of the better sound banks for the X2?

Quite a few. Here's one of mine, its on GUD 0.7 though which is old now. Buryan is out now and superior imo.

https://youtu.be/zLbQeKBKQvM

Another vote for Yamaha. I have an MU50 and it is great. Not as many features as the MU80, but doubt that difference would matter for game GM or XG output.

My main comparison is a Korg wavetable card, which is nice but lacks sparkle compared to the Yamaha. Also have pile of cards with wavetable, but they're not even in the same game, let alone the same class.

Zuon wrote:

SuperDeadite wrote:

High end Yamaha are fantastic, using the digital output of my MU2000 to a good amp is incredible. Also Love my Akai SG01k. It is amazing in stuff like Doom, but terrible with orchestral stuff. Casio and Korg are fun to toy with. A Dreamblaster X2 is a great choice as well with the various sound banks available now.

I remember the videos out around the time the Dreamblasters were being made. I loved the sound of the X1 samples from Phil's videos, but the X2 sounded like a step backward to me. Are there any recordings of some of the better sound banks for the X2?

I have a bunch of recordings with the X2 GUD 1.04 soundbank here:
https://soundcloud.com/himemsys36/sets/yamaha … vs-roland-mt-32

I think the Kurzweil HOMAC (Turtle Beach) sounds unique.

AWE32
*runs away*

I like the SC-88 Pro and Yamaha MU80 most. While many games may sound better on an SC-55, the SC-55 kind of sucks for any modern GM stuff, specially the Mk.1 due to its limited polyphony. But even the Mk.2 doesn't do that much better with only 28 voices.

Keep in mind that you'll need a whole collection of such devices. As BeginnerGuy said, some games were made with some devices in mind, so...

- Older games (Sierra?) will sound better on MT-32, because they use custom instruments. On MIDI, they'll use default instruments.
- Some games were made with SC55, other devices sound worst.
- Other games (Knights of Xentar) used custom FM (yes, FM) sounds. I don't remember if it supported MIDI, but in "cat" village the music included some "meows" that are not MIDI instruments.
- A few (I can only think of Final Fantasy VII) shipped with their own custom soundfonts. In Final Fantasy VII you can notice it on the "Chocobo Race". Any AWE or Live! with the custom soundfont loaded (hint: FF VII could upload automatically the soundfont on AWE32, but you had to do manually on other cards) has some "chocobo sounds" included on the music that doesn't sound in standard/yamaha MIDI.

So you won't get a "magical" device that sounds the best in all games... but you can get a collection of devices that are more suited for individual games.

Not sure what you mean with "custom FM", but the music for Knights of Xentar was done on an SC-88 Pro. The musician is a well-known guy from Japan, who did great music using the SC-88 Pro for many other Japanese games.

Anyway, if it's just for games, you only really need an MT-32 and SC-55. However, Zuon didn't ask for that. He asked for other devices with more realistic-sounding instruments.

"Best" sounding is very subjective... If you're after the most realistic sounding then usually the higher the sample quality in ROMs, the better. Generally, this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and for different instruments as well. Best to have a variety and also a high quality mixer to mix flavours to taste.

j^aws wrote:

"Best" sounding is very subjective... If you're after the most realistic sounding then usually the higher the sample quality in ROMs, the better. Generally, this varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and for different instruments as well. Best to have a variety and also a high quality mixer to mix flavours to taste.

As others have interpreted before me, yes, I am already beyond the point of being satisfied with my hardware while I'm gaming. I've just heard the Sound Canvas/MT-32/Sound Blaster variations so frequently, I occasionally like to listen to the songs with a different sound, outside of the game.

Zuon wrote:

I occasionally like to listen to the songs with a different sound, outside of the game.

Exactly. Different interpretations of the source material can be really interesting.

The most common alternatives as already mentioned are the
Yamaha based devices including DB50XG, MU50, MU80, NEC XR385 and the Dream Blaster. I'd say this is just as much to do with availability as well as quality.
Surprised no one has mentioned (for better or worse) Creative's own Wave blaster.

I'd assume anything that's GM compatible is a good place to start, quick google found this
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-mu … patibility.html

I'm also in the marked for another midi module, already have a MU50 and SC55, I cant find my shortlist but in the end I decided with the dreamblaster due to price.
If you do end up with something different make sure you put it up somewhere, Also like listening to the difference.

Gravis UltraSound?
Back in the day I played DOOM with my SB Pro 2 for sound effects, and loaded MegaEm to use my GUS MAX as a Sound Canvas.
Sounded pretty awesome. Better than the native GUS support in the game, in my opinion.

What was the default patch set Gravis shipped?