Bumping because this also interests me and I want to see OP getting help, but cannot provide help myself right now.
However, I think it would be helpful to know the exact motherboard you're using, and the driver version you installed (source might also be interesting).
I might be able to provide the original driver CD image tomorrow if that helps.

edit:
Are all of the components listed installed in your device manager?
Because that's how it is supposed to look, and in that case you should be able to use wavetable music for MIDI at least in DOS games running in Windows, and load different soundbanks in the corresponding software.

If you need any drivers or pictures of the manual just let me know. I have 2 Boxed versions of this card.

Is there a trick to these cards? I have 2 of them and both in different systems do not always getting detected, 60% of the time the bios does not detect them which results in both DOS and 9x drivers to not load... Any idea if some update is needed?

These cards are more or less rubbish due to their weird design (one ISA and one PCI chip daisy-chained on one card) and always brought a ton of compatibility problems with them. They are also completely incompatible with anything but Win9x and don't seem to like VIA chipsets.
I never tried the DOS compatibility of that thing but the Windows part, at least in "Game mode", was rather underwhelming (slow, bad drivers, bad compatibility). Seems to have been targeted at home musicians.

Danger Manfred wrote on 2023-10-17, 20:36:

Bumping because this also interests me and I want to see OP getting help, but cannot provide help myself right now. However, I t […]
Show full quote

Bumping because this also interests me and I want to see OP getting help, but cannot provide help myself right now.
However, I think it would be helpful to know the exact motherboard you're using, and the driver version you installed (source might also be interesting).
I might be able to provide the original driver CD image tomorrow if that helps.

edit:
Are all of the components listed installed in your device manager?
Because that's how it is supposed to look, and in that case you should be able to use wavetable music for MIDI at least in DOS games running in Windows, and load different soundbanks in the corresponding software.

I´ve tried all the drivers available from both the wayback machine copy of the site, as well as those we can find on Vogons, all the devices install and I can configure them the way I want, no conflicts. Using driver 190 (the version with SB). I am running on a Pentium 233 MMX, using Intel chipsets, the Maestro chipset seems to work with no problem in TDMA mode.

I narrowed the problem of no Sound in Pure DOS to the following: on DOS only, the maestro.com and icodec.com files initialize the Maestro SB Pro mode properly (you must call both, in this order), however, the Dream 9707 is not fully initialized and the audio from the Maestro is routed through it on inputs 7/8 (which must be selected and unmuted).

There is a selector on the windows drivers, and also on the High Level SDK libraries they provide, but the DOS initilizer for the Dream is just broken, I tried to reverse engineer it, it seem to only load the "boot" commands (it´s hardcoded into the exe), but it does not load rom or soundbank.

I found an ugly way to do it, if you tape the line A-15 on the PCI bus, 15th pin on the back of the card, you disable the reset line. So you can boot in Windows, load whatever you want, and hard reset the machine (the card will remain initialized). Then on dos you call maestro.com, icodec.com, and it works, once then I find my computer won´t turn on until I remove the card and boot without it. VERY ugly way...

There is an early version of linux drivers with source code online, but it currently does not load soundbanks as far as I am aware, I will look into porting it to djgpp and DOS.

I tried also using 94binit that was being used on other cards with the 9407 and 9707 but it did not work out for me, it says it can´t detect the card. I tried hacking the check on the exe to force the execution but the program ends with an error. I think the way this card does it is through the GPIO lines of the Maestro-2EM (which are normally used for modem communication??) very strange design...

Another issue, but this seems to be related to the Maestro chipset since I found other examples of it on other cards. If you run FM Synth within Win9x, the playback is rised in pitch. I am not sure by how much though...

On the MPU problem under Windows, I came across someone else in Vogons reporting the same issue in Win98, I wonder if Win95 would not work either.

DerBaum wrote on 2023-10-17, 20:56:

If you need any drivers or pictures of the manual just let me know. I have 2 Boxed versions of this card.

2023-10-17 22.54.48.jpg

I would love to have the drivers that came with your CDs if possible, does your manuals have anything related to the DOS apps?

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 03:38:

I would love to have the drivers that came with your CDs if possible, does your manuals have anything related to the DOS apps?

images of the CDs that came with the card are available on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Guillemot_Maxi_Studio_ISIS

for me the issue was that the DOS maestro init program failed to detect the card so the win9x driver would also not work...
but to be fair AFAIR I tested systems with either VIA or ALi chipsets: the VIA one my main 233mmx system and the ALi was a NEC system - perhaps I will test some intel system in the future now that I know about this

keropi wrote on 2023-10-23, 06:32:

images of the CDs that came with the card are available on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Guillemot_Maxi_Studio_ISIS […]
Show full quote

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 03:38:

I would love to have the drivers that came with your CDs if possible, does your manuals have anything related to the DOS apps?

images of the CDs that came with the card are available on archive.org: https://archive.org/details/Guillemot_Maxi_Studio_ISIS

for me the issue was that the DOS maestro init program failed to detect the card so the win9x driver would also not work...
but to be fair AFAIR I tested systems with either VIA or ALi chipsets: the VIA one my main 233mmx system and the ALi was a NEC system - perhaps I will test some intel system in the future now that I know about this

Thanks, I have these already, I was hoping some different version of the CD contained a different version of ISISINIT.EXE, all drivers I found so far have the exact same version.

Yeah, it seems to be very sensitive to the chipset because of the isa dma emulation, there is a way to edit maestro.ini so that you force one of the dma modes did you try it?

no, I have abandoned testing since it was so erratic... when it worked it was nice but since it was a lotto when it would work or not I did not bother more with it

Yep, the out of the box experience on Dos modes is a joke. But the hardware itself has a lot of potential that's why I'm trying to get it to do things 😀

About the blue screen MPU issue on Win9x (not confirmed if its only Win98). I did a workaround to get it to function, as I mentioned earlier using VDMSound Alpha.

Download it normally, edit install.bat and remove all modules that are not MIDI related. Install and setup the env variable.

Then edit it's INI file and remove all sections that are not MIDI. And set the MPU port you want.

On the device manager, change the MPU port of the board so that it does not conflict with VDM.

Restart, from the console run VDM DOSDRV, you should get the SBPRO from the Maestro and the MPU routed through VDM directly into the Dream Wavetable Synth.

Not great but at least will be almost fully functional, you will get the pitch shifted FM though...

I was wondering, is there anyway to just kill Win98 Kernell parts without allowing it to run shutdown routines? I can hear the card "clicking" when I use Restart into MSDOS. If that specific point could be avoided it would have the same effect of taping the reset pin and keeping the card initialized....

Configuration issues I tracked so far:

-Input Selection
The card has two modes, Game and Console. And it also has a hardware switch on Input channels 7/8 on the Dream 9707. You can choose analog Input (from the breakout box), Input from the Maestro and Input from the SPDIF.

There will be no DOS sound if the Maestro is not the selected Input, there is no direct path from Maestro to any Outputs (as far as I'm aware).

Depending on the driver version these modes may or may not select Maestro as the 7/8 stereo Input. I driver version 190 the Console mode is by default set to Analog In.

-Firmware and modes:

There are two firmware files, PCI64.BIN and ISIS.BIN. I am presuming that PCI64 sets the card on Game mode, and ISIS.BIN sets the card on console mode.

Not sure if that's the case.

Some drivers do not include the firmware and soundbanks, these will not work out of the box if you dont manually copy the files to c:\WINDOWS.

-Mixer settings

The Dream 9707 max Master volume is something like 200%. It will distort badly if left alone. Setting it to half seems to fix the issue. Seems to be a known issue of the Dream 9x07 chips?

-FM Volume

DOS mixers don't seem to do anything to it. Also known Maestro issue.

If you're in Win9x dos box, which MPU port are you using? Because this card actually provides two MPU devices, one is the Dream, the other one is the crappy semi-software synth the Maestro chip provides.

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 13:57:

The card has two modes, Game and Console.

I want to correct you the proper names for the two modes are "Multimedia Mode" and "Studio Mode". So, the "Studio Mode" is when ESS chip serves just as PCI-to-ISA bridge and all the functionality is done by SAM9707 chip. the "Multimedia Mode" is the opposite, when essentially almost everything is handled by the ESS chip. that is because SAM9707 is full-blown ISA sound adapter chip and ESS is full-blown PCI sound adapter chip or the card is like 2 sound cards on the same board with ability to switch between them based on what you're doing, i.e. which of those 2 sound cards is better for the particular task at hand.

As hardware the card is excellent, but the software did not matured, because it was released at the time when Win98/ME era was ending and Win2K/WinXP era was beginning. So, Guillemot didn't have resources to develop new WDM drivers (for Win2K/WinXP) and instead decided to discontinue the cards - hence all the software issues were not resolved.

When i look at the history of Guillemot it seems the soundcard business was just a short lived thing and the main focus was on graphics cards.
Right around the time our Soundcards came out Guillemot bought Hercules and pushed graphics cards even more.
It seems like they did not provide well designed (backwards compatible) software for a product they dont really care for...

To be fair, pure DOS was on its way out in 2000 anyway, hidden behind Windows MEs inability to even shutdown to dos...

pyrogx wrote on 2023-10-23, 14:51:

If you're in Win9x dos box, which MPU port are you using? Because this card actually provides two MPU devices, one is the Dream, the other one is the crappy semi-software synth the Maestro chip provides.

The devices listed are the same as another user reported here.

One is the MPU port, which as I understand is controlled by Maestro and then should be routed to the MIDI input of the ISIS.

The FM Synth is very different and on the normal Adlib port.

The other is the Audio DSP device which has an IO port I can set to normal MIDI addresses but does not respond at all from DOS, probably not in UART mode (this is something to explore maybe?)

Were you able to use any of these from a Windows Dosbox? I saw a video of someone getting midi only using Windows 95, do you remember if it was Win95?

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 17:01:

Where you able to use any of these from a Windows Dosbox? I saw a video of someone getting midi only using Windows 95, do you remember if it was Win95?

Yes, all of them worked as far as I remember. Selecting the DSP IO port as a MIDI port in the dos box also worked for me. DOS games compatibility of the Maestro part was sketchy, though.

mattw wrote on 2023-10-23, 15:09:

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 13:57:

The card has two modes, Game and Console.

I want to correct you the proper names for the two modes are "Multimedia Mode" and "Studio Mode". So, the "Studio Mode" is when ESS chip serves just as PCI-to-ISA bridge and all the functionality is done by SAM9707 chip. the "Multimedia Mode" is the opposite, when essentially almost everything is handled by the ESS chip. that is because SAM9707 is full-blown ISA sound adapter chip and ESS is full-blown PCI sound adapter chip or the card is like 2 sound cards on the same board with ability to switch between them based on what you're doing, i.e. which of those 2 sound cards is better for the particular task at hand.

As hardware the card is excellent, but the software did not matured, because it was released at the time when Win98/ME era was ending and Win2K/WinXP era was beginning. So, Guillemot didn't have resources to develop new WDM drivers (for Win2K/WinXP) and instead decided to discontinue the cards - hence all the software issues were not resolved.

Not really. On the manuals, software and APIs the Studio mode (as you are calling it) is called Console(on the configuration tool to choose it) mode or Music (High Level API docs) mode, and the Multimedia mode is also described as Gamming mode (on the manual). Though you are correct that in the configuration tool the option I called Game is called "Multimedia Mode".

Also both chips are operating as audio devices on both of these modes, what changes are mostly the functions that are possible on the 9707. On both modes you can have audio output through either of them (Maestro and Dream can be choosen as the audio device), on both of them the SBPRO mode is available on the Maestro-2EM, on both of them the audio is routed through the 9707 (which is the main problem for Real mode DOS). Probably some processing limitation of the 9707 so either you have the full 8in/4out Console interface or the so called Gamer FX processor enabled.

pyrogx wrote on 2023-10-23, 17:51:

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 17:01:

Where you able to use any of these from a Windows Dosbox? I saw a video of someone getting midi only using Windows 95, do you remember if it was Win95?

Yes, all of them worked as far as I remember. Selecting the DSP IO port as a MIDI port in the dos box also worked for me. DOS games compatibility of the Maestro part was sketchy, though.

And... I tried again and it worked! I am not sure why it failed before, it still blue screens if I try what should be the MPU401 device, but if I use the Audio DSP I get MIDI playback. So this part is solved thank you!!!

The FM synth is still pitch shifted 🤣

Real DOS still no luck.

shoyoninja wrote on 2023-10-23, 23:48:

... Though you are correct that in the configuration tool the option I called Game is called "Multimedia Mode".

Also both chips are operating as audio devices on both of these modes...

I took the names from the Linux open-source driver. Anyway, it doesn't matter exactly the names, most important is that there are 2 modes and what those modes mean. So, at least in Linux, maybe I am misunderstanding the code, but it seems to me Multimedia/Gaming mode in that mode all is just (the ESS chip + ES1918 AC97 codec). However, in Windows it could be different. I am attaching the Linux open-source code in case more people want to review it and tell their opinion.