Originally posted by prismra Okay, since I can't load a bad-ass soundfont into my AWE32 in DOS, I was thinking of adding a Yamaha or Waveblaster to my AWE32.

I'm really not the one to ask because I've never bothered with the idea of adding a daughtercard to my AWE32 or AWE64.

You can apparently at least add to the AWE32, but I don't know if you can add a WaveBlaster. In any case, there's no point in adding a WaveBlaster as your AWE32 already has that wavetable.

Does is magically transform all the games to the daughterboard (if I choose Sound blaster in the options) or does it only work in games that HAVE the waveblaster option in the sound config.

Don't know about add-on cards, but, for it to use the on-board wavetable you either have to use the game's setup program to choose the AWE for music (preferable, but it has the least support) or choose General MIDI for music. Either way you'll have to have the proper drivers and initialization routine for it to start up properly.

This is all presuming you're running in DOS or Win9x. Also, if the computer supports "Plug'n'Play" you'll have to use the CTCM tool that supports PnP (which, by the way, can be very annoying as it has the really bad habit of choosing useless settings at each startup...requiring you to go back and change them manually).

Daughterboards are accessed over the MIDI port, like an MT-32, except that they're on a card attached to your sound card. The waveblaster (daughterboard) is just a power connector and MIDI connector (out) and stereo line level (in). To set them up in a game you just set it to MPU-401 MIDI or SCC-1 mode.

An AWE doesn't have an actual hardware MIDI port, so untill the drivers are loaded it does nothing because MIDI cannot be sent to the daughterboard.

As for which to buy, either an SCD-15 (basicly an SCC-1 on a card) or DB50XG (basicly an MU-50 on a card)

The DB50XG, while it acts and sounds like an MU-50, actually used the same chipset as the QS300, and because of this it had a hidden edit mode that Yamaha did it's best to hide because they didn't want budget minded musicians buying a cheap daughtercard rather than an expensive keyboard. What this means is that you can get access to the low level voice parameters and make your own sounds using the ROM samples. (it's still used by musicians on a budget because of this)

The DB50XG is truly a great daughterboard. I have a ISA SB16 card together with DB50XG, and I dare to say it's the best sound-combo for DOS. Unless one feel to use an external MIDI keyboard.

The Waveblaster port was a great idea. Shame that Yamaha was pretty much the only one doing something for it, and that it's hard to find a DB50XG card nowdays.