Are you sure about the "no hanging note bugs". I thought that all Creative cards (apart form the AWE) had this bug. Some less noticeable maybe...

Regarding the noise it's a hit and miss. Some are better than others, but in general the early Creative cards simply are noisy and there isn't much that can be done.

The AWE64GOLD is reasonably quiet, no hanging notes, BUT no OPL3 either. On the other hand you can make it sound very nice by enabling reverb and chorus like in my recording here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPw7C8_K3Q

Others use alternative brands / clones.

I have a couple of 2230s here that don't have that hanging note bug Mau1wurf1977 , both have the ASP installed.
Did some hexen testing plus my own gaming, haven't noticed a hanged note yet.

Yes no notes hang I tried many games including the Hexen test with both a Yamaha daughter board and a external Roland box. I think its because its an old DPS version 4.05.

I have given up on the SB16 now and as you recommend in another thread put in an AWE64 Gold. Ok its not got a real OPL3 but after doing some comparisons between the 1740 and the AWE with 05 reverberation and 05 chorus I am quite happy with how the AWE sounds. So few of my games don’t have a midi option anyway. Sure its a compromise but its a small one.

It could be EMI interference with your card. You can make a simple EMI shield using commonly found junk in your house.

Here's a link:
http://www.overclock.net/t/571718/how-to-make … your-sound-card

Hope this helps ( I did it to my old turtle beach santa cruz)

The CT1740's are pretty notorious for poor sound quality. I wouldn't even bother with a sound blaster 16 of any description.

Am I the only person here who actually kinda likes the SB16 and all of it's quirks? 🤣 I understand that it isn't a perfect soundcard (hanging note glitch, noisy output and whatnot), but there aren't that many other soundcards out there that quite capture that "oldschool" feel as well as it does, in my opinion.

I like the shielding idea, got some aluminum scrap from a dead crt that might just come in handy 😉

mr_bigmouth_502 wrote:

Am I the only person here who actually kinda likes the SB16 and all of it's quirks? 🤣 I understand that it isn't a perfect soundcard (hanging note glitch, noisy output and whatnot), but there aren't that many other soundcards out there that quite capture that "oldschool" feel as well as it does, in my opinion.

I reckon the Sound Blaster Pro or original SB with CMS chips has plenty of "oldschool feel".

If you want a card with good sound quality, a real OPL3 and working wavetable/external MIDI support, don't bother with an SB16.

I tried a LOT of cards before I settled on the YMF719

Well I own about 70+ soundcards or so. The CT1740 is indeed a "noisy" card and has this "feature" in common with the CT1750. But if you wanna use the card you can benefit from the 4.05 DSP chip which is not prone to the infamous "hanging notes bug".

But for me personally, there are better cards than the SB16. I think its biggest drawback isn't the noise but the SBPro incompatibility (if set to SBPro mode you won't get stereo).

I just go with a AWE32 (CT2760 is also noisy) / AWE64 (less noisy) + Gravis Ultrasound or EWS64 or another Card with a decent Wavetable patchset or a Wavetable Daughterboard (There are quite a few to choose from) + Gravis Ultrasound.

But of course the early non PnP SB16 cards are very easy to configure and you will get a sound out of it of almost any game what can't be said about many SB(-Pro) clones. Therefore I think it's a good card for a beginner to start with.

The lack of SB Pro compatibility is much less of an issue. It always gets mentioned in discussions but when you really look at the issue it is not an issue.

Firstly FM music is fine so the issue only applies to Stereo digital effects. And there are almost no games that support the SB Pro and do not support the SB 16.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Firstly FM music is fine so the issue only applies to Stereo digital effects.

This is only true for the early models of the SB16 with a real OPL3 chip. But when higher integration processes begun (with the CT1747 OPL+DAC+Buslogic integration) the sound started to change. I think even the CT1747 FM sound slightly differs from the original OPL3. It sound a bit more filtered. Hard to describe. But it's still very close to the original OPL3. But later, even higher integrated models like many Vibras and also the later SB16 with the CT1749-DCQ as well as all AWE64 card don't have "fine FM music". They just don't sound true. It's very hard to discuss the quality of FM music because everyone has a different taste and maybe some people like you actually like the FM output of the AWE64 and late SB16 cards but that doesn't make it sound like the real thing.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

And there are almost no games that support the SB Pro and do not support the SB 16.

So that is a very interesting point and more positive: it's a point where an opinion counts nothing because it's about facts. You know, I'm a honest person. I don't like the early models for its noisy output and I dont like the later models for their Midi disadvantage and I don't like the last models for their lack of real OPL3 sound.

So I have a bunch of arguments against the cards and the SB-Pro compatibility is another one and it's a fact. But that doesn't imply that it affects the playability of many games unless we really find games that only support SB Pro FX but no SB16 FX. From my head I just remember EpicPinball because I love this game and bought a GUS for it. It had stereo FX for both AudioSpectrum und SB-Pro but no SB16 support.

But because of the weight of the arguments against this card I never used one for a longer time so I never thought about if there are actually many games that really need a SB-Pro for stereo FX. So kudos to you for bringing up this point. I think this really has to be investigated. Maybe the SB16 gains back some reputation.

But it STILL has the hanging notes bug. And this bug is true for many games 🤣

The biggest plus about the SB16 is that basically it will produce fairly decent sound and music for every game, be it ancient games or brand new ones and many will be in Stereo. Once you research past this and want the "best" then you will get to a point of needing certain cards for certain games especially with MIDI.

My personal choice is the AWE64 in combination with a Roland Sound Canvas for later games (early - mid 90 games) and a Sound Blaster Pro 2 with MT-32 for the older games (late 80s to early 90s).

The lack of OPL3 is terrible for some. Personally I don't mind the clones and the AWE for example allows setting chorus and reverb making old games sound fantastic and much richer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oPw7C8_K3Q

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The biggest plus about the SB16 is that basically it will produce fairly decent sound and music for every game, be it ancient games or brand new ones and many will be in Stereo.

Well that is true but for many people FM music is no "decent music" if a game supports General Midi and you just cannot use it cause the SB16 cards DSP is faulty. There are many good clones around that will also play old SB / Adlib games as well as SB-Pro and have a Midi-Header that works. And that makes the SB16 almost obsolete IMO.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

Once you research past this and want the "best" then you will get to a point of needing certain cards for certain games especially with MIDI.

Also true. But I don't think that General Midi is a thing of special interest because many of the Blockbuster-Games support Midi so these games sound better with a Wavetable module than with OPL-sound. But you cannot use them with most SB16 cards.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

The lack of OPL3 is terrible for some. Personally I don't mind the clones and the AWE for example allows setting chorus and reverb making old games sound fantastic and much richer.

Making the (IMO) terrible AWE OPL tunes sound like EMU-Synthesis doesn't make them better. It sounds funny and strange, just beyond good and evil. I like MI better with MT-32 or any GM module bankswitched for MT-32 instrumentation.

I think we both have a different taste of what "good sound" or "decent music" is. And that's fine because it's the diversity in opinions what makes life much more interesting. 😀

Oh and this is also intersting: Monkey Island 2 for example has quite a few missing sound effects in the Roland version. The game felt a lot less lively compared to my memories. Now with ScummVM you can fix this, listen to your real MT-32 hooked up and the missing sounds are played as if you have a Sound Blaster.

Then the whole issue with old MT-32 vs. CM-32 with its extra sound effects. I do have all the versions but it's hard to advise others to do the same thing as they cost quite a bit 😀

Because the Sound Blaster Pro has no wavetable header alltogether the choices become limited. There is a workaround around the hanging note bug. Using two! cards. Because the hanging note bug only appears if one card plays midi and speech. If you turn off speech = no hanging note bug.

So some use two cards to get around this or as I do a real Midi interface. Thing is with Creative there is no ideal card. They all have flaws 😀

Yes, it's a shame the quiet CT1600 and the even a tad more smoother CT2600 don't have midi-headers.

Of course you can use 2 SB16 cards, one for FX and one for the music but that's for die hard SB16 fans only. But I have an easier workaround: Just avoid a card with this bug! 🤣
In many cases the ISA slots and/or the ressources are limited. Many users new to the scene don't know how to manage the ressources. What about adding a GUS along with 2 SB16 cards? Would be funny to configure.

The missing Sound Canvas notes in MI2 are quite interesting. But good that ScummVM takes care. I love this program and have installed it on all my notebook and modern devices, it's even on my linux driven N900 compuphone.

Yes, it's always hard to advise others to buy 10 different cards/modules for 30-100 Euros each. I'm often asked what sound card or module to buy and I always ask back: What do you wanna do with it and how much do you want to spend?

But I'm happy that there are so many good choices available for the different time periods.