I, unfortunately, do not have any ISA slots to put my Sound Blaster 16 on it (it has MPU401 I/O's, I think.). But I have heard that a Midi to USB cable should work just fine. Is that correct?
You don't need a Sound Blaster 16 to connect the Sound Canvas. Actually the SB16 is not recommended at all for that purpose due to the hanging notes bug. You'd better use any PCI sound card with gameport/MPU-401 interface and a gameport to MIDI cable. USB to MIDI interface is fine too, and it doesn't need a sound card, nor an additional cable. It's the best setup if you can find a good Roland interface. Otherwise, gameport to MIDI interface may give better results than the crappy unnamed USB interfaces.
If any drivers drivers , well. I run Windows 7 x64, Windows XP, Windows 98SE and DOS 6.22. There has to be drivers for at least one of those systems, yes? I have looked on the internet quite a bit and didn't find anything.
The Sound Canvas is a external device that responds to MIDI messages sent through a MIDI interface. The operating system doesn't even know what a Sound Canvas is, only applications do. That said, you won't need any Sound Canvas driver because it just doesn't exist. What you really need is a driver for the interface you will be using to connect the Sound Canvas. Your mileage may vary depending on both the interface and the operating system you choose. If you use a sound card with a gameport, the drivers should provide Roland MPU-401 emulation under DOS and Windows 9x. My very personal recommendations for sound cards with gameport are:
- MS-DOS 6.x: Sound Blaster AWE64, Yamaha YMF-719.
- Windows 9x: Aureal Vortex 2, Yamaha YMF-724/744/754.
- Windows XP: Sound Blaster Live!, Turtle Beach Santa Cruz.
- Windows 7: None. Gameport support was dropped from x64.
If you use a USB to MIDI interface, Windows XP and 7 will automatically detect it and install the proper driver. Windows 98SE does not have a standard driver for USB to MIDI interfaces as far as I know, so the device manufacturer must provide a Windows 9x driver with it. Under DOS 6.x, it won't work at all, so you will need DosBox to access your Sound Canvas from DOS applications. DosBox will emulate Roland MPU-401 on any MIDI interface you may have, and you won't have to care anymore if the driver provides that emulation or not. It is absolutely recommended to use DosBox for old DOS games, and a complete must-have for USB to MIDI interfaces and NT-based versions of Windows.