In the category of 'best of both worlds', you could look for a Gravis UltraSound Extreme. The Extreme model combines the classic UltraSound with an ESS AudioDrive chip, so you have both a decent SoundBlaster/AdLib clone, and the UltraSound for wavetable synth/General MIDI support.

Fair enough, although the others have two advantages that any GUS really doesn't: they're quite available and cheap.

two I found doing a quick search but any other idea is greatly helped and even though I come across one sound bug so far but incase in future, if it happens again 🤣 and try doing a quick search for a Gravis UltraSound Extreme but no luck 🤣

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/ISA-16bit-Sound-Car … 7sAAOxyM89ScNRl

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sound-Blaster-16-IS … g4AAOSwr2RYKNuk

Here's a search:
http://www.ebay.ca/sch/i.html?_odkw=ess+sound … rd+isa&_sacat=0

I see a lot of listings for ES1868 based cards. That's a good option to look at as the ES1869 doesn't use 44.1khz sampling, so the card will have to resample and you will potentially lose quality.

As well, there were about six entries for the Audician 32 last time I looked, still around the $20 mark plus shipping.

Ok will look at and see how to uk it will be as I know the shipping can make it expensive

Any of these good
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/282250974229
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/322332896488

It's hard to test the impact of board construction, but I like the performance stats of the LM1877 amp chip on the second one better than the two JRC 386Ds on the first. The first one does offer higher clearance from the waveblaster header to the slot, so it will fit larger MIDI daughterboards.

is there a soundcard that sounds like the Roland MT-32 (not wanting a real one since it isn't compatible with all/most dos game supposedly) or is that a something like a midi daughterboard comes in

There are no daughtercards that support the LA synthesis technology of the MT-32 or CM-32L. The LAPC-I was an ISA card released by Roland which featured a CM-32L engine and a breakout box for external MIDI devices. It is a relatively rare device and very expensive to purchase one currently. Some daughtercards support an MT-32 mode with sound output similar to the default instruments of the MT-32, but that will obviously not work with titles that program custom instruments.

Robhalfordfan wrote:

is there a soundcard that sounds like the Roland MT-32 (not wanting a real one since it isn't compatible with all/most dos game supposedly) or is that a something like a midi daughterboard comes in

If you want it to sound EXACTLY like an MT-32, then you need a real MT-32 or the LAPC-I.
If you want something that sounds reasonably close, the GUS can emulate the MT-32 (it just cannot support dynamic modification of instruments, as gdjacobs also pointed out, but that's not something that a whole lot of games use in their music).
Another option you have is to put a MIDI interface in your old machine, and then connect it to a new machine running a software MT-32 emulator such as MUNT.

For clarity I'd also like to point out that although the MT-32 is a MIDI device, it is not what is known as 'General MIDI'. That is, General MIDI standardizes the selection of instruments (only the type of instrument though, not how the instruments actually sound). The MT-32 predates that, and as such it has a custom instrument mapping.
Later games can often support either MT-32 or General MIDI, or only General MIDI. It's much easier to find soundcards or daughtherboards for General MIDI (the GUS can also do both MT-32 and GM).

Ok so, what card is would be best sound close to mt-32 sounds, doesn't have be exact but close to it as I like the wide sound it has and hopefully as isa or pci card as It seems less hassle 🤣

If you are not strict about mixing old and new hardware you can find a small laptop and use it as a "midi box" with all the software midi synths available.

Keep that in mind but looking a sound card that a isa or pci at moment that can sound like mt-32 or close as possible and if not without buying or using external device then a decent sound that my Pentium can manage with no problems and minimise or not have the possibility of garbled sound in games

At the low end, Dreamblaster S1 from Serge at Serdaco has an MT-32 mode as will some Dream/Crystal Semi 9233 based daughtercards and sound card wavetable sections (depending on the ROM supplied). Higher end wavetable daughtercards will as well, all the way to the Roland SCB-55.

So I need to look out for dreambalster s1 or Ronald scb

Nothing sounds like a MT-32 except a MT-32 and it's family.
So either get one or use what James-F mentions or one of the other suggestions above that are only somewhat close to what a mt-32 sounds like.
There is no point looking for a perfect soundcard that does all - there is none.

^^

Hmm I think we got to communicate realistic expectations here. Pretty much all the "golden" MT-32 games use custom maps and sound effects. Sierra, Origin, Dynamix for example. They will sound totally off and you're better off using a Sound Blaster.

If you go out an invest into a General MIDI device for the purpose of using it with MT-32 games in mind, I got to say, you will likely be very disappointed.

Just fire up a stock standard DOSBox and play some MT-32 games through the Windows General MIDI device, you'll hear it.

IMO there is no substitute, the closest alternative is, as mentioned already, running the Munt MT-32 emulator on a second computer. That will give a pretty much indistinguishable experience.

Exactly, but you can get a GM/GS solution which gives you an MT-32 mapping as a bonus. It's not realistically a substitute, would be useful for some titles from LucasArts, for instance.

Ok so a soundblaster or other mentioned above

What kind of soundblaster or others would anyone recommend

If you haven't seen it yet, check out sound card information on the nerdlypleasures website.
For example:
Sound Blaster 16 - Distinguishing the Endless Models
Sound Blaster AWE32 & 64 Options

There's no perfect Soundblaster.
I think I remember Phil saying he liked using an AWE64 Gold along with an SB Pro 2 (CT1600) in the same computer, but I can't remember where I read it. It may have been in YouTube comments. You already have the SB Pro 2, and I've seen some AWE64 Gold cards go fairly cheap on eBay recently. Maybe consider an arrangement like that, with those two cards. IIRC the AWE64 Gold was configured in Windows while the SB Pro 2 was disabled in Windows. In DOS it was the SB Pro 2 that was configured. I'm not sure how well it would work if you only have DOS on the computer though.