VOGONS


My Wavetable Sample Thread

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Reply 120 of 182, by badmojo

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boxpressed wrote:

Added the Compaq Business Wavetable Sound Card today. This is an ESS card through and through, with the ES1869F AudioDrive and the uncommon ES692S synth.

Humble little cards like this make me think about all the cash I've thrown at ISA sound cards / wavetable daughterboards / external modules in my life - for 10 bucks this thing gives the majority of that hardware a real run for its money! Like you say a very similar wavetable experience to the earlier ESS based product - a nice raw and balanced sound. The Duke3D theme song leaves me cold on both Roland and Yamaha GM but this 1MB ESS synth translates it into something worthy of an action game.

Really looking forward to having a play with mine - thanks again for snagging one for my collection 😎

Life? Don't talk to me about life.

Reply 121 of 182, by boxpressed

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I agree, badmojo. Back in the day, I didn't really understand the concept of General Midi. From reading PC Magazine and CGW, I knew that "wavetable" music was an upgrade to "Sound Blaster" music (didn't really understand the concept of FM synth either). I never selected the General Midi option from game setups.

Fast forward twenty years to when I'm getting back into retro PCs, and I still didn't realize you could get General Midi off a cheap, no-name sound card. I thought you needed an expensive external module. Once I finally understood the concept, I was just as amazed as you are. I see lots of money being dropped on EMU8K solutions like the AWE32 and especially AWE64, and the GM music is often inferior to that of a $20 card. I understand that people buy these cards for other reasons, but my thread may be helpful to those who just want decent FM and GM without breaking the bank.

Hope your card arrives soon, badmojo. I've become a big ESS fan myself.

Reply 122 of 182, by boxpressed

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Bump to say that I've updated the photos on the first page after Photobucket decided to kill 3rd party hosting (I'd used up the maximum I could attach to the post).

I've taken a little hiatus from wavetable collecting but am now on the lookout for new additions!

Reply 123 of 182, by Schafeman

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Hi there! I might be a new user on here, but I've been visiting this site for years. Just thought i'd weigh in on the humble 'Compaq Business Wavetable' card. I've been so impressed with the sound and music quality in general, I posted a quick YouTube video with one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, Warcraft II. I should have time to record some more stuff with this and post it eventually, but it literally fills almost all the check boxes for a cheap, great sounding card that works with almost everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJnRtfO9s48

Reply 124 of 182, by boxpressed

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Schafeman wrote:

Hi there! I might be a new user on here, but I've been visiting this site for years. Just thought i'd weigh in on the humble 'Compaq Business Wavetable' card. I've been so impressed with the sound and music quality in general, I posted a quick YouTube video with one of my favorite soundtracks of all time, Warcraft II. I should have time to record some more stuff with this and post it eventually, but it literally fills almost all the check boxes for a cheap, great sounding card that works with almost everything.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJnRtfO9s48

I agree! ESS ISA audio chipsets are high quality in general. There are some real hidden gems among the collection of mediocre wavetable solutions out there, the Compaq card being one of the best. Unfortunately, the inexpensive supply seems to have dried up for now.

Reply 126 of 182, by lazibayer

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stamasd wrote:

Would anyone be interested in recordings from a Thinkpad 755 - pentium 75 equipped with IBM's infamous Mwave sound/modem DSP card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Mwave ? I have a working one, but DOS/Win3.1 only. It uses for MIDI synthesis a (roughly) 8MB patch set of .wav files. Which games would you like me to test if so?

(FWIW I also have an ISA Mwave card so I could potentially try the same in slower or faster systems as well)

I was trying to find out how MWave does MIDI synth and found this thread. I couldn't find any documents on how MWave handles the patchset; so I guess the patchset is loaded into main memory and used by software synth? Or is it for hardware synth on the PCMCIA variant?

Reply 127 of 182, by Tenorman

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Tacking onto this (already great thread).

I recorded several tracks on the Logitech Soundman Wave. There are better options, but I actually don't think this is a bad card at all.
http://tenorman.info/pc/soundmanwave

[Compaq Presario 633 | DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 | DX4 100 Overdrive | 28M RAM | SB16 CT2770A | SPEA Media FX (Soundscape S2000) ]
[GA-6BXC R2.0 | Win98SE | Via C3 Ezra 866 | 384M RAM | TNT2 32M | Voodoo2 8M | SB32 CT3670 | Ensoniq Soundscape Opus]

Reply 128 of 182, by Tenorman

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I also recorded an ESS card with a built in wavetable. This is similar to the BTC 1855. It has the same ES981P ROM chip, but uses an ES689F and an ES1869F instead of the ES690F and ES1868F. It sounds the same to me, but I have a couple of different tracks recorded if anyone is interested.

http://www.tenorman.info/pc/es1869f%2Bes869f

If I had to limit myself to just one low hassle, reasonably priced, card from my collection this would be it. Sure, my SoundScape S-2000 sounds much better, but it also cost me about six times more and still needs to be combined with another card to get decent FM.

[Compaq Presario 633 | DOS 6.22 / Win 3.1 | DX4 100 Overdrive | 28M RAM | SB16 CT2770A | SPEA Media FX (Soundscape S2000) ]
[GA-6BXC R2.0 | Win98SE | Via C3 Ezra 866 | 384M RAM | TNT2 32M | Voodoo2 8M | SB32 CT3670 | Ensoniq Soundscape Opus]

Reply 129 of 182, by moturimi1

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Tenorman wrote:

I also recorded an ESS card with a built in wavetable. This is similar to the BTC 1855. It has the same ES981P ROM chip, but uses an ES689F and an ES1869F instead of the ES690F and ES1868F. It sounds the same to me, but I have a couple of different tracks recorded if anyone is interested.

http://www.tenorman.info/pc/es1869f%2Bes869f

If I had to limit myself to just one low hassle, reasonably priced, card from my collection this would be it. Sure, my SoundScape S-2000 sounds much better, but it also cost me about six times more and still needs to be combined with another card to get decent FM.

Great recordings.
I do prefer ESS GM rendering. The Soundscape is in 2. place.

Reply 130 of 182, by SETBLASTER

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I just bought a turtle beach pinnacle project studio soundcard with box and manual and floppy ..( only midi cable missing) .the card includes both simm memory sticks. and 2 doughter boards. because the card uses 2 boards . one is the wavetable kurzeeil HOMAC. and the other board connected to the card i have no idea what it is because im waiting for.it to get shipped.

25 bucks... i think i made a good deal

Reply 131 of 182, by The Sandman

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Thank you boxpressed for putting so much effort into this thread. Easy to click, hard to forget 😀. The Diamond Monster Midi is real beast, compared to it's size. To bad that these devices are getting more expensive and more expensive over the time. Good for collectors, but why should one give away such a diamond anyways 🤣

Reply 132 of 182, by realnc

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Someone posted recordings of a Terratec Maestro 32/96 on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_lFm1PDCR_g

This card is using the exact same wavetable as the Sound Canvas (SC-55). Indeed, it sounds extremely similar (almost the same.) The small differences are due to the different synth chip.

Reply 133 of 182, by boxpressed

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The Sandman wrote:

Thank you boxpressed for putting so much effort into this thread. Easy to click, hard to forget 😀. The Diamond Monster Midi is real beast, compared to it's size. To bad that these devices are getting more expensive and more expensive over the time. Good for collectors, but why should one give away such a diamond anyways 🤣

You're welcome, and thank you for the kind words. I took a little break partly because it was getting harder and more expensive to find wavetables that I didn't have. But I have some recent pickups that will make it to the thread soon:

Roland SCC-1
Turtle Beach Tropez (may be just like the Maui)
STB Soundrage 32 (AMD InterWave)
Aztech Waverider Pro 32 (Samsung)
Mozart Wavetable (OPL4) -- don't have high hopes for this one with DOS games

Reply 134 of 182, by gdjacobs

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SETBLASTER wrote:

I just bought a turtle beach pinnacle project studio soundcard with box and manual and floppy ..( only midi cable missing) .the card includes both simm memory sticks. and 2 doughter boards. because the card uses 2 boards . one is the wavetable kurzeeil HOMAC. and the other board connected to the card i have no idea what it is because im waiting for.it to get shipped.

25 bucks... i think i made a good deal

If everything functions, that's a great deal!

All hail the Great Capacitor Brand Finder

Reply 135 of 182, by gerwin

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boxpressed wrote:
...But I have some recent pickups that will make it to the thread soon: Roland SCC-1 Turtle Beach Tropez (may be just like the M […]
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...But I have some recent pickups that will make it to the thread soon:
Roland SCC-1
Turtle Beach Tropez (may be just like the Maui)
STB Soundrage 32 (AMD InterWave)
Aztech Waverider Pro 32 (Samsung)
Mozart Wavetable (OPL4) -- don't have high hopes for this one with DOS games

SSC-1 makes for the best reference sound, so that is surely a great addition to your lineup.

I downloaded quite a few of your recordings yesterday. Good to have DOS-game samples of some of the lesser known synthesizers. Some of which I also have myself, but could previously only hear when I install them physically. Much appreciated!

--> ISA Soundcard Overview // Doom MBF 2.04 // SetMul

Reply 136 of 182, by Ray Koopa

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This is really amazing! I had a Super Sound from SiC resource back in the days and hearing its samples again gives so much nostalgia.

I just wish it would somehow be possible to dump the patches to an SF2 file or something for an emulator / software synthesizer to listen to my old games as I used to...

Reply 137 of 182, by boxpressed

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After a long hiatus, I'm back to update this thread. I've finally added the classic Roland SCC-1 to my collection. Check out page one of the thread for all the cards and samples.

Reply 138 of 182, by boxpressed

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Also, I was able to compare the SCC-1 to the Diamond Monster Sound 4MB DB with the allegedly "stolen" Roland patches. They do sound pretty similar to me, but I'm no expert. I think there's a little difference in effects processing. Here's a comparison of the levels from Audacity.

roland comparison.jpg
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