Re: What retro activity did you get up to today?

Posted on 2016-12-20, 18:13

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

schlang wrote: VIA®MVP3 Is your Write Cache Pipeline enabled or disabled in BIOS? Here's a thread I started on problems with that setting: BIOS Setting: "Write Cache Pipeline"

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Re: PCI SB Card

Posted on 2016-12-20, 16:33

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I would say that an Aureal Vortex2-based card + SoftMPU would be your best bet. I haven't tested that combination, however, so I'm not sure if the Vortex2's AU30DOS TSR will conflict with SoftMPU.

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Re: Ensoniq / NEC Harmony

Posted on 2016-12-20, 14:58

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Excellent! I was hoping that the Harmony would be essentially a Soundscape Opus. Thank you for testing and reporting back. There used to be a ton of these on eBay for less than $10, but supply seems to be drying up.

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Re: Lend Me Your Ears: YMF719E vs CT2230

Posted on 2016-12-19, 14:27

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thank you. I'm using Audacity, and apparently a red bar marker appears on the recording level meter if the input level goes past 0dB. I try to keep most of my recordings where only the most intense parts reach the red level (-3 dB to -1 dB), but there was probably a little clipping given that I'm …

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Re: Lend Me Your Ears: YMF719E vs CT2230

Posted on 2016-12-19, 07:06

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

The YMF71x outputs slightly hotter signal than standard line-out when the Master volume is at 15, so once again make absolutely sure you don't clip your recording input. Can you explain what you mean by "clip your recording input?" I decided to forego the convenience of the bench and lug out my BX …

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-18, 23:23

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Added the Serdaco DreamBlaster X2. These samples and those from the DreamBlaster S1 are recorded using my new and improved, less "noisy" technique!

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-18, 22:25

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

What do you guys mean by "noise"? Your samples sound fine to me! I'm not using headphones though, just my el-cheapo Logitech 5.1 system :dead: That little S1 sounds pretty good, but I still prefer the sound of the 1MB Crystal CS9233 which can be picked up cheaply from time-to-time. But it's great …

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-18, 21:12

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I discovered the causes of the excessive background noise on some samples: a poor-quality minijack cord in combination with too-high level input into the recording computer. I will be hosting most daughterboards on a YMF719E ISA card that I've configured to be virtually silent. I'll slowly be …

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Re: Lend Me Your Ears: YMF719E vs CT2230

Posted on 2016-12-18, 20:57

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Try raising the Master volume of the YMF to 15 (make sure you don't clip your recording input), this should maximize SNR even more if I'm not mistaken. But yes, in this demonstration they are very close noise-wise with the CT2230 being slightly quieter because of a different noise type. Both are …

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Re: Use Vortex2 without Windows?

Posted on 2016-12-18, 20:29

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

If a driver hangs while loading rather than giving an error message or simply not loading correctly, that could indicate that it is a DOS version incompatability (although there are other reasons too, for sure). Are you able to try it with a clean install of DOS 7 or 7.1? My initial suspicion is …

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Lend Me Your Ears: YMF719E vs CT2230

Posted on 2016-12-18, 19:27

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

I believe that I found the source of the background hiss/noise in my wavetable recordings, and it was the minijack cord. It was too long. When I used a 12" cord, most of the noise disappeared. Although I would like to use my Vortex2 card to host daughterboards, it won't work on my DOS 6.2 bench …

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Re: Use Vortex2 without Windows?

Posted on 2016-12-18, 19:17

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Thanks to both of you for your help. I'm willing to take the word of the folks at flaterco.com. Great info on that website, though.

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Use Vortex2 without Windows?

Posted on 2016-12-18, 16:50

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Has anyone been able to use the Aureal Vortex2 cards in a DOS-only environment? I'm trying to clean up some of my wavetable recordings, and it would be very convenient if I could use a Vortex2 on my test bench, which is a Socket 3 board with SiS 85C496/7 chipset. I'm running DOS 6.2. I created a " …

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-18, 04:18

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

I'm glad you're finding it helpful. By the time I'm finished, there should be a synth for every price range and taste. I'm noticing a lot of noise on my recordings, so I'm going to look into fixing the problem. I may end up rerecording some samples in the future.

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-18, 03:43

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Couldn't get my hands on an X1 before they sold out, but the X2 review will be the next one.

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-18, 03:12

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Added the Serdaco DreamBlaster S1 2017 Final Limited Edition. Vogon Salute!

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Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

Posted on 2016-12-18, 01:44

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Picked up the Diamond Viper V330 + original install CD-ROM for $1 (shipping was $13, though). My first 3D accelerator card was the STB Velocity 128, also a Riva 128 card. I finished Quake 2 and FF VII with it, so I have fond memories of it despite its flaws. I was intrigued by the Diamond card …

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Re: OK guys, I want to delve into PIII territory now

Posted on 2016-12-17, 23:02

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Nice-looking build. Some Dell BX motherboards during that era used a proprietary PSU pinout. I have a Optiplex GX1 like this. You should keep the original OEM PSU matched to this motherboard until you find out for sure. I've read how people have destroyed a Dell motherboard by plugging in a standard …

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Re: My Wavetable Sample Thread

Posted on 2016-12-17, 15:22

by

by boxpressed

in Marvin \ Sound

in Marvin \ Sound

Added the Reveal Sound FX Wave SC500. This is a nice wavetable card that may be a clone of an OEM card. If anyone knows its origin, please post!

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Re: Do I really need a 386 when you already have a 286/486

Posted on 2016-12-17, 14:58

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by boxpressed

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

in Marvin \ General Old Hardware

Before you buy anything, try hitting <-> all at once. On one of my 486 boards with an SiS 85C496/7 chipset, doing so will trigger the "deturbo" mode. (There's also a jumper that will do this.) I am testing an Intel 486DX-33 on this board at this moment, and it returns a Speedsys score of 12.46. When …

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