tincup wrote:

Really looking forward to it - hope it's not DOA... I listened to Swaaye's recordings and was impressed how the original Yamaha […]
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PhaytalError wrote:

You'll be amazed at the quality of the MIDI that the daughterboard makes.

Really looking forward to it - hope it's not DOA... I listened to Swaaye's recordings and was impressed how the original Yamaha sounded, so I'm psyched about the clone.

Vogons is definitely an "audio freindly" site and I've learned much about a facet of gaming that was, until now, really not that high on my list of priorities. But the enthusiasm and dedication to gaming audio is infectious and over the last few months I have done quite a bit of testing and fiddling with my retro boxes in this area.

And btw, I have found the CT2800 16-S to be a reasonable one-card isa solution for late dos/early windows. The midi, as primative as it sounds [as I'm now discovering], comes across better to my ear than half-dozen other cards I tried and is easy to setup.

Yeah, even though the 16-S does not contain a real Yamaha OPL3 FM chip [it contains a custom OPL3 clone created by Creative] it sounds okay but not all that good. The FM synth on a 16-S and AWE64 sounds "tinny" though and I personally don't like it on those particular cards, however AWE64 Gold has virtually no "hiss" so it's a reletively "quiet" card, which is a good thing, however it lacks the connector required to connect a GM, GS, or XG daughterboard.

FM synth on a real OPL3 chip though is amazing. I'm a fan of FM synth which is why I love the music on the Sega Genesis. If a competent composer utilizes FM synth and uses custom FM synth patches correctly it is absolutely spectacular. 😀

Well, Vibra (original), Vibra 16S and Vibra Pro do not have creative CQM FM integrated. Vibra C, XV and later have CQM integrated.

PhaytalError wrote:

tincup wrote:

Well, guess I'm jumping on this bandwagon too haha:) Read how many of you were using the clone daughter card with a CT2800 [use one on my W95/Dos box] I couldn't resist. never went the multi-card route before, and $24 isn't a bad little deal..

You'll be amazed at the quality of the MIDI that the daughterboard makes.

It also emulates [in hardware] Roland LAPC-I, MT32, Sound Canvas, etc... so it allows games that don't have a "General MIDI" option but that have Roland support to still use the card for Roland based support in games! 😁

The XR385 does not support Roland GS, it accepts the MIDI data but discards all Roland-specific SysEx data. Try it with Monkey Island or Prince of Persia, it does not sound like MT32 at all.

About the quality, check out these tracks made by Yamaha to demonstrate the power of XG midi:

http://soundcloud.com/oplawaai3/henry-mancini-peter-gunn

http://soundcloud.com/oplawaai3/jimi-hendrix-voodoo-chile

Unfortunately there is not a single game in the world that uses all the features of these XG cards... 🙁

jwt27 wrote:

Unfortunately there is not a single game in the world that uses all the features of these XG cards... 🙁

That is very true, if it would have taken off [XG utilized fully] it would have eliminated the need for Redbook CD audio in most games, as the instrument patches in the DB60XG was extremely realistic sounding

PhaytalError wrote:

tincup wrote:

It also emulates [in hardware] Roland LAPC-I, MT32, Sound Canvas, etc... so it allows games that don't have a "General MIDI" option but that have Roland support to still use the card for Roland based support in games! 😁

That's not correct 😀

There is no device that managed(s) to emulate the MT-32 in hardware. You have to buy a MT-32, no way around this...

For starters you don't have Roland MPU401 compatible midi interface. Try starting games like Gateway or Wing Commander with MT-32 music. They won't even load.

Heaps of companies claimed MT-32 compatibility and I got burnt badly once because I was a noob kid and had no idea. When they said "MT-32 compatible" they should have said "compatible with the default MT-32 instruments only".

You will hear some music if you play a MT-32 game, so in this regard it does work, but all the instruments are usually wrong and custom sounds don't work either.

Some games just use the default MT-32 instruments and those should work (the AWE cards have a driver setting for this) but the whole beauty of the MT-32 are the custom sounds.

General MIDI sounds nice but all the games use the same instruments, so there is not much variety. MT-32 games however like Space Quest 3 or The Heart of China sound TOTALLY different and unique.

Hmmm. More of a graphics/over-clocking person, but in spite of all the caviats, I'm still llokng forward to the XR386. 'Bout time I tried something different..

Massive Roland vs Yamaha sound comparison video underway 😀 I was sick of fiddeling with the limitations of Movie Maker and purchased PowerDirector last week.

I am still learning lots but it can do so much more compared to Movie Maker...

So guys, get your ears cleaned, tea or coffee ready!

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I am still learning lots but it can do so much more compared to Movie Maker...

Unfortunately that's not saying much, even iMovie (the video editing software that comes free with Macs) leaves Movie Maker for dead.

Hehe yea true 😀 I thought about going with Vegas or Premiere but I think I am better off learning PowerDirector first because the learning curve seemed not as steep and I do like quick results. It was also quite cheap at ~ 60 bucks.

Anyway the video is being processed by YouTube and I will share the link shortly. I hope you guys enjoy it as much as I did making it...

Video link here: YouTube Video - Roland vs Yamaha General MIDI DOS Games Music Comparison

I got a 2890 with the real opl3 (ymf262-m) on it. Haven't gotten around to testing it yet through but have other choices like a ymf719-s and a ymf724-f with sb link.

XR385 just arrived from China. Same basic packaging as mentioned by others; small padded mailer, card wraped in a tabloid size sheet of newspaper, but in turn this was wrapped in a sheet of thin foam padding. Doesn't look to have received any damage and the addition of foam wrapping inspires some confidence. Will test it out later.

My XR385 died on me, no idea how that happened, anyways I ordered some new ones.

Oh and take a look at the output circuit of these things:
I hope this link works..
Yes, it's that bad. Radical lowpass filter + over-amplification to clipping. I have no idea why they did this, the card has a digital EQ built-in so using an analog filter for this makes no sense. Much better would be to just connect the DAC output straight to the sound card, most cards take 1Vrms input anyway so the amplifier circuit is not necessary at all.

jwt27 wrote:

My XR385 died on me, no idea how that happened, anyways I ordered some new ones.

Wow that's a fancy applet! Very cool, though I have no idea what it is you are trying to say 😀

The NEC 385 IS indeed very loud. Most games clip if used on a Roland MPU401AT and that unit doesn't have a mixer at all. So if your gamed doesn't have a volume slider you are out of luck...

Quick rookie question: The XR835 fits nicely on my CT2800 Vibra16-S, but do I need to fiddle with any jumpers to enable it? I quickly tried System Shock 1 and Alone in the Dark 1 but noticed no change in audio and I don't have the documentation for the 'mother' card. Also, what might be some good games to test it's funtionality.

It also fits nicely on my Turtle Beach Montego I, MX300, and CT1750 [DSP 4.05], the only other sound cards I have with db headers. The TBM is in a second retro box ready to go so that will be the first one to try.

You shouldn't need any jumpers, but you need to use DIAGNOSE.EXE in the sound blaster drivers to make sure that the MIDI port is enabled with an IO address, most commonly 300h or 330h.

Any game that supports General MIDI should work. You will need to go into the games setup and change the music to use General MIDI on the appropriate IO port address.

Good games are Doom, Hexen, Rise of the Triad, there were many games from the early/mid 90's that supported GM.

The CT2800 has the hanging note bug quite badly so may not be the best card for the XR385.

Thanks. My setblaster variable it 330h so I'l shoot for that one

you need a SET BLASTER statement with all the correct resource settings first, then do a final initialize of the card with the diagnose /s command... it should be all setup if you just install the SB16 drivers disk... do not use the older/original 1993 drivers disks, they don't have the drivers that get loaded with config.sys, so some things can't find your sound card without them.. at the very least, use the early 1994 version, which installs the voyetra midi driver in windows 3.1

I'll re-run the SB16 driver install then - I deleted lines in the autoexec/config files it generated last to 'clean' it up [had no need for some of the stuff then and wanted a clean boot].

If you're using the latest SB16 files downloaded from Creative's web site, the SET BLASTER line should be added for you automatically when you run DIAGNOSE.EXE

Also I'm quite sure you can get rid of the stuff from config.sys pertaining to your sound blaster, if all you are doing is playing games. Stufflike CTSB16.SYS, VIBRA16.SYS and CTMM.SYS isn't necessary for games in my experience. I only have the SET BLASTER and DIAGNOSE /S and MIXERSET /P /Q lines in my autoexec.bat for sound blaster drivers, and removed the ones it added to config.sys and have yet to run into any problems.

The CT2800 is not a true PnP card so you don't need CTCU or CTCM either.

DonutKing wrote:

I only have the SET BLASTER and DIAGNOSE /S and MIXERSET /P /Q lines in my autoexec.bat for sound blaster drivers, and removed the ones it added to config.sys and have yet to run into any problems.

Basically what I'd done, so I re-added the DIAGNOSE /S and MIXERSET /P /Q lines back.

When I run Diagnose [from a dos prompt] the base address is fine but I get a red error screen trying to set the MPU-401 Midi address - says the port is not available. Same if I scan, or select 300 or 330.