Little review here on vogons :
Need help with Orchid Soundwave 32

Some guy called swaaye has some recordings of it
http://www.swaaye.com/retro/

Davros wrote:

Little review here on vogons : Need help with Orchid Soundwave 32 […]
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Little review here on vogons :
Need help with Orchid Soundwave 32

Some guy called swaaye has some recordings of it
http://www.swaaye.com/retro/

swaaye got 512k ROM version. This particular one could sound a bit better. Care to make some recordings Racoon?

Make some recordings and I can post them on the comparison site. Try not to record too loud (clipping) and save them as FLAC or 192+ kbps MP3.

Ok, I'll do that once I have enogh time to go through all the instructions 😀

I made some recordings, what file hosting do you recommend? I know only russian ones 🙁

www.dropbox.com works for me

DonutKing, thank you, that's an awesome resource!

Downloaded 4 files (I did not perform any cropping, so sometimes the record starts with a pause and ends with the beginning of another, sorry for that)

There are:
Warcraft Orc4 - General Midi
Monkey Island 2 Intro - MT32 Emulation
Monkey Island 2 Arrival - MT32 Emulation
Master Of Orion - AdLib

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vzogk17dh1w4bvw/etoms_7HT9

I tried playing some other midis from swaaye's website, but due to some bug in config of sw32 or playsnd.com, they sounded horrable, with annoying missing notes in Star Wars theme and stuff like that. The sound was clear though.

The Final Fantasy midis sound fine, I'll record them and some other working midis later.

The recording was made with iriver T30 at 256kb/s mp3

The recordings at swaayes site are probably the ones I did from this card:
http://mail.lipsia.de/~enigma/neu/pics/orchid … SoundWave32.jpg
You can find the MP3s here: ftp://78.46.141.148/wavetable_comparison/

elianda, your recordings are really cool, star wars theme in MT-32 emulation mode is almost like the one in the movie 😀 What player did you use to get that sound quality?

This depends on the card.
If it is MPU-401 compatible I usually go with GSPlay.

For the GUS I used the player that is included to get a dynamic patch caching strategy that is similar to the one games use.
For the OPL4 recordings I used ProSound in Win 3.x because it reads more midi file formats than mediaplayer.

So for the Orchid32 it was most likely GSPlay.

I once had one of these until I lost it in a burglary only a few years after I got it, and I've missed it ever since. Some of the organ sounds were the best I've ever heard then or since - I think especially the Rock Organ (cant be sure, it was about 15 years ago!), and especially in the lower octaves. Would love to hear it again - thanks for uploading the samples - I'll take a listen.

The original version of this card (that most of us have) is not particularly outstanding when used for General Midi (as Elianda mentioned earlier).
BUT compared to other cards of the time, it emulates MT-32 very well !

Also, even WITHOUT having the newer Invision ROMs, one can have a taste of what it could be - just upload the newer 2.x firmware on the card and play any GM tracks. Some notes / instruments will play awful of cause, but the improved firmware clearly shines even with the original ROMs.
I suppose with the Invision ROMs the card (roughly) steps up to Crystal / Dream Wavetable quality.

I have the card with Invision ROM. The ROM consists of 2 x 512 KB ROMs = 1 MB compressed = 2 MB Wavetable data uncompressed.
Check out some tracks. I think it is better than the predecessor, but not much.

Dark Forces: https://www.dropbox.com/s/quc8hp4o6trq0b0/DAR … Vision.mp3?dl=0
DOOM: https://www.dropbox.com/s/eqr3dg90za1xzje/DOO … vision.mp3?dl=0
Compare with the original ROMs (at 31:59 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXFYWJ7dbz0

I'd like to have the original ROMS. Does anyone have a dump of the ROMS?

I can, but not right away. (I will get back home in 8 days or so. Maybe someone else can do this faster.)

In the meantime, could You dump the InVision ROMs ? These are rare and more sought after ... 😀

Hm... Even with the larger ROM it is still the worst soundcard i have ever heard. Like i said in another topic; It sounds like a bad OPL emulator to me.

I also was underwhelmed. The card has quite a good reputation, so I was a but surprised.

philscomputerlab wrote:

I also was underwhelmed.

So was I. But at least a card with exchangeable ROMs. I do not know of another soundcard offering this option.
I wonder if there is also another ROM version with 2 x 1 MB Roms. I guess there isn't.
Maybe the Soundwave 32 SCSI Studio has a good reputation, having also a wavebooster 4 FX as second synthesizer.
It is DREAM based.

To understand the rep, you need to think as a consumer at '93... at the given price, it was an attractive GM card. Also, it had pretty nice MT-32 emulation.

Has anyone got a recording of the MT-32 emulation?

Something challenging, like Wing Commander, Space Quest III or The Heart of China would be interesting.