Could be that the mixer has line not enabled?

Run mixerset and make sure that line is ticked under output at the bottom right. Also that it's not muted on the left hand side.

The Gold should be routed to the ACE and the speakers connected to the ACE.
The ACE is designed to take the signal and add the GUS features or simply have the sound passed through, when no GUS drivers are loaded.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Could be that the mixer has line not enabled?

Run mixerset and make sure that line is ticked under output at the bottom right. Also that it's not muted on the left hand side.

Thank you! Problem solved. I was hoping the fix was something simple like that. I'm still getting used to relying on software to configure later ISA Sound Blasters.

brostenen wrote:

The Gold should be routed to the ACE and the speakers connected to the ACE.
The ACE is designed to take the signal and add the GUS features or simply have the sound passed through, when no GUS drivers are loaded.

I never thought of that. In my mind, I always thought of the Ace as the "supplemental" sound card, so I defaulted to routing its output through my "main" card. I will see if I can notice a difference in noise.

boxpressed wrote:

I never thought of that. In my mind, I always thought of the Ace as the "supplemental" sound card, so I defaulted to routing its output through my "main" card. I will see if I can notice a difference in noise.

Well... That's what the original installation manual is saying. 😉
It's a bit the reversed world, of something like a Wavetable daughterboard, so I clearly understand the reason for thinking that the GUS should be routed into the primaery soundcard. I thought the same, when I first installed mine, back in 1997/98.
One last thing you should be aware of, is that the GUS-ACE has "reversed/flipped" stereo. Meaning that left become's right and right becomes left.

brostenen wrote:

Well... That's what the original installation manual is saying. ;-) It's a bit the reversed world, of something like a Wavetable […]
Show full quote

boxpressed wrote:

I never thought of that. In my mind, I always thought of the Ace as the "supplemental" sound card, so I defaulted to routing its output through my "main" card. I will see if I can notice a difference in noise.

Well... That's what the original installation manual is saying. 😉
It's a bit the reversed world, of something like a Wavetable daughterboard, so I clearly understand the reason for thinking that the GUS should be routed into the primaery soundcard. I thought the same, when I first installed mine, back in 1997/98.
One last thing you should be aware of, is that the GUS-ACE has "reversed/flipped" stereo. Meaning that left become's right and right becomes left.

What's funny is that I probably configured it according to the manual when I bought it new back in 95 or 96. Over the years, my orientation flipped, just like the stereo channels.

I love the Ace. Still have the original box, disks, and manuals. If I couldn't get the problem solved, I would have replaced the AWE with an SB Pro 2 and not looked back.

philscomputerlab wrote:

Could be that the mixer has line not enabled?

Run mixerset and make sure that line is ticked under output at the bottom right. Also that it's not muted on the left hand side.

And if it was enabled, maybe the volume slider is set to off.

It turned out that only CD was enabled, not Line or Mic.

boxpressed wrote:

I love the Ace. Still have the original box, disks, and manuals. If I couldn't get the problem solved, I would have replaced the AWE with an SB Pro 2 and not looked back.

I love it too, well... I have deep mixed feelings about this card.
As great as it is, it does not really beat the GOLD in terms of out-put quality and the GOLD actually delivers greater Adlib emulation than the ACE.
And in the standard configuration. FastTracker2 can not play big S3M and MOD files on the ACE. The gold can, and even sounds greater.
So... GUS-ACE is great to get those GUS-Only titles running, and nothing more. And yeah. The hardware is great for what it is. Design-wise that is.

I would gladly swap my ACE for a GUS-Classic plus a GUS-Max without software and manuals, as mine is boxed with everything that came with it.
Or swap for a Roland MT32 plus the ISA interface-card for that module. I just feel the GUS-ACE's useabillity is somewhat crippeled.
On the other hand... It's really a rare and somewhat obscure product, wich makes it a really cool piece of hardware.

I admit that my feelings for the Ace are a bit nostalgic. 😉

So, do you prefer the AWE over the GUS when a game (e.g. Blood, Duke 3D) has native support for both?

I'm not familiar with FastTracker2. I do like my MT-32; the AWE MPU-401 works quite nicely with It and SoftMPU.

boxpressed wrote:

I admit that my feelings for the Ace are a bit nostalgic. 😉

That's why I keep hanging on to mine as well.

boxpressed wrote:

So, do you prefer the AWE over the GUS when a game (e.g. Blood, Duke 3D) has native support for both?

Depends. This is a really tough question.

If I need a box, were AWE, SB16 and Adlib are the preferred standards, I just use my CT3900.
It's got SB16 (and all the other SB-Standards), and it's got AWE sounds and it has an OPL-3 chip.

If Adlib is not that important (DOS-games from 1995 to 2000), I use my AWE64-Gold.
It has such great sound quality, and the Adlib emulation just sounds amazing compared to other AWE-Cards.

All in all... I must say, that it comes down to what I need to run.
The best AWE cards are: CT3900, CT2760 and AWE64-Gold. All others are water compared to these.
(If I don't have one of those 3 AWE-Cards mentioned installed in the machine, then I prefer GUS)

Then comes a true SB16 paired with an GUS-ACE. (for some reason, pinball games turn SB-Mixer up)
And so, I find GUS-ACE to be a better choice for Pinball Fantasies/Illusions/Dreams.
I have never had any Roland modules though, and just wish that I have one.

(Gonna get my third Gold in the next couple of weeks, and off my AWE64-Value goes)