HunterZ wrote:

Also, make sure your recording software is set to record stereo.

Er... 😊 It's taken me a month to solve that problem. Audacity installation defaulted to mono recording. No idea why. I set it to Stereo, and I have sound recording working OK now. I did 40 seconds of Doom using a SBPro2 CT1600. The next problem is that mediafire won't let me upload the .mp3 file. I've tried dozens of times today, and it says "unable to load uploader". I'll try again tomorrow...

Here are some recordings that might be interesting to add to the great collection at swaaye's site.
Rapidshare Link

Doom E1M1 and Dark Forces for three types of daughterboards:

-Turtle Beach Rio, Rev 2.0, with 'effects' turned way down in the control panel. Has 4MB Voice Crystal ROM Similar to GUS/TB Maui/TB Tropez. This DB was originally mounted on a TB Multisound Tahiti soundcard.

-X Technology TopWave-32 (4MB GM Korg Synth).
(Sounds 100% identical to my Trust Super sound module DB. with the same Korg chips)

-Dream GSWave. With Dream SAM9203 Synth, and the 4MB ROM that was ripped of the SoundCanvas, and caused them a lawsuit. This DB was originally mounted on the Terratec Maestro 32 soundcard.

Also in the package the midi files I based the recordings on, and some midi files I myself often use to rate a midi synthesizer. The recording volume was set so there is no clipping and such. Pictures can be found here http://wavetable.web.fc2.com/ But mine differ in details from the ones displayed there. If desired I also have these Dream-chipset daughterboards: TB Cancun FX 4MB, Terratec SOWT-1 1MB, and another type of Terratec 4MB which is currently inside another PC.

Then maybe these ISA soundcards are interesting: an AudioTrix Pro with 2MB OPL4. And I have this Terratec Maestro 32/96 of which the FM sounds kinda typical.

What I hope to see from someone else maybe, just curious:
-Opti/QDsp Hardware Wavetable
-ESS Hardware Wavetable
-OPL4-ML 1MB Hardware Wavetable (OPL4=YMF704C)
-Kurzweil any...
-Terratec WaveXTable

Also here are Dox-1 recordings by aleksej:
What about MIDITEMP stuff?

Gerwin, thanks for the recordings. I added them to the recordings page. 😀

I have finally been able to make a recording, and upload it the net. I chose Doom E1M1, using a SB Pro 2. I appreciate it's not required by anyone, but I thought I would upload it anyway. It's only 40 seconds.

http://www.multiupload.com/0M8FXZOC3P (I tested the Hotfile link, and it worked.)

I compared my recording to the recording found on Swaaye's website, and it could easily be my imagination, but is my recording fractionally cleaner sounding? The settings I used were:

SB Pro 2 sound wheel set to maximum.
SB Pro control version 1.21 - master, voice, fm, cd volumes all set to default value of 12

Using Sound Blaster Which.exe program, the hardware is reported as:
Sound Blaster Pro v3.01 (stereo)
Min rate 4000
Max rate 22050
Mixer = Present
Sample size 8 bits

Audacity recording set to "what u hear".
During recording, I muted all other sound channels using X-Fi control panel, and the Audacity microphone recording level sliding bar was set to Max. I exported the recording as a WAV file (leaving all settings as default, the VB Rate at 2), and used LameDrop to change it to an MP3.

Very special thanks: Malik, thanks very much for this sound card! 😁

Sounds very clean indeed!

EDIT: Just listened through headphones and yea that's pretty much OPL3 perfection...

I can't hear any noise to be honest.

Definitely a keeper for a OPL3 reference system 🤣

retro games 100 wrote:

Very special thanks: Malik, thanks very much for this sound card! 😁

Glad that it's working well! 😁

double post

swaaye wrote:

Gerwin, thanks for the recordings. I added them to the recordings page. 😀

Awesome, thanks! I will look were the proper pictures of the hardware went, and send these too. You made a small error writing crystal behind the RIO, which would suggest the cirrus logic hardware company, it should be 'voice crystal', these guys:
http://www.voicecrystal.com/services.htm

retro games 100 wrote:

Audacity recording set to "what u hear". During recording, I muted all other sound channels using X-Fi control

At my setup I have to choose a single recording source, I don't know if 'what u hear' gives more background noise. But then you muted the others so that might compensate.

retro games 100 wrote:

SB Pro 2 sound wheel set to maximum ........ and the Audacity microphone recording level sliding bar was set to Max.

Watch out for clipping: The recorded waveform can easily get "out of bounds" of the digital sound format, then certain pieces with much amplitude get their tops cut.
I guess the reverse is not good either: low recording volume makes inefficient use of the digital format.

^ Thanks very much for the info and advice. Really appreciate it. BTW, I made 2 more recordings. Both with Audacity recording set to "line in", rather than "what u hear". The first new recording I set the recording level to default, which was 0.75 I think. (The recording slider bar was about 3/4 along the sliding bar.) The audio quality sounded a tiny bit "flat and lifeless". The second new recording I made was with the recording level set to maximum. I must be honest, it sounded more "interesting" - punchier, livelier. It's here:

http://www.multiupload.com/RCVECGNPTC

It's almost certainly my imagination, but I think this recording is a tiny fraction bit better than my first recording, several posts back.

I can actually make myself useful! 😳 I currently have a Creative Gameblaster (CM/S) sound card installed. Below is a mobygames list of CM/S supported games. What game(s) do you want me to make a recording of?

http://www.mobygames.com/attribute/sheet/attr … et,0/p,2/so,0a/

I have done one recording so far. It's 2.5 minutes of Ultima 6. I was pressing the ESC key quite a bit, so the tunes stop and start several times.

http://www.multiupload.com/3HQPB4PJOL (U6 recording)
Edit: http://www.multiupload.com/Z34JYLPCFE (2nd attempt, perhaps a bit better?)

I love Game Blaster music...

Such a shame that later games didn't support it anymore 🙁

Sierra and Lucasarts had good support in some of their early games. Prince of Persia also supports Game Blaster. The old version needs a command line option and the new version has a setup program to get Game Blaster music going.

It didn't work on my SB 1.5 with CMS chips however. Works fine in DOSBox. I guess Prince of Persia needs a real Game Blaster and doesn't like the CMS upgrade chips.

It seems that up to ~ 1990 you will find games with CMS support.

I tried Prince of Persia, and found that it automatically detected the CM/S card. I'm not sure if something is wrong, but the music sounded a bit strange. The notes were a bit "muddled up". Some kind of timing problem, perhaps? Anyway, I have done another CM/S recording. It is Silpheed. Looking at the Audacity recording, I could see that the "squiggly sound data" on the recording meter was quite "intense", and so I dropped the recording level down from maximum, to the value of 0.6.

http://www.multiupload.com/X71DA5CLLU (About 2.5 minutes of Silpheed)

Edit: I made a minor improvement to the Ultima 6 recording, posted above. I adjusted the recording level, and tried to choose some more interesting lengths of music. The whole recording is 2.75 minutes long, and features 3 parts to the game.

http://www.multiupload.com/Z34JYLPCFE (Ultima 6, with CM/S)

gerwin wrote:

Awesome, thanks! I will look were the proper pictures of the hardware went, and send these too.

Ah, they went here: 😉

Edit: Listening to the samples I posted, I might have to redo the Korg ones, There is something not right in the louder parts.
Would like to add the lufia song too, but I cannot find the midi file...

ok I put the pics up and put "voice crystal" together. 😀

I think I have uploaded swaaye the midi files too.

I don't know what I did with the MIDs. You should post them for others here.

I put RG100's two Game Blaster MP3s up too.

gerwin wrote:

What I hope to see from someone else maybe, just curious: ... -ESS Hardware Wavetable ... […]
Show full quote

What I hope to see from someone else maybe, just curious:
...
-ESS Hardware Wavetable
...

Gerwin, what exactly do you mean by ESS hardware wavetable? I just received 3 ESS cards. I have tested them inside Windows 98. For each card, Win98 automatically detected them, and installed the software from the Win98 CD. I tested them using dxdiag.exe. They seemed to work OK. I ran Doom from within a "dos box" inside Win98, but I couldn't get the FM music to work - I just heard silence. However, General Midi produced music OK.

Do you know where I can obtain the DOS drivers for these sound cards please? I would be happy to record some music from them if you want. Thanks a lot. 😀

You don't need DOS drivers for them. Just watch what your mobo BIOS gives the cards for IRQ/DMA and then make a SET BLASTER=A220 Ix Dx T4 statement for them (replace the x's).

If you're using a mobo that doesn't have PnP you'll need a PnP configuration app though.

I did have to get the ESS DOS mixer program to set the volume for the DB header. It was connected to auxiliary output.

OK, thanks a lot for the advice. BTW, where did you get the ESS DOS mixer program? I have managed to track down the DOS PnP config util, and also the Win VxD on driverguide. I can get the card to function correctly in both pure DOS and Windows 98. Inside Win98, if I setup Doom, I must set both the Music and the FX values to Soundblaster, otherwise I hear no music. If I just set the Music to Soundblaster, I get silence. Strange.

Apologies. I searched for ESS Audiodrive on Vogons, and found this thread -

ESS AudioDrive ES1868F - drivers - and how do you disable the gameport / midi port?

Vogons user tikbalang has kindly posted a file called ESSISA.zip, which contains ESS ISA utils. Thank you.