VOGONS


My Wavetable Sample Thread

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Reply 40 of 182, by boxpressed

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Added the Guillemot Maxi Sound Game Theater 64. This is one of my favorite ISA sound cards with wavetable. A superior card in almost every way.

Reply 41 of 182, by clueless1

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Wow, that Maxi Sound is incredible sounding! And the Orchid is very...different. 😀 The Doom guitar licks sound like an accordion. Maybe it's got a polka sound font built in?

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OPL3 FM vs. Roland MT-32 vs. General MIDI DOS Game Comparison
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Reply 42 of 182, by James-F

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clueless1 wrote:

Wow, that Maxi Sound is incredible sounding!

Indeed.

The wavetable bank is CleanWave32 (4MB) by Dream and sounds exactly like many other wavetable boards with the CleanWave series banks, including the forthcoming Dreamblaster X2.
Samples of the CleanWave bank in various wavetable daughterboards: DreamBlaster X2 and S1 BLACK Editions Available Soon / Pre-Order / Black Friday Bundle
CleanWave documents: DreamBlaster X2 and S1 BLACK Editions Available Soon / Pre-Order / Black Friday Bundle

The CleanWave bank is actually NOT made from Roland samples, but made a new from scratch only after the lawsuit by Roland.
The Roland clones with the stolen samples are CS9233 chips with 1MB, 2MB and 4MB, and can be immediately distinguished from the CleanWave series by hearing Duke Nukem 3D Grabbag Power Snare Drum which you can hear right away is the exact same snare from the SC-55.

Listen to the AOPEN/AW32 (CS9233 1MB) to hear the SC-55 power snare in Duke3D Grabbag.
The 4MB that comes with the CS9233 is practically 1:1 copy of the SC-55 samples and can be heard in the Terratec WaveSystem Professional SOWT-24 and Terratec Maestro 32/96

Last edited by James-F on 2016-12-04, 20:02. Edited 1 time in total.


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Reply 43 of 182, by boxpressed

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clueless1 wrote:

Wow, that Maxi Sound is incredible sounding! And the Orchid is very...different. 😀 The Doom guitar licks sound like an accordion. Maybe it's got a polka sound font built in?

Yes, I like the Orchid for its quirkiness. I don't want all of my wavetable cards to have the same kind of GM music--even if some of it is unusual or even bad. Wait until you hear an oddball sample from the next card I'm reviewing!

Reply 44 of 182, by boxpressed

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James-F wrote:
The CleanWave bank is actually NOT made from Roland samples, but made a new from scratch only after the lawsuit by Roland. The R […]
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The CleanWave bank is actually NOT made from Roland samples, but made a new from scratch only after the lawsuit by Roland.
The Roland clones with the stolen samples are CS9233 chips with 1MB, 2MB and 4MB, and can be immediately distinguished from the CleanWave series by hearing Duke Nukem 3D Grabbag Power Snare Drum which you can hear right away is the exact same snare from the SC-55.

Listen to the AOPEN/AW32 (CS9233 1MB) to hear the SC-55 power snare in Duke3D Grabbag.
The 4MB that comes with the CS9233 is practically 1:1 copy of the SC-55 samples.

Thanks for the clarification. I always wondered about which Dream synth came with the "borrowed" samples. I always thought that Dream settled with Roland out of court and were able to continue to use their samples. Soon I will be reviewing the Diamond Monster MIDI DB with a SAM9733 and 4MB ROM, so we can compare with the CS9233.

Reply 45 of 182, by James-F

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boxpressed wrote:

Soon I will be reviewing the Diamond Monster MIDI DB with a SAM9733 and 4MB ROM,

If I'm not mistaken, it should sound exactly like this one: Miditemp DS-48 Cleanwave 32 (dream SAM9733) Wavetable Daughterboard, 4MB
The Dreamblaster X2 sounds exactly like that as you can hear form the previous thread link I posted.
The CS9233 is before Dream had their own CleanWave samples.


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Reply 47 of 182, by FGB

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Just for clarification because some things can easily be mixed up:

The Crystal CS9233 (Dream SAM9233) is a wavetable synthesizer chip and has nothing to do with the soundfont which it is used with. It is true that the SAM9233 synth is coupled with the Roland SC-55 soundfont on some few high end cards (like the AdLib ASB64 and the Terratec Maestro 32/96 - both excellent sound cards for General Midi in DOS games) as well as on some daughterboards, yes, but the same soundfont can also be found on SAM9407 cards like the first revision of the Maxi Sound 64 in its ROM chip or as the default RAM bank for later revisions of the card as well as on all other SAM9407 based cards and also on other synthesizer chips like the SAM9733. So there is no technical bond between the SAM9233 and the Roland SC-55 soundfont. It's more like coincidence and due to the time of their release. Most SAM9233 based daughterboards and sound cards were value orientated and didn't use the SC-55 soundfont but stripped down (and also compressed (?)) versions of it instead, coming in variations between 512KB and 1MB in size, most of them have 1MB size and no effects processor (despite some exceptions).

When the SAM9733 and later syntesizer chips finally hit the market, the lawsuit with Roland was just settled and Dream was able to choose between licensing the Roland samples (like on the Diamond Monster Sound daughterboard) or use their own CleanWave soundfont instead (like on the Miditemp daughterboard). Of course they opted to use their own CleanWave soundfont whenever possible because it saved them licensing fees, but the choice was up to the customer..

The CleanWave soundfont is a standalone development, but clearly aimed to sound like the Roland. In the 4MB variation (CleanWave32) it offers good quality (slightly too present drums) but in general really good sample arrangement, but nothing is really better sounding with the Cleanwave32 when compared with Roland. Other similar sized soundfonts from other manufacturers like Yamaha and Korg offer noticable unique / different sound characteristics, be it better drums or better guitars for example. With the better sample quality and some updated samples in the big CleanWave128 soundfont (as seen on the new X2 daughterboard) I expect it to oushine the SC-55 soundfont on sample quality and noise.

The start of the development of the CleanWave soundfont may be related to the lawsuit with Roland, of course - but that's just an educated guess and should not be taken as a fact. It's also possible that Dream started the development before this but didn't make it to the market in time... Well, we can just guess.. it's not of any importance today, just a historic sidenote.

Last edited by FGB on 2016-12-05, 00:13. Edited 3 times in total.

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Reply 48 of 182, by ElementalChaos

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Not exactly sure where to put this request, but it's probably better putting it in a dedicated sample thread.

I'm finally thinking of buying the much-coveted Dreamblaster S1 + Yamaha Audician 32 combo. Would anyone here be able to record track 35 from Tyrian, "One Mustn't Fall" on their S1? I would really, seriously appreciate it. 😉

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Reply 50 of 182, by James-F

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FGB wrote:

Just for clarification ...

An excellent post FGB, very informative.
I can't find any 4MB stolen Roland soundfont bank (Maestro 32/96) to listen too on AmoRetro, is there any? Maybe one of the samples on wavetable.nl?

boxpressed wrote:

I think that a separate, dedicated "wavetable sample request thread" would be a great idea!

Or just a "Wavetable MIDI Daughterboards" thread with all the information available.
Vogons needs more informative stickies.


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Reply 51 of 182, by Rawit

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James-F wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, it should sound exactly like this one: Miditemp DS-48 Cleanwave 32 (dream SAM9733) Wavetable Daughterboard, […]
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boxpressed wrote:

Soon I will be reviewing the Diamond Monster MIDI DB with a SAM9733 and 4MB ROM,

If I'm not mistaken, it should sound exactly like this one: Miditemp DS-48 Cleanwave 32 (dream SAM9733) Wavetable Daughterboard, 4MB
The Dreamblaster X2 sounds exactly like that as you can hear form the previous thread link I posted.
The CS9233 is before Dream had their own CleanWave samples.

I think the Turtle Beach CancunFX sounds also the same, I researched that one a bit back in the day.

YouTube

Reply 52 of 182, by boxpressed

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Cleaned up the samples on the SB32 CT3930 by removing reverb and chorus and setting neutral bass and treble.

I added four new samples using a 25MB "Roland SC-55" SF2 soundfont. I'd like to hear your opinions of its quality.

Reply 53 of 182, by gdjacobs

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Unfortunately, the SB32 seems to have a lot of hiss coming through in the recording. Any idea what input it's coming from?

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Reply 54 of 182, by boxpressed

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gdjacobs wrote:

Unfortunately, the SB32 seems to have a lot of hiss coming through in the recording. Any idea what input it's coming from?

I'm using the line out jack, if that's what you're asking about. Wouldn't surprise me that the SB32 is just a noisier card because it's a Creative card.

Reply 55 of 182, by gdjacobs

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Yeah, I went through half a dozen before I found a SB16 that was nice and quiet.

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Reply 57 of 182, by FGB

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The classic SoundScape has pre-recorded reverb on their samples, adding quite a bit depth to the tunes despite it lacks an effects processor. I like it, too 😁

www.AmoRetro.de Visit my huge hardware gallery with many historic items from 16MHz 286 to 1000MHz Slot A. Includes more than 80 soundcards and a growing Wavetable Recording section with more than 300 recordings.

Reply 59 of 182, by James-F

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boxpressed wrote:

Added the classic Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000. Love this card!

This one really stands out, balanced and realistic sounding.
One of the best fore sure.


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