No audio from DreamBlaster on Sound Blaster 16 \ VOGONS

No audio from DreamBlaster on Sound Blaster 16

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First post, by JosteinTopland

Posted on 2018-09-25, 21:08

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Hi,

I'm trying to get the awesome sound from the DreamBlaster S2 on my Sound Blaster 16 ct2260 Vibra. I've connected it to the wave table header and made sure that the MIDI volume is up, but I'm not hearing any sound from any DOS game using General MIDI. Nor do I hear any sound from Win311 when choosing external midi when playing the infamous canyon.mid, but sound from FM/OPL3 is all fine.

I've installed the Vibra16 drivers in DOS and also for Win311. MPU-401 port is set to 330, and I'm getting confirmed messages from the diagnose.exe included with the drivers.

Can someone please point me out in any other direction to test and verify that the S2 is working or not?

Regards,
Jostein

Reply 1 of 12, by canthearu

Posted on 2018-09-26, 10:38

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check that AUX and AUX2 are not muted.

Reply 2 of 12, by keropi

Posted on 2018-09-26, 10:54

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yeah sounds like mixer settings

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Reply 3 of 12, by appiah4

Posted on 2018-09-26, 11:49

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Are you positive that you did not connect it the wrong way around, or that you did not connect it shifted to the right/left or up/down by one row?

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Reply 4 of 12, by Jo22

Posted on 2018-09-26, 14:16

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Also, please let us know in what computer do you have it installed in. 😀
586+ tend to have ACPI, which does use IR2/9, just like the MPU-401 does.

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Reply 5 of 12, by JosteinTopland

Posted on 2018-09-27, 10:17

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It's a Gateway 2000 486 DX/2 66 MHz.

What I see from MIXERSET.EXE is:
Volume / Balance = Voice, MIDI, CD, Line, Mic, PC Spk, Master
Input = MIDI, CD, Line, Mic
Output = CD, Line, Mic
Other = AGC, Save

FM / OPL does respond to MIDI, but still no sound from the wave table. MIDI is checked from the Input left and right. Also do not hear any Dreamblaster sound if I crank volume up to 11.

Reply 6 of 12, by gerwin

Posted on 2018-09-27, 15:47

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I suspect SB16 external wavetable goes through the the 'CD' mixer pathway, not the 'MIDI' one. Verify that the 'CD' volume slider setting is at 75 to 100%. Or just set everything to that level.

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Reply 7 of 12, by JosteinTopland

Posted on 2018-10-02, 17:45

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Tried connecting pins directly to the wavetable board, but no sound coming from the left or right channel when playing. Card may be damaged..

Reply 8 of 12, by jesolo

Posted on 2018-10-02, 18:44

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In your Autoexec.bat file, insert the following statement: SET MIDI=SYNTH:1
If you still don't hear anything, change it to a 2.

The above environment variable is normally used with AWE based cards, but couldn't hurt to try on a SB16.

Reply 9 of 12, by bjwil1991

Posted on 2018-10-02, 18:52

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Question: would this also be the case for an ESS AudioDrive ES1688F card? My SB16 card's wavetable works without issues and I can get the sound in both Windows 95C and MS-DOS 6.22. Heck, FM works on the AudioDrive card and I cannot seem to find the drivers for the ES1688F card.

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Reply 10 of 12, by gdjacobs

Posted on 2018-10-02, 20:15

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ES1688F cards just need to be initialized. Use any of the driver packs on Vogonsdrivers. * I'm not certain if you require a particular version to specify resources at command line such as with the 1868/1869 cards, though.

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Reply 11 of 12, by JosteinTopland

Posted on 2018-10-03, 07:50

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jesolo wrote:
In your Autoexec.bat file, insert the following statement: SET MIDI=SYNTH:1
If you still don't hear anything, change it to a 2.

The above environment variable is normally used with AWE based cards, but couldn't hurt to try on a SB16.

Yes. Tried that as well. No audio comming from the attached DreamBlaster. Would like to test the DreamBlaster on another wavetable header...

Reply 12 of 12, by bjwil1991

Posted on 2018-10-03, 13:08

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What is the CD Audio set to in the sound card mixer program? In most cases, the CD audio traces goes directly to the wavetable header, like my ESS AudioDrive ES1688F card. Don't connect any cable from the CD header to the wavetable header.

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