I like turtles.

AWE32 isn't any better:
AWE32 and Dark Forces

It's all because Creative put a really bad 1MB patch set ROM on the boards. The synthesizers were fine. I suppose it is better than FM synth.

Well, with the AWE32 you could just load up a larger set, right?

Amigaz wrote:

Heard some stories about the Wave Blaster from Creative sounding crappy...
Got one on a CT1740 SB16 I bought lately but didn't expect it too sound this bad...fired up Descent and used it as General Midi device...the sound is very muffled and lacks alot of clarity

Wave Blaster sucks balls. Get Yamaha DB50XG or Roland SCD-15 instead, although IIRC Terratec wave xtable sounds better.

Now, I remember about an ebay seller named "vu ming shops" (or is it "vuming shops"?) that sells myriads of MIDI daughterboards, but it was 2004. I wonder if the seller has already run out of daughterboards now.

Amigaz wrote:

Where the asian engineers drunk on rice wine when the did made this board? 😵

I don't know; I'm an Asian, and I get drunk over Stolichnaya on rocks. 😉

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Wave Blaster sucks balls. Get Yamaha DB50XG or Roland SCD-15 instead, although IIRC Terratec wave xtable sounds better. […]
Show full quote

Amigaz wrote:

Heard some stories about the Wave Blaster from Creative sounding crappy...
Got one on a CT1740 SB16 I bought lately but didn't expect it too sound this bad...fired up Descent and used it as General Midi device...the sound is very muffled and lacks alot of clarity

Wave Blaster sucks balls. Get Yamaha DB50XG or Roland SCD-15 instead, although IIRC Terratec wave xtable sounds better.

Now, I remember about an ebay seller named "vu ming shops" (or is it "vuming shops"?) that sells myriads of MIDI daughterboards, but it was 2004. I wonder if the seller has already run out of daughterboards now.

Amigaz wrote:

Where the asian engineers drunk on rice wine when the did made this board? 😵

I don't know; I'm an Asian, and I get drunk over Stolichnaya on rocks. 😉

I own two DB60XG's....Nec clones of the boards bought from this seller you mention 😎

Doesn't seem he has any one's for sale right now 🙁

Amigaz wrote:

I own two DB60XG's....Nec clones of the boards bought from this seller you mention 😎

DB60XG? Whoa.

Does it sound better than SCD-15?

Amigaz wrote:

Doesn't seem he has any one's for sale right now 🙁

🙁

By the way, do you have his ebay store in your bookmarks? Just in case...

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

DB60XG? Whoa. […]
Show full quote

Amigaz wrote:

I own two DB60XG's....Nec clones of the boards bought from this seller you mention 😎

DB60XG? Whoa.

Does it sound better than SCD-15?

Amigaz wrote:

Doesn't seem he has any one's for sale right now 🙁

🙁

By the way, do you have his ebay store in your bookmarks? Just in case...

Never owned a Roland SCD-15, but I'm looking for one 😉

This is the guy I've bought my DB60 clones from

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem … :MEWN:IT&ih=010

I've asked him if he has any more of these in stock

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XG_(midi)
(sorry it seems to be an illegal url syntax to post as url)

...Available only in Japan also is a DB60XG, effectively a DB50XG with an analog input.

Seems these and the SW60XG too all have the same sound. And they sound very good for that matter indeed.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman: IIRC Terratec wave xtable sounds better.

I would certainly like to hear the terratec wave-xtable but on the net I can only find ads of the item, no real reviews. It seems aimed, and priced, at musicians. I fear that it may have lost it's balance with the roland sound canvas standard. I wonder what the two extra interfaces are for.

Korg Topwave-32 is also a nice daughterboard.
Dream daughterboards are OK, but they differ, I like the older 4MB patch sets.

gerwin wrote:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XG_(midi) (sorry it seems to be an illegal url syntax to post as url) […]
Show full quote

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/XG_(midi)
(sorry it seems to be an illegal url syntax to post as url)

...Available only in Japan also is a DB60XG, effectively a DB50XG with an analog input.

Seems these and the SW60XG too all have the same sound. And they sound very good for that matter indeed.

I would certainly like to hear the terratec wave-xtable but on the net I can only find ads of the item, no real reviews. It seems aimed, and priced, at musicians. I fear that it may have lost it's balance with the roland sound canvas standard. I wonder what the two extra interfaces are for.

Korg Topwave-32 is also a nice daughterboard.
Dream daughterboards are OK, but they differ, I like the older 4MB patch sets.

There's also some Turtle Beach wavetable...I recently lost an auction with such a board on a good old CT1740 SB16 😢

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Wave Blaster sucks balls. Get Yamaha DB50XG or Roland SCD-15 instead, although IIRC Terratec wave xtable sounds better.

Do you have the Terratec Wave Xtable? Does it really sound better than a DB50XG? How does it sound?

As you might know there were two Waveblasters - the original one and the Waveblaster II, which uses the same technology like the AWE32 (E-MU 8000 chipset) It is said that WB II sounds better than WB I. There was a little programm for the waveblaster II that made it possible to switch to "MT-32" mode. I wonder if this also works with the original one - and how "Monkey Island" will sound like... 😉

I've also heard about a third version of creative's waveblaster - the so called "Waveblaster 32 Pro" which should have an ensoniq chipset. Does anyone know this one?

There's also some Turtle Beach wavetable

There are two: Cancun FX with Dream chipset and Rio with the ICS Wavefront (which should sound similar to the other TB cards using ICS wavetable synths)

Jorpho wrote:

Well, with the AWE32 you could just load up a larger set, right?

Not in DOS.

Silent Loon: I've also heard about a third version of creative's waveblaster - the so called "Waveblaster 32 Pro" which should have an ensoniq chipset. Does anyone know this one?

I don't. Seems quite rare since I got only 1 google result, it says it is similar to Ensoniq Soundscape DB. (the guy in error wrote E-MU 8000 at the WB I)
https://vsr.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/twiki/b … TableSoundCards

Silent Loon wrote:

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Wave Blaster sucks balls. Get Yamaha DB50XG or Roland SCD-15 instead, although IIRC Terratec wave xtable sounds better.

Do you have the Terratec Wave Xtable? Does it really sound better than a DB50XG? How does it sound?

I don't, but my friend does (did? It was some years ago...). He actually played MIDI files instead of games (he doesn't play games), and he got me impressed.

Silent Loon wrote:

As you might know there were two Waveblasters - the original one and the Waveblaster II, which uses the same technology like the AWE32 (E-MU 8000 chipset) It is said that WB II sounds better than WB I.

Yup, but DB50XG still sounds better than AWE32. 😉

Silent Loon wrote:

I've also heard about a third version of creative's waveblaster - the so called "Waveblaster 32 Pro" which should have an ensoniq chipset. Does anyone know this one?

Wait, this is the first time I've heard about it --any linkies? Reviews? How does it sound?

Interestingly, it is said that the Waveblaster II, with only 2MB of ROM, is supposed to sound better than the Waveblaster which has a 4MB of ROM. On the other hand, the SCB-55 and the DB50XG also have 4MB of ROM each, so ROM size is not very useful when it comes to the quality of the sound.

Is it not possible to use a Soundfont on an ISA-based AWE product in DOS? If you can load it, you should be able to hear it. Some DOS games should have been able to load their own Soundfont banks.

Kreshna Aryaguna Nurzaman wrote:

Wait, this is the first time I've heard about it --any linkies? Reviews? How does it sound?

There is a very uselful site, which basically consists of a database of all kinds of old electronic sound devices, including old synths, keyboards, expanders - and soundcards. Unfortunately (there's allways a catch) it is mainly in german. But the short descriptions of the stuff aren't high literature, so you may use a translation program (if your german is a little bit rusty 😉 ). This is the index site, where the devices are listed alphabetically by their manufacturers:

http://www.synrise.de/docs/types/complete.htm

And here is the waveblaster 32 itself, its just the short paragraph at the end (saying that there was a waveblaster device with ensoniq chipset):

http://www.synrise.de/docs/types/c/creativela … waveblaster.htm

It says that this daughterboard should sound similar to the ensoniq soundscape DB, but I doubt that. When you look at the year of production (1994) it is the same as that of the original waveblaster device. So perhaps Creative did some kind of experiment with a daughterboard of another (yet not owned) manufacturer, and afterwards choosed E-MU, which they allready bought in 1993, to do the job.
Despite it's big name in the professional market, ensoniq seemed to have produced the cipsets for some low cost devices, i.e. the "Wave Power" daughterboards sold by Aztech Labs (has anyone a picture of this?), and last but not least this baby, I found hunging on a SB16, it calls himself "PowerWave" but maybe it's just the same like "Wavepower". It has the ensoniq chipset (OTTOR2) but doesn't sound as good as my soundscape elite or even the soundscape 2000:

Great Hierophant wrote:

Interestingly, it is said that the Waveblaster II, with only 2MB of ROM, is supposed to sound better than the Waveblaster (I) which has a 4MB of ROM.

I suppose, like with all GM devices, it depends on the MIDI file as well.
My WB(I) sounds really crappy in many games, mostly because of the low-quality and unbalanced instrument samples, the lack of chorus/reverb and the constant background noise this thing produces.
But on the other hand, when I compare it to the output of the AWE32 standard ROM, I often can not decide which of the two sounds worse, either tinny and noisy (WB) or muffled and drowned out (AWE)... 🤣

Great Hierophant wrote:

Is it not possible to use a Soundfont on an ISA-based AWE product in DOS? If you can load it, you should be able to hear it. Some DOS games should have been able to load their own Soundfont banks.

Nope. As swaaye already mentioned, no useable soundfont loading utility exists for DOS. And I'm not aware of any DOS game using extra soundfonts for their MIDI music on AWE cards.
The GUS suffers from a similar problem, but Gravis at least offered plenty of tools and a free SDK, so its capabilities got a bit more attention in the game world.

If you can get the game to run in Windows 9x, you can use a soundfont on AWE for your DOS games. You just have to make sure that the MPU-401 emulation for AWE is enabled in the AWE control panel, upload your soundfont, and choose General MIDI in the game. At least that is what I remember from when I figured it out, I could be off a bit. If you choose AWE in the game I believe it will still use the horrible onboard ROM.

It's tricky though because you have to run games in Windows. But if you can get it to work, and you have say 8MB on your AWE, you can really bump up your MIDI quality.

Actually, I'm having very good luck with a Diamond Monster Sound MX300 (Vortex 2) PCI with a SCD-15 attached. The DOS driver for it doesn't need EMM386 (or even HIMEM for that matter) and seems to have great SB Pro 2 digital audio support. I haven't messed with FM at all though (I'm sure it's not "authentic" OPL sound.) It has worked well with Wing Commander 3, System Shock, Cybermage, TIE Fighter, Dark Forces and Terra Nova so far.

I currently don't have a PSU with -5V output which means I can't use ISA cards in my retro system. So I'm sticking with PCI cuz I don't really want to spend even $30 for another PSU. 😀

edit: I stumbled on a interesting post on Google Groups from Aureal's David Gasior regarding why SBPRO was chosen over SB16 for their DOS support:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.ibm.p … 1d1c7148e23d584

Okay, let me address this one because this recently was just discussed. The reason we chose SB Pro is because SB Pro is the sta […]
Show full quote

Okay, let me address this one because this recently was just discussed. The
reason we chose SB Pro is because SB Pro is the standard for DOS games. Even
some SB16 chips from Creative had problems with some older DOS games that
supported SB and SB Pro only. Not all old DOS games support SB16, but pretty
much all support SB Pro. The mixer is also different between the SB Pro and
SB16. Supporting both the code for SB Pro and SB16 would not have been
feasible. Our main goal with DOS mode support is compatibility, and we have
(IMO) the best PCI SB compatiblity of any non-Creative card. And even then,
I think we're better than any of the cards based on the Ensoniq AudioPCI
chipsets (ES1370, ES1371) even the SB PCI 64/128.

There aren't that many DOS games that really sound better with a SB16 setting
than SB Pro. Most DOS games use 11kHz samples - either 8 bit or 16 bit. As
I recall, the SB Pro 2 can do 11kHz 16 bit but that's as high as 16 bit
support can go.

Amigaz wrote:

This is the guy I've bought my DB60 clones from

I've asked him if he has any more of these in stock

He has 3 in here.

Targaff wrote:

Amigaz wrote:

This is the guy I've bought my DB60 clones from

I've asked him if he has any more of these in stock

He has 3 in here.

Cool, thanks

Just bought me another, 🤣 😁