I have spent some time with all presets 2.2 / 3.0 / 4.3 and the reference file from Soundclound. All were loudness normalized, so that my preference would not be influenced by the piece that is the loudest. I have focused only on E1M1.

The differences between the presets themselves are cleary audible, with minimal prior training.

Compared to 2.2 / 3.0, I like 4.3 best, it is the closest to SC55. However, SC55 is less boomy, has a bit more reverb / chorus, it is brighter, mids and highs are more 'in your face'.

Attached the results of the ABX, to be used just as proof that I am hearing a difference, nothing more.

Thanks this really helps. I will do a v4.4 and final preset today and would be really happy if you could check that vs the ref 😀

Preset v4.4 and I think I'm done. I'd be very happy to see the updated difference file 😀

4.4 sounds to my ears as a subtle improvement on 4.3; I had to focus to hear a difference.

About 4.4 - Bass is clearer; the preset sounds brighter and closer to reference. I have no more feedback on tuning, other that I feel there is still headroom to amplify the mids - not by a lot, though

The reverb difference is still there on E1M1 (ie reference has more reverb), but Grabbag sounds quite right.

Yeah I am happy with that, @dreamblaster what say you 😁

appiah4 wrote on 2022-07-01, 21:14:

Yeah I am happy with that, @dreamblaster what say you 😁

Wonderful !!

dreamblaster wrote on 2022-07-02, 06:31:

appiah4 wrote on 2022-07-01, 21:14:

Yeah I am happy with that, @dreamblaster what say you 😁

Wonderful !!

Here is my preset then. I slightly upped the Reverb from 40 to 48 but more than that starts to sound a bit too wet for me, this is about as perfect as I can get. Enjoy.

Also, anyone flashing this with X2Upload - Make SURE to upload it to address 0x5000 instead of the default 0x7000. The former applies to the GS soundbank and the latter default is for the user soundbank. @dreamblaster maybe X2GS needs a new uploader where you can select the target soundbank for the preset?

Enjoy folks.

P.S. I will later try this EQ preset with Buran as well, and record with it. But later 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2022-07-02, 09:32:

Also, anyone flashing this with X2Upload - Make SURE to upload it to address 0x5000 instead of the default 0x7000. The former applies to the GS soundbank and the latter default is for the user soundbank. 😀

Thank you all!
This piece of information would be great to be published also in the 1st posting of this thread.

Is there any way to upload this from DOS via the Wave Table interface or do I need to pull the X2GS out of the machine and do it via USB?

AFAIK, it requires a Windows PC, to directly access the chip and it's firmware. I'm hoping that we can get some sort of SDK or some code farts from DREAM to help facilitate access to the chips via DOS and Linux, as there is a big retro-gaming market on Linux that would benefit and anything to make DOS more useful is always helpful.

The preset for the GS bank is on a different flash location indeed : see the following overview :

For upload to flash, there is only an upload utility for windows (X2Upload see https://serdaco.com/downloads/X2/?dir=X2_SoftwarePack), and only over USB.
The uploaded preset is persistent in flash, so you can temporarily connect the card to USB on a windows computer
to flash and test what you need. Afterwards you can place it back in the DOS / Linux pc and all settings / banks are
are retained as this is stored in flash. The preset is applied after each power cycle or soft reset.

When testing appiah's preset, you can easily return to original presets, they can be found here :
https://serdaco.com/downloads/X2/?dir=X2GS_Do … /DefaultPresets
As appiah's preset sounds so good, it may become the new default preset for GS !

Further 'live' settings can be sent over midi :
see https://serdaco.com/downloads/X2/?dir=X2GS_Documentation
for detailed midi specs.

BANKMIDI.zip contains some midi files to switch between GS and user bank,
this can be used on any platform that has a midi player

These live settings are not persistent --> not stored in flash, so after reboot they are back to the flash defaults.

Version 4.5 sounds great to my ears, nice work @appiah4 👍

For what it's worth I'm comparing it to this recording from an SCC1, because that's the SC55 sounds I'm most familiar with: https://soundcloud.com/user-306991531/doom-scc1

badmojo wrote on 2022-07-06, 21:29:

Version 4.5 sounds great to my ears, nice work @appiah4 👍

For what it's worth I'm comparing it to this recording from an SCC1, because that's the SC55 sounds I'm most familiar with: https://soundcloud.com/user-306991531/doom-scc1

Glad you like it, enjoy and have fun. I've really done very little, just dug up reference documents and asked around on the MiSTer Discord until I found what the 2 band EQ presets and default reverb/chorus settings for SC-55 was, and worked from that reference to a similar sounding setting. The real hard work here is by @dreamblaster. I really don't think the hard work he puts into these devices and the amazing things they do are appreciated enough by the retro-pc community enough. I got into this hobby five years ago and the idea of owning even a single wavetable device was beyond a dream to me, then I discovered Dreamblaster S2 and now I am in MIDI heaven thanks to the wonderful things he makes available. May he live long and prosper 😁

Also I think pc-sound-legacy posted comments on YT stating he will record further tracks with X2-GS using a better preset so let's hope they come across sounding better 😀

appiah4 wrote on 2022-07-07, 08:29:

badmojo wrote on 2022-07-06, 21:29:

Version 4.5 sounds great to my ears, nice work @appiah4 👍

For what it's worth I'm comparing it to this recording from an SCC1, because that's the SC55 sounds I'm most familiar with: https://soundcloud.com/user-306991531/doom-scc1

Glad you like it, enjoy and have fun. I've really done very little, just dug up reference documents and asked around on the MiSTer Discord until I found what the 2 band EQ presets and default reverb/chorus settings for SC-55 was, and worked from that reference to a similar sounding setting. The real hard work here is by @dreamblaster. I really don't think the hard work he puts into these devices and the amazing things they do are appreciated enough by the retro-pc community enough. I got into this hobby five years ago and the idea of owning even a single wavetable device was beyond a dream to me, then I discovered Dreamblaster S2 and now I am in MIDI heaven thanks to the wonderful things he makes available. May he live long and prosper 😁

Also I think pc-sound-legacy posted comments on YT stating he will record further tracks with X2-GS using a better preset so let's hope they come across sounding better 😀

Hello Friends, here is my comparison on Doom E1M1 using appiah4's 4.5 preset.
Thank you appiah4 for sharing with us, I really like it!

https://youtu.be/SKXG7vSaic8

Excellent comparison again thankyou! Yes this preset sounds a lot closer to the real thing and maybe as close as it's going to get...? But of course it's never going to be 1:1, so my personal taste is to use a bit more reverb and leave the bass with a bit more kick. I'm totally ignorant of the specifics but subjectively I feel like the SC55 is a bit 'softer' than the X2GS, and the preset above sounds a bit tinny / clinical on my retro speakers.

What a cool device this is.

badmojo wrote on 2022-07-10, 21:53:

Excellent comparison again thankyou! Yes this preset sounds a lot closer to the real thing and maybe as close as it's going to get...? But of course it's never going to be 1:1, so my personal taste is to use a bit more reverb and leave the bass with a bit more kick. I'm totally ignorant of the specifics but subjectively I feel like the SC55 is a bit 'softer' than the X2GS, and the preset above sounds a bit tinny / clinical on my retro speakers.

What a cool device this is.

All are valid observations and I agree with them, but there are reasons.

Firstly, and unfortunately, the Dream 2 band EQ curve behaves differently and there is no way to make them sound exactly the same. For example boosting the bass further on Dream seemed to cause some instruments like the kick to distort and the middle to basically die, whereas further reverb caused the sound to become all around muddy (that said the SC-55 in PCSL's recording also sounds pretty muddy to me, unlike my recording of the SD-35 which is the only Sound Canvas I have and I feel my preset better mimics).

Re: X2GS : Waveblaster board with dual soundbank support, official Dream/Roland licensed GS bank

Secondly, the Dream GS bank is NOT an exact copy of the SC-55 rom, many instruments are similar but different both in tone and balance. The main difference between the two in this comparison, and a big reason why the SC-55 sounds bassier is that it has different kick and picked bass samples. The Dream samples are presumably from SC-88 going by ear.

Regardless, thank you to @pc-sound-legacy formgiving the preset a try and hope he likes it.

Finally, I welcome everyone to tweak and enhance the preset as they feel. I am not a professional music guy and my ear is not even half as good as it was ten years ago 🤣. And after all, Serge made this for us to tweak and play with, so go ahead and do that!

Demo of X2GS on Atari8
music by Biliński, played on PeBe's MCPlayer v. 1.1
https://youtu.be/j5TCXo0pfJE

dreamblaster wrote on 2022-07-03, 06:02:

The preset for the GS bank is on a different flash location indeed : see the following overview : preset addresses.png For uploa […]
Show full quote

The preset for the GS bank is on a different flash location indeed : see the following overview :
preset addresses.png
For upload to flash, there is only an upload utility for windows (X2Upload see https://serdaco.com/downloads/X2/?dir=X2_SoftwarePack), and only over USB.
The uploaded preset is persistent in flash, so you can temporarily connect the card to USB on a windows computer
to flash and test what you need. Afterwards you can place it back in the DOS / Linux pc and all settings / banks are
are retained as this is stored in flash. The preset is applied after each power cycle or soft reset.

When testing appiah's preset, you can easily return to original presets, they can be found here :
https://serdaco.com/downloads/X2/?dir=X2GS_Do … /DefaultPresets
As appiah's preset sounds so good, it may become the new default preset for GS !

This is the trick i've been looking for since my post on 2021-12-23. Gotta flash the presets to 0x50000 to get them to stick

I just bought this (actually I bought it over a month ago but the delivery service apparently lost track of it during most of that time) and it's an awesome little thing. As good as possible an hardware solution to restore those old sounds so dear to us, retrogamers.

I want to thank dreamblaster for doing this and for putting up with my pestering about the delivery delay, that was absolutely NOT his fault.