Just to follow-up, I was able to repair Predator99's Dead SPEA S-2000.

I had to re-flow the Sequoia chip! The board is flawless but the solder joints on Sequoia looked..."questionable" under a microscope. After a brush of liquid flux and quick hot-air reflow, the solder joints now look as they should and board came back to life and works perfectly.

I'd like to note that this is my THIRD Ensoinq sound board with poor quality soldering on the fine-pitch chips. I've had two OPUS boards from eBay were the OPUS chips were literally falling off of the PCB!

Predator99's S-2000 was also suffering from some leaking capacitors. The 1uf 50v caps are all beginning to show signs. Fortunately I bought enough spares when repairing the first S-2000 to replace the worst of the bunch, but I'll re-cap the entire board next time I order parts from Digikey...

Predator99 wrote:

I will also donate my Spea V7 media fx drivers (currently on the way to FesterBlatz 😉) Its REV 0495-6.

FesterBlatz wrote:

Replacing SMT caps isn't very difficult, but does take a lot of care. I suggest you look on YouTube for "surface mount capacitor replacement" and you'll see better examples than I could ever explain in writing. The MOST important thing is you must use a decent temperature regulated soldering station! The plug-in pencil irons get way too hot and will lift the pads right off the board--so don't even try. I've seen more than one of those cheap irons glow red hot... Other supplies that you need to do a good job is: solder wick, liquid or gel flux, alcohol for flux cleanup, and some q-tip swabs. Watch a few YouTube examples first, then practice on some old worthless boards and you'll get the hang of it quickly.

Absolutely. For SMT, a good iron and good magnification are fundamentally important. With a Metcal iron and good binocular microscope, it's almost fun.

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but I recently found an old ensoniq Soundscape 2000 with bad capacitors. I can configure and initialize it, but there is no sound.
So I would like to try to replace the capacitors. I'm unsure about the type of capacitors I will need (as I want to replace all of them like FesterBlatz did) There are 10uf 16V capacitors, but also a second group - 1uf 50V?

Thanks in advance!
SL

Silent Loon wrote on 2020-04-20, 15:27:

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but I recently found an old ensoniq Soundscape 2000 with bad capacitors. I can configure and […]
Show full quote

Sorry for reviving this old thread, but I recently found an old ensoniq Soundscape 2000 with bad capacitors. I can configure and initialize it, but there is no sound.
So I would like to try to replace the capacitors. I'm unsure about the type of capacitors I will need (as I want to replace all of them like FesterBlatz did) There are 10uf 16V capacitors, but also a second group - 1uf 50V?

Thanks in advance!
SL

Would you mind posting a picture of the caps in the second group?

Thanks for you reply.

Here it is...

My guess is 10uf / 16V and 1uf / 50V?

I would order these:

https://www.reichelt.de/smd-elko-1-f-50-v-105 … tct=pol_2&nbc=1

https://www.reichelt.de/smd-elko-10-f-16-v-10 … tct=pol_8&nbc=1

Silent Loon, Have you got them ?

After you accomplish that ordeal, could you tell me how your card is initialized?
Like, is there a single pop running SSINIT.BAT? Mine does. There is nothing to worry about, I know, but keep reading....
In Duke3D sound setup, I get four pops and then the "strike from bowling" sounds play just fine (left, right and center).
It looks like a conflict or something in the style as all my cards don´t take 5 seconds processing that particular test.
And so I tried to change DMA, IRQ and disabling SB emulation, but the pops remains the same. I'm on square 0, little ball.

Could you use some help?

• Feels like the card is carrying some heavy shit in its shoulders:
  * MegaMan X - slow SFX and artefacts (You're often describing them as cracks and pops) So annoying!
  * Quarantine - This time I hear the crack issue just in the motor effect

• A M919 and a Pentium machine were used to discard conflicts or a finick motherboard, but that remains to be seen (both are from PC Chips).

• Downloaded DOS drivers around here - By Stiletto - No wonder the card failed. He is lurking me. Shadows of my previous visit here 😀
  *** Just kidding, you are the man. Thank you for this driver and forum protection.
  I'm too late, but thanks to FesterBlatz , the blue monster who can't even trust his own pants.
  Like, man, I replaced all the SMD capacitors on the Roland RAP-10 (output came back to life without a hiss) and installed back a missing one on a NEC DB60XG, thus the distortion when volume was maxed out dissapeared - what a relief).
  
  Now I feel I can drive a tank! (Bought most of the things you asked me to - iron station from AIDA, solder wick and even a device to test caps - capacitance and internal resistance - and identify other components. In regards of magnification, my Binocular is no good and old. My cheap USB microoscope (x1000) can't achieve celular level. In fact, I have to spend some time learning more about the device (optimal installation, software, etc...), but I've been fixing pretty good only with my eyes. *** By the way...

• A visual inspection on the Ensoniq card comes empty, except for a missing ceramic capacitor near the output (I hope missing caps have the power to do
  those anomalities on the SFX). For that matter, my approach would be find out some parameters by taking out the adjacents or better yet,
  the one to the left of the correspondent CI (I marked a PHOTO with a rectangle and also check the arrow out - It's prove some animal putted his hands and serviced this Coronado cross 😀 (not even that rare, but for me...) - The resistor on his feet is fine, though.
  The attachment Missing cap_resistor.JPG is no longer available
  The next step: proceed with the measure and finally repeat the procedure on a donor board until I find a match.
  This pattern makes any sense ? If you kwnow a better approach, tell me cause I hardly have skills to diagnose sound cards. I'm even afraid of osciloscopes (Frasco, you fool, you were afraid of the iron solder too, remember ??)

Alrighty, the solution might as well remove the SMD capacitors and check them out - after all what this thread is all about !?
Excuse me, I said I can drive a tank? ..pssssss....In fact I'm afraid of getting dirty. Is it really necessary to replace them?

Some time ago I failed miserably and ruined the pads of a LAN chip on an Asrock motherboard (blue eyes supporting Sempron. I loved it right away.)
Now my morale is so low (more like my mental energy).
That's what happens when you don't follow Vogons advices (I've been using a 35w pencil iron more prone to problems instead of the Metcal iron (??)/AIDA station). No despite, I forgot to add new solder during the whole process (the solder wick had no work to do at all ! God! I'm such an idiot).
Damn! Electronics never got the better of me. This time I was just freaking down $¨#$¨#$&# in the lab as my CF card was dying on me presenting weird characters. And this just happened after I made that big mistake soldering the LAN chip in that old and now crippled motherboard. C'mon, that task is as trivial as riding a bike.
To worse things, the CF card is basis for me to test old cards in DOS (as if the Ensoniq wasn't giving me enough headaches on that very moment).

So 3 issues in a row! Almost felt under my knees thinking how I could get in a situation like this ? Two pads shorted with solder! And believe me, it couldn't be undone. Even the painting/finish protecting the PCB was gone by then). At some point, I looked again to the united pads and asked myself in great anger: It was me doing this mess ? And I said :- Yes. I FUBARED the LAN sector. I did it!

I know these are different type of services, but do you know what are three subsequents incidents?
My capacity of troubleshooting is near 0%. I think I need a pit stop, but not now cause I am covered by the "protection buyer program", so I have a limited time to decide if I go for it or stay with this kinda battered Ensoniq card.

It came along with a Awe32 Goldfinch upgrade for around 70$ (on both). Pretty penny as I got a LAPC-I for 80$ 5 years ago.

PS: MySoul was separated from my body by these three incidents! With my temper, the card could get killed. So sorry for the rant and bad jokes - I feel better now. 😮

Hi all,

I just reanimated my sc600 reveal sound fm 32 rev C interestingly i totally go mad with the drivers.
The sc600 drivers from Vogons won’t work. They show 534 address is wrong which isn’t. No sound at all

Further drivers from soundscape s2000 1.30.03 do work. But I’m missing all the batch files I remember from the past: fm mode. MT32 mode etc. with the ssinit Version here I see no option to change that patching.

Sc600 driver ssinit would allow options gm fm and MT32. But says wrong EA
Sc2000 ssinit only allows /I but has a MT32.exe I think.

At the end it’s working but not with the original sc600 driver not with re patching options. Sad 🙁

Any ideas ?

Ps. Also interesting that all driver install programs do need win31

Dear all,

Sorry to reopen. Meanwhile does anyone have an idea where to find the old reveal fx driver which includes also the fm mode switch via batch file or within ssinit?
I remember that from 199x this option was used to at least get a sound a bit similar to opl fm instead of that GM emulated stuff.

Thanks a lot

Marco wrote on 2022-11-04, 22:53:

Dear all, […]
Show full quote

Dear all,

Sorry to reopen. Meanwhile does anyone have an idea where to find the old reveal fx driver which includes also the fm mode switch via batch file or within ssinit?
I remember that from 199x this option was used to at least get a sound a bit similar to opl fm instead of that GM emulated stuff.

Thanks a lot

I second this request. While I'm afraid that the optional FM emulation in the earlier firmware is likely not better than the FM emulation in the current firmware available on the internet (but I would be curious to take a look at it!), the old firmware/driver had another interesting feature: The Windows 3.1 driver allowed to DMA-based digital voices that were routed through the SoundScape chip and the OTTO synthesizer in addition to the AD1848-based "WSS" voice. The driver called those three voices "SoundScape Port A", "SoundScape Port B" and "SoundScape Wave" if I remember correctly. The target version number of that missing driver is 1.0 or 1.1. Drivers starting at 1.2 are obtainable, and have a some advantages, like a mostly working SB 2.0 emulation and FM emulation and MIDI support without reloading the firmware, so I consider them fine for general purpose use. These spcialities (like a firmware without MIDI support that might actually implement better FM emulation) and the three wave ports make the old driver historically interesting, though.

Marco wrote on 2022-11-04, 22:53:

Dear all, […]
Show full quote

Dear all,

Sorry to reopen. Meanwhile does anyone have an idea where to find the old reveal fx driver which includes also the fm mode switch via batch file or within ssinit?
I remember that from 199x this option was used to at least get a sound a bit similar to opl fm instead of that GM emulated stuff.

Thanks a lot

I uploaded the drivers, more infos here: Re: VOGONS Driver Library

If you have write access to the VOGONS Driver Library, feel free to archive them there.

These drivers come from my Reveal card. I definitively remember using the FM.BAT, MT32.BAT and GM.BAT files to change emulation mode. The batch files don't seem to be in the images I ripped but hopefully they are created by the install program. Let me know if it works.

Thanks. The upload url might contain some malware be careful.

The ssinit version indeed now allows you to select fm mode gm mode mt32 mode.

Unfortunately my card won’t be recognized. Can’t find it under 534 port. I have same issues with another driver set. Strange.
Anyway thx

I tried the last days Ticket this version running on my sc600. No chance. It’s initializing gm / mt32 / fm but then always point out issue with port 534. the waveport. With the other driver no problem at all. Damn it!!!

Marco wrote on 2022-12-09, 19:28:

I tried the last days Ticket this version running on my sc600. No chance. It’s initializing gm / mt32 / fm but then always point out issue with port 534. the waveport. With the other driver no problem at all. Damn it!!!

Yeah, I noticed only now that a very similar version was already posted in this thread, probably the one you tried before. My version is v1.09.02 and the one in this thread is 1.09.05. Your card is probably too new for this release to work properly. Unfortunately this is all I have. Hope this can be useful to someone else.

As I do not want to start a new thread I revive this one here.

I have an issue with my Soundscape Soundcard.

Initialisation works without any issue and I am also able to hear digital audio and wavetable music. Unfortunately the volume is extremely low.
So I thought it makes sense to recap the card just like it was shown in this thread. (My solder skills are not so good anyhow).
Unfortunately recaping the card did not solve the issue. The volume has not changed at all.
So my next guess is that at least one of the 4564 Amplifiers went bad.

There are 4 x 4564 AMPs.
I think that the 2 AMPs in the lower row are meant for the Line Out and the 2 AMPs in the upper row are for Mic or Line In?
Do you think it is a good and the best idea to exchange one/both of the AMPs in the bottom row?
Will this solve the issue? Are there other analytical methods to see if one of the AMPs is faulty?
I hope to hear some of your ideas!

FesterBlatz wrote on 2017-02-03, 14:54:

IMG_1544.JPG

I took the link to one of the pictures of the user FesterBlatz:

The link to the larger picture is here: download/file.php?id=31246&mode=view

moturimi1 wrote on 2023-12-28, 15:10:

As I do not wiant to start a new thread I revive this one here. […]
Show full quote

As I do not wiant to start a new thread I revive this one here.

I have an issue with my Soundscape Soundcard.
Initialisation works without any issue and I am also able to hear Digital Audio and Wavetable. Unfortunately the volume is extremely low.
So I thought it makes sense to recap the card just like it was shown in this thread. (My solder skills are not so good anyhow).
Unfortunately recaping the card did not solve the issue.

FesterBlatz wrote on 2017-02-03, 14:54:

IMG_1544.JPG

I took the link to one of the pictures of the user FesterBlatz:

The link to the larger picture is here: download/file.php?id=31246&mode=view

I analyzed the audio pathway and checked the input to the amplifier and the output after amplification. And it showed nearly the same volume level.
So I exchanged the Amplifier 4564 closest to the line out and the slot bracket of the card.

And what can I can: it works again!
So keep in mind that exchanging the capacitors can help regarding low volume issue, but there can also be an issue with the amplifier!

moturimi1 wrote on 2024-01-06, 13:59:

I analyzed the audio pathway and checked the input to the amplifier and the output after amplification. And it showed nearly the […]
Show full quote

I analyzed the audio pathway and checked the input to the amplifier and the output after amplification. And it showed nearly the same volume level.
So I exchanged the Amplifier 4564 closest to the line out and the slot bracket of the card.

And what can I can: it works again!
So keep in mind that exchanging the capacitors can help regarding low volume issue, but there can also be an issue with the amplifier!

This is good information to know, thank you for posting this!

I have my own Ensoniq Soundscape that has low volume. I was planning to replace all the caps, but good to know that the amp can also be the culprit.

I wonder if it would be worth testing/replacing the amp beforehand.

Nice to know !