I just made a short video for you RG100 (and everyone else who is interested)! Showing you my process of recording the signal and a few tips for cleaning it up and so on...

I tried to explain:

- How to adjust signal level so it doesn't clip (clip = waves going past the boundaries)
- How to remove noise if you aren't doing a comparison recording, but one to listen too
- Remove DC offset (and explain what it is)
- How to do simple cutting
- How to amplify the signal so it's nice and clear without clipping
- How to save it straigth into OGG or MP3...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7SblbVKQdU

If you have decent broadband I do recommend switching to 720 as the quality is very good. It's as if you are looking at my desktop 😀

Hope you enjoy it / get something out from it!

Thanks a lot for the youtube explanation. The next time I do a music recording, I'll do all of those suggestions. 😀

Yep, I saved a link to that post on my delicious.com account as something to check out later 😀

4 minutes of X-Wing, Opti sound card, OPL4 music, SB Pro (emulated) effects. I'm new to this game. Perhaps I could have done a better recording. It's probably satisfactory.

http://www.mediafire.com/?j1urn69ccgu4yfc

nice vid Mau1wurf1977 , I will apply yer filers in my next recordings 😀 thanks

Mau1wurf1977: are you having speech problems Sir ? or are you nervous (I like your youtube explanation, so I am not exactly criticizing your video), but your voice goes up and down in pitch, so my question is this, were you nervous while putting the sound to your video ? or what ? or were you having hiccups mate ? Cause I am sorry if you feel offended by my comment, it was just me wondering. And I do mean I am sorry if you feel offended by my comment. But I doubt it has anything to another language that is your primary language (German..?)

Retro Games, you might want to reduce the volume of the FM Synthesis. It gets a bit distorted at times.

Although I must say: I'm impressed with that LS-212 OPL3 clone. It sounds identical to a real YMF262, but with a higher sampling rate, which means clearer sound than a real YMF262. So this is a cloned YMF262, but one that's cloned so well it sounds like the real thing, and if you like clear sound, this is even better than a real YMF262. Now I can recommend any OPTi 82C929A with either a real YMF262 or the LS-212 clone to anyone who asks for a good sound card to use with DOS games.

Thanks for the video Mau, you've convinced me that I need to install Audacity 😀 It looks like way less painful than Cakewalk Music Creator, which I really only keep around to load my old MIDI compositions.

And it's free 😀

Glad you guys got something out of it...

Ace wrote:

Now I can recommend any OPTi 82C929A with either a real YMF262 or the LS-212 clone to anyone who asks for a good sound card to use with DOS games.

I like the Opti 82C929A card. I'm thinking of getting another one. 😀 How about this thing, below? Unfortunately the seller hasn't taken a very good picture of it, but it's got lots of chips on it, and so represents good value for money. 😉

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewIt … em=330244928841 (TeleWave Audio 32)

Seems to contain an OPTi 82C929A on top of a real YMF262(or the LS-212 clone, but it seems to me like it's a real Yamaha YMF262) and what I presume is an integrated wavetable. I say go for it. You can't go wrong with an OPTi sound card unless it's an 82C931 or any other single-chip OPTi sound card.

^ OK, thanks a lot for the info. BTW, I just found another version of my Opti 929 card. It's the image below, and it's identical to the image in my original post, except for one vital difference. Ace, you'll be able to spot this difference in approximately half a nanosecond! 😉 I must admit that I find this very interesting, especially the fact that both cards share the exact same PCB and FCC label markings.

Looks like it has a real Yamaha OPL instead of the LS-212 clone.

HunterZ wrote:

Looks like it has a real Yamaha OPL instead of the LS-212 clone.

Yep! 😀 I'll run some identical music recording tests on them both, and see if there's any hi-fi quality differences between them. Should be fun.

Sounds like you got yourself a retro xmas present 🤣

Yeah, the same boards with different OPL chips would make a nice test set for comparing the two chips.

Edit: Found a YMF262 verus LS-212 discussion: http://www.sega-16.com/forum/showthread.php?p=324010

Heh... I was the one who started the whole discussion on the LS-212 compared to the YMF262. And you beat me to make note of the real YMF262 instead of the LS-212 clone on the 82C929A Retro games 100 showed.

But really, I don't know if the clarity of the LS-212 is better due to a superior DAC to the YAC512, but it sounds noticeably clearer than a real YMF262. I would assume, too, that it has weaker sound output than a real YMF262 because the audio amp on every 82C929A is the same and the sound is noticeably more distorted on a real YMF262 than on the LS-212 when the volume of the FM Synthesis is maxed out. Have a listen at what X-Wing sounds like on my 82C929A: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2F2uU3K0Ps0

The FM Synthesis is not as clear and comes out much rougher than with the LS-212, but since the distortion is more uniform on the YMF262(if that makes any sense) than on the LS-212, it doesn't sound as bad.

@Retro games 100: That 82C929A is actually the same as the one I have with 2 differences:

1) It's on a different-colored PCB(mine is on a pale orange PCB)
2) There's an Analog Devices chip instead of a Crystal chip

Wonder if that 82C929A will output the same sound with X-Wing as my 82C929A.

You gotta love OPTi's sound hardware(well, anything older than the 82C931, where a really lousy YMF262 clone was used, and since there is just one chip on an 82C931, you can't improve the FM Synthesis). If you find an 82C929A or 82C930(seems like a condensed 82C929A from what I've seen), you've got yourself quite possibly one of the best SoundBlaster Pro clones you can get(my main problem with it is the Stereo is reversed). For me, nothing beats the 82C929A as a SoundBlaster Pro clone. The ESS AudioDrive comes close, but due to one note being off in the ESFM YMF262 clone, I have to rank it below the 82C929A.

Been listening a bit more to FM music lately (thanks to ACE) and have found a flaw in my ESS card.

When there is no music playing in the game, the card is nice and quiet. But when FM music is playing you can hear something odd whenever the chip is doing something. I can't find the words for it like a faint sizzling / ringing I don't know. Hard to describe.

Monkey Island 2 is a good game to test this. When the music plays and you press [ or ] to change the volume you can hear that sizzle / ringing sound clearly (the music stops for a while when you press [ or ]).

On my SB Pro 2.0 no such issue. Clean FM sound as it should be.

I have made 2 recordings so you can listen to this issue and maybe check your cards as well!

AWE64 is quite bad. That opening "buzz" in Monkey Island 2 sounds totally different and what sounds like a smooth change in frequency on an OPL chip becomes almost a ticking change on the Creative OPL clone.

So yea thanks to ACEs passion for FM I'm starting to develop some sensitive ears for FM chips 🤣

So RG100 please please when you get your OPTI card, can you record the Intro tune from Monkey Island 2?

Would you like if I record the intro using my OPTi 82C929A ?
It would be something rough as i'm not very familiar with audio recordings...

unmei220 wrote:

Would you like if I record the intro using my OPTi 82C929A ?
It would be something rough as i'm not very familiar with audio recordings...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7SblbVKQdU

But don't do the noise removal, as that's vital for comparing soundcards.

The software is Audacity which is a free download.

What OS do you have? You need to locate the line-in of your soundcard. The rest is explained in the video.

If you have W7 it's very easy!