And a few more recordings

Monkey Island

Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold

Gravis Ultrasound

Formula One Grand Prix (aka World Circuit)

Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold

Gravis Ultrasound

For Loom and monkey island i like the gus sound better. Sounds warmer. But for F1GP i think the AWE sounds richer.

I like GUS best on loom and AWE best on Monkey and F1.
Still equally shitty when compared to a real Roland module.
Have you tried something newer? Perhaps SB-Live MT32 emulation under MS-Dos-6.22?
Or some other card, that can do some MT32 emulation, yet PCI instead.
Just to broaden the comparison.

carlostex wrote:

A note: for this recording i had to change mixerset settings on the AWE64 Gold to lower noise. Lowering voice to 0 gave good results, but for the card that was supposed to be Creative's flagship i found it way to noisy.

Glad to see someone else saying it for a change.

I like the GUS best in all the games. Although the AWE MT-32 soundfont is great, the volume levels are ridiculously badly mixed between instruments. This results in some instruments be really loud, like percussion and really low on others. Then in F1GP the AWE card really sucks, if you pay attention it actually goes out of tune.

The GUS although far from perfect does a decent job. In fact, i even recorded the GUS on Lotus III, Indianapolis 500 and others. The system crashes when i try the same games on the AWE64 Gold. Not sure if there was some wrong doing on my part but i gotta give the Ultrasound the cake.

Not to mention that the GUS is an older card and manages to be less noisy than the AWE64 Gold. The EMU8000 synth is great but i feel it is held back by the card.

Scali wrote:

Glad to see someone else saying it for a change.

I've been clear quite a lot of times that the AWE64 Gold analog output is far from impressive. But it has SPDIF and some people can use it to good effect. All of this is "IMHO". Some might agree others might not.

The EMU8000 synth had the capabilities to win this duel, but it doesn't.

I prefer the AWE across the board. Didn't know that Loom uses the default instruments 😀

Is there big differences between using ingame GUS MT-32 emulation and playing gm midi files with playmidi -u parameter, and using AWE32 default rom instead of MT-32 SondFont with the same gm files ?
I'm sorry if it's the case, I wasn"t brave enough to record each games ost's with its appropriate emulation 😵
If not, I could post some comparison recordings between AWE32 CT3980 (recorded from its spdif under Win95 with AWE control panel default settings) and a GUS Max (recorded from its line out under MS-DOS 6.22 with PLAYMIDI) based on the same GM midi files 😀

carlostex wrote:

I've been clear quite a lot of times that the AWE64 Gold analog output is far from impressive.

Exactly. But if you mention that (all cards prior to the AWE64 Gold are probably even worse, early SBs were VERY noisy, some of them also sound very thin, a very uneven frequency response), you tend to trigger some Soundblaster fanboys who have never actually heard any other devices from that era, which were much higher quality, such as the GUS, a Pro Audio Spectrum, or even an Amiga.
And they will tell you how great the SB is and all that, insulting you in the process.
It isn't, it's quite noisy, which is especially bad considering the price and the fact that the AWE64 Gold was marketed as a high-end audiophile card with gold-plated connectors and all that.
The GUS isn't anywhere near that fancy, but it is engineered properly, which makes a lot more difference than putting gold-plated connectors on a badly designed card.

Scali wrote:

...it's quite noisy, which is especially bad considering the price and the fact that the AWE64 Gold was marketed as a high-end audiophile card with gold-plated connectors and all that.

To be fair, the AWE64 Gold at least approaches its marketing hype if the S/PDIF output is utilized. Endlessly comparing analog output stages seems to be the popular thing to do though, so even suggesting the alternate output option frequently results in its instant dismissal.

That's not to say the AWE64 Gold's analog output isn't worthy of criticism though.

I've had an AWE64 Gold installed in a system for a little over a year, and while I primarily use just the digital output, the analog output does have a measurable level of card-generated white noise, or hiss. This is apparently a common complaint. By optimizing the mixer levels and muting unused sources (which is a recommended practice with any soundcard), the noise can be mitigated to something of a non-issue. Regardless, it's of a level not present in the line-output of even an older AWE32 (CT3980) that I have in another system, and so becomes rather inexcusable.

Regarding the topic-at-hand, I'm of the opinion that only the SC-55 and derivatives do the default MT-32 timbres any sort of reasonable justice, with Budokan and King's Quest IV being two additional titles of "default-usage" relevance.

I have a DB50XG and at least in Monkey Island it doesn't sound bad

Cloudschatze wrote:

To be fair, the AWE64 Gold at least approaches its marketing hype if the S/PDIF output is utilized.

What hype? Because gold-plating does absolutely nothing for digital signals.
All that gold-hype was done strictly for the analog circuitry, which as was stated, performs worse than other cards with no gold-plating whatsoever.
The reason, as stated, is poor circuit design.

It's nice that the AWE64 offers the S/PDIF, but it's not a good thing that you have to rely on it, as the only way to get good quality sound output, because the analog output is so poor on such an expensive 'high-end' card.
Anyone can make a soundcard sound good with S/PDIF. Heck, that's the reason why I stopped using soundcards years ago. Just an onboard chip works fine if it has S/PDIF, even though the analog output may be horrible.

All opinions are rather welcome so thanks to everyone making a comment. I agree with Scali on most points but i also want to say that if there's someone i want to have feedback about sound cards that person is Cloudschatze. I like the AWE64 Gold as an EMU8000 synth and little more. Its CQM FM synthesis just does not cut it for me, and i can't live without Yamaha FM. No way.

I've been extremely critical of Creative. There's no doubt they cut corners, used lower quality components and their engineering design was far from being the best. Relying on acquiring competitors technology is rather somewhat curious, if you think about it, taking in account we're talking about a company called Creative. However, they did well in the business side of things, that is the legacy that Creative carried since their first day. And that's also why they are still around today.

Cloudschatze wrote:

Regarding the topic-at-hand, I'm of the opinion that only the SC-55 and derivatives do the default MT-32 timbres any sort of reasonable justice, with Budokan and King's Quest IV being two additional titles of "default-usage" relevance.

Thanks for bringing this up, i agree. I rather like the SC-55 in MT-32 mode in Monkey Island for instance. Sounds really good.

I wish to add more comparisons, however some games are refusing to work on the AWE64 in MT-32 mode, which is another point in the Ultrasound's side.

As far as the current comparisons go, i can't believe someone can prefer the AWE on F1GP. On about 40 seconds in the clip it goes horribly out of tune. I've been an amateur musician for about 20 years now i felt it as soon as i recorded the clip the AWE rendition was just plain bad. Hear the game in a real MT-32 or even FM synthesis. Listen closely to the harmony and then hear it again on the AWE. You'll know what i'm talking about.

carlostex wrote:

I've been an amateur musician for about 20 years now

Ah, same here! I mainly play guitar, but also do a bit of synths/midi-stuff so I can work out and record complete songs by myself.
Might explain my slightly different view on Creative hardware than people who are more game-oriented.
Having said that, I do own an E-mu USB0404 as my portable midi and recording device, and it works quite well. Good quality product.
Then again, Creative solved their noise problems anyway, around the time they moved to PCI I suppose.
My first non-noisy Creative card was an SB Live! 5.1, which was the first Creative card I bought since the AWE32.
Also the last sound card I ever bought, before going to onboard audio (aside from 'professional' equipment like a Terratec EWS24/96 and later the E-mu, but neither are very useful for gaming/demoscene stuff).

Scali wrote:

Cloudschatze wrote:

To be fair, the AWE64 Gold at least approaches its marketing hype if the S/PDIF output is utilized.

What hype? Because gold-plating does absolutely nothing for digital signals.

That wasn't in reference to the gold plating at all; just the applicable bit about the Gold being marketed as a "high-end audiophile card." As far as the gold-plating is concerned though, it seems like the majority of that hype was generated by lesser-informed newsgroup participants, rather than through any significant mentioning by Creative.

It's nice that the AWE64 offers the S/PDIF, but it's not a good thing that you have to rely on it, as the only way to get good quality sound output, because the analog output is so poor on such an expensive 'high-end' card.

I don't disagree with this, and believe Creative should have been more honest about the advertised specifications. A marketing blurb of, "Professional quality! (Unless you're using the analog output, in which case the quality may or may not be on-par with your old Sound Blaster 16.)" probably wouldn't have made for good sales though. 😀

Scali wrote:

carlostex wrote:

I've been an amateur musician for about 20 years now

Ah, same here! I mainly play guitar, but also do a bit of synths/midi-stuff so I can work out and record complete songs by myself.

I think a lot of folks into "computer music" stuff probably have a lot more in common than might be assumed. Guitar playing seems to be one of those things. (Fingerstyle here. 😀)

Cloudschatze wrote:

Scali wrote:

carlostex wrote:

I've been an amateur musician for about 20 years now

Ah, same here! I mainly play guitar, but also do a bit of synths/midi-stuff so I can work out and record complete songs by myself.

I think a lot of folks into "computer music" stuff probably have a lot more in common than might be assumed. Guitar playing seems to be one of those things. (Fingerstyle here. 😀)

No doubt!!

Shameless propaganda but here's some videos of me playing. If someone is interested.... 🤣

Cloudschatze wrote:

That wasn't in reference to the gold plating at all; just the applicable bit about the Gold being marketed as a "high-end audiophile card." As far as the gold-plating is concerned though, it seems like the majority of that hype was generated by lesser-informed newsgroup participants, rather than through any significant mentioning by Creative.

What I meant was that the fact that the card is gold-plated at all.
That alone gives off some sense of 'high-end'/'quality'.
Most soundcards don't have this at all (not even professional stuff from eg Roland), because real musicians know that gold-plating doesn't mean much, except that your connectors will not get corroded.
Audiophiles however are sensitive to this kind of nonsense, they think it makes all the difference. It's not... It's icing on the cake for a good product, but it can't make up for a poorly designed product.

I don't disagree with this, and believe Creative should have been more honest about the advertised specifications. A marketing blurb of, "Professional quality! (Unless you're using the analog output, in which case the quality may or may not be on-par with your old Sound Blaster 16.)" probably wouldn't have made for good sales though. 😀

I think Creative simply should not have built such lousy hardware in the first place. There's no excuse really.
Fun thing: the first PC soundcard I ever bought was an SB Pro 2.0. I already had a C64 and an Amiga, so I had certain expectations of what a computer should sound like.
When I hooked up the SB Pro 2.0 for the first time, I was greeted with loud hissing, and lots of crosstalk from things like the HDD and the VGA card.
I actually went back to the store, because I thought the product was faulty. Even my C64 was not THAT noisy, and the Amiga, which cost about as much as just the SB Pro 2.0, was pretty much completely silent.

But no, apparently that's just what the most expensive SB sounds like... Great!

I think a lot of folks into "computer music" stuff probably have a lot more in common than might be assumed. Guitar playing seems to be one of those things. (Fingerstyle here. 😀)

I'm an electric player mostly... 80s shred/hairmetal, also crossing into prog/jazz/fusion territory. In the style of Van Halen, Vai, Satriani and such.
To stay somewhat on-topic with game music, here's a video of me playing along to a Tyrian track.

carlostex wrote:

Shameless propaganda but here's some videos of me playing. If someone is interested.... 🤣

Very nice! I see you have a Petrucci guitar 😀
I guess we have similar styles of playing.

Scali wrote:

Very nice! I see you have a Petrucci guitar 😀
I guess we have similar styles of playing.

Yeah so it seems!!

I bought my music man JP6 second hand but it was worth it. Indeed a superior instrument. The piezo pickups are amazing and provide a really nice acoustic like sound. If you check my earliest videos you'll notice i'm playing a different guitar, its an Ibanez RG-507. In your video it seems you are playing an Ibanez S model. I liked the S models when i tried one, very light, very little string resistance and extremely easy to play with a very fast neck as well. ening a lot to Marty Friedman stuff. Ever listened to his album called Scenes? Amazing music and guitar playing. You should check Guthrie Govan as well. The guy is so good that is actually ridiculous.

I don't play as much these days unfortunately, and i've been list

Well done on your tapping licks on Tyrian btw!! 😎