Yamaha YMF71x DOS LINE Volume \ VOGONS

Yamaha YMF71x DOS LINE Volume

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First post, by Nipedley

Posted on 2016-09-26, 08:01

Nipedley Offline

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Hi guys

I just got the Chill & Phil adapter from Serdaco so that I can use my Dreamblaster X1 on both my 486 and P3, unfortunately I'm having some trouble with using Line In from the adapter to the card. In Windows with Line volume set to max, everything sounds great. Nice loud MIDI from the line in, and regular sound effects mixed nicely. In DOS, my setupsa.exe had the volume settings at 04 for FM, WAVE and LINE. Sound effects were the perfect volume, but MIDI via LINE is super quiet at 04. Turning LINE up to 07 sadly makes almost no difference, it's still super quiet.

I know the card can do it because it sounds fine in Windows (98) with volume maxed, it's as though setupsa.exe cannot enable full volume for LINE. The only workaround I've found is to lower FM and WAVE down to 02 to make it a similar volume level as the quiet LINE, and then raise the MASTER VOL instead to make everything louder. This generates more noise, but gets me nice volume for both MIDI and sound effects together.

I have the card set to line out instead of spkr out because the hiss was driving me mad 😀 Is there anything I can do to make LINE louder?

Reply 1 of 9, by PhilsComputerLab

Posted on 2016-09-26, 08:15

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James mentioned a bug with the DOS mixer. Try setting the SB to 1 and see if that makes things better?

More information here: Yamaha YMF71x SB Pro Mixer Bug Issue Fix

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Reply 2 of 9, by Nipedley

Posted on 2016-09-26, 08:52

Nipedley Offline

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Hi Phil

Thanks, I tried that out but no difference I'm afraid

Reply 3 of 9, by PhilsComputerLab

Posted on 2016-09-26, 08:54

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Hmm, check out the configuration file, maybe there is a setting for line-in gain or something like that?

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Reply 4 of 9, by James-F

Posted on 2016-09-26, 11:48

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LINE VOL L/R work perfectly fine here with all 7 steps changing as expected.
Make absolutely sure SB VOL L/R is set to 1.

EDIT: It is indeed quiet.
The reason for that might be that it is designed to receive higher voltage than standard consumer line-in to prevent distortion.

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Reply 5 of 9, by James-F

Posted on 2016-09-26, 12:21

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Nipedley wrote:
Is there anything I can do to make LINE louder?

Of course.

Since you already own the Chil & Phil adapter, you can buy THIS preamplifier which is a great little product to amplifier line level signal.

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Reply 6 of 9, by PhilsComputerLab

Posted on 2016-09-26, 12:30

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James-F wrote:
Nipedley wrote:
Is there anything I can do to make LINE louder?

Of course.

Since you already own the Chil & Phil adapter, you can buy THIS preamplifier which is a great little product to amplifier line level signal.

Cool little device!

Would this also work for getting a microphone signal (from a headset) to line level (into an audio mixer)?

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Reply 7 of 9, by James-F

Posted on 2016-09-26, 12:41

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I don't see why not.
You can try, it's cheap enough.

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Reply 8 of 9, by Nipedley

Posted on 2016-09-26, 13:36

Nipedley Offline

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Thanks guys, it's just strange that the LINE input is much louder in Windows. I did have a look through the config file but didn't see anything obvious

Reply 9 of 9, by James-F

Posted on 2016-09-26, 14:24

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Well if you turn up "WSS LINE L/R" in Setupsa.exe under DOS, the line-in is also louder.
The reason is WSS LINE and SB LINE use slightly different signal path in the YMF71x chip itself, hence different mixing volumes.

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