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SB Live, DOS and external midi devices

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First post, by blackmasked

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Dear all
I have recently decided to resurrect my retro PC and have a go at some of the oldies I somehow missed in the mid 90's.
I built the whole thing using the following parts:
MSI MS-6163 Pro (440BX)
P3, 500MHz
VooDoo3 3000 AGP
SB Live!

Everything flies under Windows 98SE, but I am having one annoying issue while running things in dos mode.
Sound FX, General MIDI , Sound Blaster/Adlib all work fine in Doom, Doom 2, Blood, and few others, but whatever I do I cannot get my Roland / Yamaha sound modules to work.
It's almost like no midi data is being sent to and from the sound modules.

My autoexec.bat and config.sys setting are as follows:
autoexec.bat

GOTO %CONFIG%

:DOS
PATH C:\DOS

SET CTSYN=C:\DRIVERS\LIVE
SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 H5 P330 T6
SET MIDI=SYNTH:2 MAP:E MODE:0
REM C:\DRIVERS\LIVE\SBESET.EXE -A220 -I5 -D1 -H5 -P330 -J1
C:\DRIVERS\LIVE\SBEINIT.COM
C:\DOS\SMARTDRV.EXE /L /X
LH C:\DRIVERS\CTMOUSE.EXE

GOTO END

:WIN
PATH C:\NC;%PATH%
MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\EGA.CPI)
MODE CON CODEPAGE SELECT=850
KEYB UK,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\KEYBOARD.SYS
C:\WINDOWS\WIN

GOTO END

:END
PROMPT=$P$G

config.sys

[MENU]
menuitem=DOS, DOS 
menuitem=WIN, Windows 98SE
menudefault=DOS,10 

[COMMON]
DOS=HIGH,UMB
BUFFERS=30

[DOS]
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=C:\DOS\HIMEM.SYS
DEVICE=C:\DOS\EMM386.EXE

[WIN]
REM DEVICE=C:\WINDOWS\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF

I have tried getting it to run using Yamaha Audician 32 using ISA slot and both sound modules work fine, but it is a bit noisy and I get a lot of crackiling sound in the background.
Not sure if there is something wrong with the card itself, I don;t rememeber it being so noisy in the past.
Anyway, the only differences between the two cards are expansion slots that they use, namely PCI vs ISA, and the addresses of the MIDI interfaces. 330 for SB Live and 334 for Yamaha.
Apart from that everything is the same as far as I can tell.

I am at a loss. Help!

DOS build: Gigabyte GA-586T2, P200 MMX, 64MB RAM, Tseng ET6000 4MB, Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, Roland SC-55mkII, Yamaha MU-80
98SE build: MSI MS-6163 Pro, PIII 650MHz, 256MB RAM, Voodoo3 3000, Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Platinum, Yamaha SW1000XG

Reply 1 of 5, by Kamerat

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No, your modules won't work with the Sound Blaster Live! under DOS. Have you tried changing from speaker out to line out with the jumpers on your Audician?

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 2 of 5, by blackmasked

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Is there a reason why external midi devices won't work? Maybe I am oversimplifying here, but General MIDI , Sound Blaster/Adlib and external MIDI all work on the same port.
Wouldn't it just be the case of redirecting it to an external device? I have tried using SET MIDI=SYNTH:2 MAP:E MODE:0, where I believe SYNTH should be set to a value of 2 when external MIDI but this doesn't seem to have any effect.

I'll check the jumpers when I get back home. Thanks for the tip.

DOS build: Gigabyte GA-586T2, P200 MMX, 64MB RAM, Tseng ET6000 4MB, Sound Blaster AWE64 Gold, Roland SC-55mkII, Yamaha MU-80
98SE build: MSI MS-6163 Pro, PIII 650MHz, 256MB RAM, Voodoo3 3000, Sound Blaster Live! 5.1 Platinum, Yamaha SW1000XG

Reply 3 of 5, by Kamerat

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MPU-401 (General MIDI) is usually port 330, Sound Blaster port 220/388 and Ad Lib port 388. I guess Creative never bothered implementing support for external devices in their Live! DOS driver.

DOS Sound Blaster compatibility: PCI sound cards vs. PCI chipsets
YouTube channel

Reply 4 of 5, by Magnuz

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I have just bought a SBLive PCI with Midi out board for use with ext midi devices like SC55 / MT32.
CT4620 PCI sound card + CT 4660 Midi from ebay.

I was searching around the net for real dos drivers and not window based ones when I come across this site.
Its in Russian and after translation via Google, i was surprised to learn both SBlive and Audigy can natively support under dos, external midi devices.
Special drivers however are required, and links are provided within the page to get them.

http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/sblive-dos.shtml

I would appreciate feedback from the forum experts as well on this matter.

So I am putting it here as a reference to anyone who is lokking to getting SBLive pci or Audigy pci working natively under dos with ext modules like MT32.

Reply 5 of 5, by remax

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Magnuz > I have read your link in every possible direction and i don't see the "special drivers" you mention.
I'm looking to use a MT-32 with a SB Live! under dos but without any success at the moment (either under pure DOS or Win98).

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