Hello all 😀

My apologies for this late post, I know this is an old thread, but since it's a thread asking if there are other EWS64 XL owners I thought to make use of it instead of maing a new one again, I hope that is okay.
After looking for a decent EWS64 XL topic I found this old thread and I am hoping there are still some EWS64 XL /XXL users here to share their own experiences.

Here is my card, I got it around February of this year from an Italian collector 100% mint in box including all the manuals install disks the two flat data cables which I believe they are and the card with the 5.25" Digital interface unit, which seems to support wave table boards such as the Yamaha DB50-XG or the Roland SC7 I believe it was named, not sure if I can give it a Microwave XT tho, if anyone knows more about wave tables for this card, will the wave table take over the Dream chip or will they or can they work together?

Anyways here my card as I bought it, this is before the Japan made Nichicon Gold recap and trace repairs that were neatly done by Backfire from the Voodoo Alert Forums Germany:

Terratec Promedia Audio System EWS64 XL Version 1.2 9733 (Year 1997 - Week 33)

And here the card after the trace repairs Backfire applied:

And here the card + Digital Interface fully recapped incl trace repairs which also can be seen.

And here in the system:

Here the EPROM Bios where you can manually setup the IRQ's DMA's and Ports; this is ideal as this can differ per mainboard and chipsets alike that may require different IRQ, DMA & Port values

Here the card neatly installed in the device manager with all six elements:

And here a video of it playing some 1980's Midi music hits, I make Midi music compilations I'd be happy to share that here with you guys if that is aloud though.

01. George Benson ~ Give Me The Night (1980)
02. Jermaine Jackson, Pia Zadora - When the Rain Begins to Fall (1984)
03. Mental As Anything - Live It Up (1985)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCeWMUgqqwQ

Since there is no edit to answer some of the questions, I'll do my best to give feedback to them, even they were asked so long ago 😀

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1) When using the card in DOS, for games, can I load a sound font in to the PS/2 RAM stick, and if so, what's the largest sound font that I can use? (I know the stick can be as large as 64MB.)
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My Answer -->
From what I learned and was told by other EWS64 XL owners from Voodoo Alert is that the largest sound found you can use for DOS like Win9X would be within 66MB 2MB on the board + the max 50ns EDO ram stick of 64MB, I could be wrong of this as I too am still learning what this card can do.

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2) Again, with DOS games in mind, can I access the wave table daughter board inside the "break out" "panel / box"?
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My Answer -->
This I truly have no idea for, from what I think is that the wave table is more opted for the professional use of the card for music sampling or playing Midi music like I am, unless wave tables are supported in Dos games? I have no idea really.

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3) For OPL3 FM music, can the onboard "synth chip" be used to apply effects on it?
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My Answer -->
Maybe, this is something I'd have to look in to the manuals that I got with my card, even so I would think it should?

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4) To any EWS64 XL owners -- do you like the card, for General MIDI DOS games music?
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My Answer -->

So far I find this card phenomenal as it's midi music sound quality goes, it makes the AWE64 Gold cards look mediocre in comparison, it's a worlds in difference as midi music quality goes 96 Midi instruments versus 32 the AWE64 Gold has, yea gotta mean something right? Also the EWS64 XL has that gorgeous Quadraphonic speaker support, just grand if you are a Midi music lover like me, it has what the AWE64 Gold MK II aka CT4650was going to give, but sadly never could give as those never came out.

The Dream chip it's self is a little marvel by it's self, I still want to get some nice Edifier RT1280 speakers for my card just to enjoy it more, maybe a nice Roland SC7 or Yamaha DB50 XG wave table card but always hoping to find the Waldorf Digital Interface that comes with a MicrowaveXT Wave table, makes me wonder if anyone tried to reverse engineer these...
All in all the EWS64 XL is by far my favorite sound card of all time even it took me 6 years to find one this complete , if I look back I think it's all worth it in the end, but as many have mentioned it will take time to learn what the card really can do, it took me around 2 months to get it working and also it took my friend Backfire about4 hours to find why the sound wasn't working through 2 to4 channels, the trace repairs surely did the job there.
Yea I do stand open to try out a Gravis Ultra Sound someday, quite sure the AMD Interwave Chip can also produce lovely midi vibes.

Regarding 2:
Sure, you have to set MIDI-2 of the EWS64-XL to a separate port, like 0x300 for the internal DREAM based wavetable and 0x330 for the external (aka the board in the breakout box). Then depending on the port you choose in the DOS games setup the internal or external MIDI synth is playing.

Regarding 3:
The routing sketch of the card helps a lot to decide how to set the individual switches.

I strongly recommend to take your time and do some experimentation with the mixer and this chart.

What you look for is the "Mixer Out to Synth" path and then the ADM switch at the bottom right to have the signal going to the synth (to the left) as FX-Panel AUDIO IN aka IN-2.

You can save a mixer settings file from the Windows mixer that you can load with the DOS initialisation tool then.

Or later, when you know what you are doing, just edit this file.