zaphod77 wrote on 2024-09-07, 21:09:

the qs300, mu50, mu80, db50 and sw60 all use the same SWP00 chip.

yeah, yamaha simply forgot to turn off the qs300 code when they made the db50. but it does have the 4 meg sample rom of the mu50, with the mu80 having an 8 meg rom, and the qs300 having a 28 meg rom. qs300 was essentially a qy300+mu50. so when they made the later cards they made a bit of an oopsie. 😀

Regardless some of the synth lead sounds on the DB50XG seem more dynamic than either the MU90R or MU100R (I had both back in the day). Can't say for sure if the same is true compared to the MU50 because I never owned one. I have a MIDI arrangement of the "victory" tune form Phantasy Star II that makes use of waspysyn that I made on an DB50XG and it has never sounded right on any other XG synth.

EDIT: I remembered things a bit wrong, I had an MU90 in the late 90's , then an MU128 in the early 2000's and finally an MU2000 around 2015 or so which I have to this day (also still have the MU128 but it's in a closet somwhere). I can't remember now if the MU90 sounded wrong with that MIDI but I know for sure the MU128 did and the MU2000 also does.

I also have a Yamaha FS1R (6 operator FM + formant synthesis) that I got super cheap for like $150 that I never used and should probably sell on.

This is simply a case of patches being changed, most likely.

the MU50 actually has instruments the mu80 does not, even though it has a smaller sample bank.

i'm assuming the MU90 has a 8 meg sample bank like the mu80, so some changes were probably needed to put in the extra instruments. it also uses a different chip (swp30), whihc probably changes how the effects sound a bit.

zaphod77 wrote on 2024-09-09, 16:33:

This is simply a case of patches being changed, most likely.

the MU50 actually has instruments the mu80 does not, even though it has a smaller sample bank.

i'm assuming the MU90 has a 8 meg sample bank like the mu80, so some changes were probably needed to put in the extra instruments. it also uses a different chip (swp30), whihc probably changes how the effects sound a bit.

IIRC it has a few more sounds and an extra effect processor compared to the MU80 basically halfway between an MU80 and an MU100.

I really wish Awave supported the native MU2000 instrument and bank files for RAM based sounds, don't think the file format was ever documented anywhere though.

Found this channel on youtube and it reflects what I noticed myself, that in many cases the MU-50 synth lead sounds are better than the "superior" MU-80 or even the MU-128. Jump to 0:41

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOBurLdskGs&l … vjQ9mJLSTwTONNY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpxIC8nWf0I&l … vjQ9mJLSTwTONNY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5lyDSnNhKKs&l … vjQ9mJLSTwTONNY

The MU80 and MU128 leads are more complex but depending on the song that does not always work in their favor and can have the opposite effect and make them sound rancid in some cases.

Hi, sorry for the necro-posting, but I see the topic relevant to my query. I've seen in MAME that QY70 is available, I can run up to the intro screen animation but then the screen seems to freeze (or at least I've not being able to interact further with the machine). I've seen in the code something like getting into 'testing mode' by default, does anyone know if that might be the issue? I used to have this little box years ago and I really yearn to experience it again in a more convenient larger screen that my old eyes can bear.

Some more mamw testing shows that the popping is output stage clipping which of course doesn't happen on the other softsynth, and probably not real hardware. egytech.mid is a good test case for this. this might be because the table in the code that is "slightly inexact" is wrong. Lowering the output to -10Db seesm to remove all popping.

Someone made an artwork UI for the emulation here: https://github.com/ArqueologiaDigital/MAME_sy … /tree/main/mu50
You download the files and put in the "mame/artwork" folder either as a zip file named mu50.zip or unzipped into a folder named mu50.

This is what it looks like:

All 14 buttons on the right side are clickable and work properly
There's a problem with the contrast/brightness with the latest mame release though.

APN_K wrote on 2025-07-04, 10:19:

Someone made an artwork UI for the emulation here: https://github.com/ArqueologiaDigital/MAME_sy … /tree/main/mu50 You download […]
Show full quote

Someone made an artwork UI for the emulation here: https://github.com/ArqueologiaDigital/MAME_sy … /tree/main/mu50
You download the files and put in the "mame/artwork" folder either as a zip file named mu50.zip or unzipped into a folder named mu50.

This is what it looks like:

The attachment mu50 ui.png is no longer available

All 14 buttons on the right side are clickable and work properly
There's a problem with the contrast/brightness with the latest mame release though.

Just put this file in the "mame/artwork" folder and mame will automatically load it up when running mu50 emulation.

Decap images of the SWP00 exist now, these could help with the aforementioned tables.

grommit2007 wrote on 2025-07-07, 01:14:

Decap images of the SWP00 exist now, these could help with the aforementioned tables.

No, they won't. Everything is way too small and the roms seem to be implant, e.g. not optically dumpable.

What command should I run to midiin one of my ports created with Loopmidi?

e.g. on attachment, Roland and Yamaha are ports opened with Loopmidi.
Lets say I will create another port for MU50. How can I make it to work with that port?

Found it. mame.exe mu50 -midiin "your midi port name"

But I noticed that during the play it missing some beats/drums toms/kicks.
Why is this happening?

okay, its gotten better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIdQKnqgWcI

still not perfect, though.

still want to see someone uncompress the samples from this rom dump, and place them into a new hacked sy50xg.

I'm well on the way to building a VST that should allow all MU series to be played from it. I don't want to talk about it yet, but as soon as this is more demonstrable, I will share some more. The bottom line is, the XG ROM is now fully understood to the point both sy50xg and a real MU50 ROM can be loaded and played and sound like it should (minus filtering and fx still to be disassembled).
Interestingly the sy50xg internally does support both it's native 8-bit, but has parallel dsp to support 16-bit. So with more time I see no reason why it should be able to support all MU series ROMs. It already supports the MU50 hardwar ROM and i've got that fully understood and documented now.

That is very interesting news indeed. I anxiously await the results of your efforts. I have a real Yamaha sound card that sounds amazing and I hope you can achieve results that are very close to the real thing, if not better.

It's just slow going. But I'm getting there. I can load the ROM, play the right voice, include AEG. Now i'm onto all the other tonal shaping that happens such as pan, filter etc. It's coming together though. The breakthrough was working out the structure of the .tbl files and how the .dll plays it. Now i've got that, it's just going to be time to fill in all the gaps

The effects built into the s-yxg50 seem accurate enough. so see no reason not to just make a program that will accept the rom dump from your real mu series card, and generate a proper table file using the full resolution samples to use with the existing engine in s-y50xg.

It might be an option, but there's lots of limitations with the syxg50.dll. Being 32-bit, requiring SysEx and VST2 for a start. Reverse engineering is better than hacking imo for this particular case. Working out that it supports 16-bit is one thing, making it load MU series ROMs is quite another.