Hmm.. I think this might be the cause: As done on the classic waveblaster infterface I have pin no. 8 disconnected on my home-made waveblaster adapter board. But I think the RIO uses this pin for feedback messages.
Wikipedia Creative Wave Blaster

Hi Gerwin,
Today I got a RIO DB (Rev. 2.0 manually upped to Rev. 3.0) on a Turtle Beach TAHITI host card, the bundle is called and was sold as MONTEREY.

What I found out is that the DB requires a host card with MIDI-IN connected on the waveblaster header. The TAHITI has this feature and therefore you can use the sample RAM and the RIO control panel.

Actually the DB has a nice quality. IMO it sounds not as homogenous/ well balanced as Yamaha or Roland modules but you can hear that its samples are in very high quality (4MB uncompressed ROM) and good sounding from what I can tell right now (just tested with two games) and the effects are very rich by default (a little bit on the AWE-side if you ask me). But I think one can reduce these effects, but I yet don't know how.

Cheers,
Fabian

I'd also like to know how to reduce or set the effects when using the Turtle Beach Rio with a different host card card (i.e. not a TB Tahiti). And yes, it does work with the Tahiti/Monterey software in Windows 95 or 98.

I also have the Tahati+RIO=Monterey bundle, but have not worked with it lately.
Regarding the effects, I reduced them with the RIO control panel in Windows, but intercepted the midi signals that the control panel send out, so now I can send the sysex code for 'reduced effects' with some DOS program.

Would you mind sharing these sysex values?

It will be a simple task to make a batch calling gsplay sending the sysex to the corresponding MPU-401 interface.

Thanks in advance,
Fabian

No problem,
Attached to this post are my RIO sysex experiments, with MDF.EXE to send them to the card in DOS.

Thank you very much, gerwin!
I still don't know how to exactly setup the values for either chorus or reverb but I think I will find out.

Anyone have any suggestions on how to get a Rio daughter board?

Not really,
But the Soundfont that was used for the RIO is still commercially available at http://www.voicecrystal.com

The same patch set was also used on the Turtle Beach Tropez+ . Compressed versions of the patch set are used on the Turtle Beach Tropez, the Turtle Beach MAUI and on the Aztech Waverider 32 (1st revision).

That is why I am interested. I have both the tropez and tropez+ cards. I used them extensively for recording on my old PC that has ISA ports. So I am wanting to have the same sounds available. I remember a long time ago seeing something online about a hack to use the tropez as a stand-alone device, without needing a PC. Failed trying to find it again. Anyone know anything about that?

Anyone?