Soundblaster 16 vs AWE32 vs AWE64 vs SB Live!

[ketma]

This is a great vid of wavetable/midi devices:

Duke Nukem 3D - Intro (Grabbag) comparison of 76 wavetable/MIDI devices - YouTube

I thought the Creative renditions sound dreadful, the best being Roland SC and Yamaha DB50XG.

 

[almoststew1990]

Yes they sound awful for Grabbag but this is not the only song in Duke 3D and I find it a bit annoying everyone tests with just this (guitar heavy) song!

The AWE32 sounds nicer in other songs like Waterworld, Alienz something something and Plasma.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

This is what I was producing in the mid 90s with an AWE32.
The guitar and vocal is live.

www.dmpoole.co.uk/mp3/dontstopbelievin.mp3

 

[Guest2]

This is a great vid of wavetable/midi devices:

Duke Nukem 3D - Intro (Grabbag) comparison of 76 wavetable/MIDI devices - YouTube

I thought the Creative renditions sound dreadful, the best being Roland SC and Yamaha DB50XG.

I have seen this before. Same with me, Roland SC and DB50XG. The 'Creative Sound Blaster 16 ASP (CT1740)' sounds similar to the DB50XG to my ears. Its something underlying thats similar, but nowhere near as good as the DB50XG.
The AWE and quite a few other sound quite harsh at certain points. Some sound a bit too slowed down if that makes sense

I agree with @almoststew1990 there are many other great tracks, so using one isnt always fair on one/all cards. One track may sound better on one device/card than another.

My memory was of E2L7, Lunar Reactor track 'Aliens, Say Your Prayers!'

How I remember it

@SexyGreyFox That shows 'The page isn’t redirecting properly' I'll have a listen if its hosted anywhere else

 

[ketma]

This is what I was producing in the mid 90s with an AWE32.
The guitar and vocal is live.

www.dmpoole.co.uk/mp3/dontstopbelievin.mp3

I'd like a listen if you can fix the link.

 

[cee-S-dee]

Dark Forces sounds really good on an AWE32.

Different games sound better on different synths. For example, Descent sounds awesome on Yamaha, The X2 Buran Bank really suits Doom and ROTT (One of my fav DOS game soundtracks) sounds great on the Kurzweil synth on the TB Malibu.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

I'd like a listen if you can fix the link.

Does this work?
https://www.dmpoole.co.uk/mp3/dontstopbelievin.mp3

 

[ketma]

^ No, still no joy...comes up with:

This page isn't working at the moment
www.dmpoole.co.uk redirected you too many times.

 

[LewisRaz]

Does this work?
https://www.dmpoole.co.uk/mp3/dontstopbelievin.mp3

Works for me.

Thats actually really good!

 

[robfosters]

Anyone remember the Yamaha SW60XG soundcard?

That was a stormer in its day. Sound was so good.

 

[LewisRaz]

Anyone remember the Yamaha SW60XG soundcard?

That was a stormer in its day. Sound was so good.

Been recording a few games on it for my youtube channel

 

[cee-S-dee]

Anyone remember the Yamaha SW60XG soundcard?

That was a stormer in its day. Sound was so good.

I have two of them! One of them boxed

 

[robfosters]

Good to see it’s still got some love out there. It was leaps and bounds ahead of other cards in sound quality in its day. Probably the first card that could be used for proper music production with its XG sound set.

It used the same chip as the lower range Yamaha MU sound modules, and they were considered professional audio equipment.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Works for me.

Thats actually really good!

Also tried it in two different houses tonight and it worked.

All my backing tracks were like that, the AWE32 changed my life musically and got me a lot of gigs.

 

[ketma]

Sorted the link, yeah that does sound good.

Can I ask why you chose the AWE32 over other the other midi cards, such as Roland etc.

 

[ketma]

Anyone remember the Yamaha SW60XG soundcard?

That was a stormer in its day. Sound was so good.

I have that in my retro machine along with a Roland SCB-55, both great cards.

 

[SexyGreyFox]

Sorted the link, yeah that does sound good.

Can I ask why you chose the AWE32 over other the other midi cards, such as Roland etc.

Pretty sure because it was first on the market. Back then I would have been first in line.

 

[cee-S-dee]

Pretty sure because it was first on the market. Back then I would have been first in line.

You probably would have liked the Terratec EWS 64XL and Turtle Beach Multisound Pinnacle back then if you were into Music creation. Both very similar to the AWE (Sound Banks, onboard Synth) I have the EWS64XL (Dream SAM9407 chip) and I had the Pinnacle (Kurzweil MA1 and a Extra wavetable board called the HOMAC which I kept)

 

[robfosters]

Please refresh my memory. So back then, game soundtracks were encoded as small midi files due to space constraints, and the quality differed depending on which card you had, but these days the audio is actually recorded into the game files as say, wav or flac files, so everyone hears the same thing?

 

[cee-S-dee]

Please refresh my memory. So back then, game soundtracks were encoded as small midi files due to space constraints, and the quality differed depending on which card you had, but these days the audio is actually recorded into the game files as say, wav or flac files, so everyone hears the same thing?

General Midi was the Standard, and the sound tracks were kind of like "Note Sheets" which sent data to what ever GM device you had. They all had a set standard of Instruments, but these would sound different based on the manufacturer, hence a track can sound different across different devices.

It's also true with FM sound (OPL/CQM/ESS and all the clones). Yamaha YMF262 (OPL3) was the "Standard" and is why everyone say's "Does it have real OPL3". Creative used the OPL3 in a lot of their cards until they didn't want to pay licensing to Yamaha so created CQM which was their version of OPL. There were a number of clones which sounded exactly the same as the YMF262. ESS has their own version called ESS ESFM which sounds very close to the original YMF262 but can actually sound better in some games that support ESFM.