Advanced PC Soundcards for MIDI

Here are some brief notes I made when comparing various good-quality soundcards, for the purpose of MIDI output, recording, mixing, etc. Hardware wavetable support (for playing back sampled sounds) is a minimum requirement. Ideally, I'd like to maximise real-time control over the sounds that are playing (so that they respond to various MIDI controllers, like breath controllers). The Yamaha XG cards do this particularly well (but XG is unlikely to be supported under Linux anytime soon, because Yamaha is not disclosing the XG internals).

All cards provide Windows support, but I want good Linux support too. For Linux, there are two main sound driver systems:

• OSS, from 4-Front Technologies. Here is a list of the supported soundcards.
• ALSA, the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture, which is available for free, and may include better support for some cards.
• Also: see this list of Linux device drivers for some extra soundcard support.
• Newer Linux driver for Creative AWE32/64, plus lots of other useful Linux utilities, soundfonts etc.
• Some LinuxVoodoo advice on supporting unusual soundcards.
• What is the best way of driving an expressive MIDI device? How about the WX5 Yamaha MIDI wind controller?

Terminology:

• Downloadable Sounds format (DLS 1.0) is an industry standard for downloading sounds into wavetable soundcards. DLS 1.0 is used by the Microsoft Direct Music system.
• SoundFont is a similar idea, started by E-mu and Creative, but quite standard now. Linux/OSS will support SoundFont 2.0 patches.
  Utopia Live! is a professional 32 MB GM soundfont customized for SB Live! soundcards. It uses lots of layering and has a warm full sound with great percussion! US$20 (includes a separate 3.6 MB acoustic piano soundfont which is very realistic).
  E-MU/Ensoniq also sell a wide variety of SoundFont libraries.
  See SynthZone for more SoundFont links.
• GM (General Midi) and GS are standards for particular sets of MIDI instruments.
• XG format, from Yamaha: is basically a set of rules describing how a tone generator will respond to MIDI data, like GM. GM, however, applies only to a limited set of parameters. XG significantly expands on the basic GM format, providing many more voices, voice editing capability, effects, external input, and other features that contribute to enhanced musical expression. And since XG is totally upwardly compatible with GM, GM data can be accurately reproduced on any XG tone generator. XG features tone arrangement and modification, a variety of musical effects, and expandability for the future.
  Yahama have announced that anyone developing games can use Yamaha's gargantuan sound library for audio in DLS games.
  They also sell collections of MIDI grooves for use in your own compositions!
• XG (Sondius-XG) is a Stanford University/Yamaha system (over 400 patents!) for generating very realistic instrument sounds using 'physical modelling' of the instruments. For more info, see Staccato Systems Technology Overview (they were the first licensees of the Sondius technology and sell a s/w synth called SynthCore that uses it). Yamaha also sell several softsynths, their flagship one is the S-YXG100plus (about US$64).
• For game support most soundcards support 3D sound: DirectSound 3D, or the extensions QSound or A3D 1.0 or A3D 2.0 (the latter are from Aureal Interactive). A3D 2.0 is currently the most realistic 3D sound system, apparently.
• EAX (Environment Audio Extensions) is an addition to DirectSound by Creative Labs to emulate reflected sounds, in caves etc. This is in competition to A3D (though a few soundcards support both). EAX has been openly licensed and more games support it than A3D now.

The best affordable MIDI soundcards/soundsystems that I found (mid 2003) were:

• NVIDIA nForce APU is a chipset used in many good quality PC motherboards. It offers the same 3D audio and reverb in hardware as the Microsoft XBox. They provide open source Linux drivers (krunkalot@hotpop.com said [Nov2003] that the ALSA and the nvidia sound drivers work, but hardware mixing capabilities are not supported).

  The NVIDIA nForce APU is uses 24-bit processing internally, is capable of up to 256 hardware mixed 2D (stereo) voices or 64 3D voices. Per voice parametric equalization in hardware (This means that using DS3D or DLS the APU can alter the EQ on each processed voice, something necessary to do occlusion, obstruction, or standard MIDI playback with controller changes. All EAX 2 capable products do this processing but most are not in hardware);

  In addition, motherboards that are "SoundStorm" compatible will provide 6 channel analog output; microphone input; line input; and digital S/PDIF output.

• Creative Audigy 2. See also the www.3dsoundsurge.com review

  Creative allows/supports open source Linux drivers for the Live and Audigy cards.

  Audigy supports the following: 32-bit effects engine; 64-voices with 8-point interpolation; 48 MIDI channels; 4Mb and 8Mb soundfonts come with the card, but soundfont size is limited only by available system RAM; a dramatically improved 3D audio engine, a new reverb engine that can do 4 reverbs simultaneously (MultiEnvironment) and position early reflections; support for SoundFonts 2.1 and ASIO; Audio Clean-Up (removes clicks and noise); DREAM (very different type of multichannel stereo expansion); 24bit/96 kHz digital in/out; 24bit/48 kHz analogue in/out (but max recording rate is 16-bit/48 kHz); 16-bit input recording; and a SB1394 (Firewire) connection.

  On the MIDI side, the soundsurge reviewer says: "When it comes to creating music the major news is of course support for SoundFonts 2.1, ASIO and the improved sound quality. I'm not going to cover these in any detail since I have not really tried them. The ASIO support will enable much better latency (only 2ms) in the ASIO supporting music creation software programs (e.g. Cubasis VST). The SoundFonts 2.1 offers many new features one of them being no limit beyond your system RAM for how big the SoundFonts can be. The Live card's limit is, as you probably know, 32MB. A more important addition is the removal of the MIDI controllers being constrained to the standard assignments within the MIDI spec preventing full control of the sound in real-time. This is of course not the only two changes but I have not really taken the time to digest what?s new in SoundFonts 2.1 yet. For more info about SoundFonts be sure to check out www.SoundFonts.com or soundblaster.com."

The best (affordable) MIDI soundcards that I found (late 1999) were:

• Soundblaster Live Platinum (about US$200?) The nice feature of this is that it has a front panel that fits into a disk drive bay so you can plug in cables without reaching around the back of your computer!
  • The standard Soundblaster Live (list price US$172) is similar but without the front panel.
  • The 'value' edition (list US$83) is the same but without the digital input/output facilities (though later OEM versions DO have some digital input/output!).
  • Creative have recently (late 1999?) bought out repackaged versions called SBLive/Gamer and SBLive/MP3. The software in these packages differs a bit, but the hardware is the same and includes digital IO. There is also a Player package, which is available in Europe (and New Zealand -- I bought one of these).
  • Uses E-mu music synthesis engine EMU10K1 Digital signal processor, which is touted as having 1000MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second) of audio processing power. Processes every audio signal at full 32-bit resolution providing for the highest level of clarity and accurate 3D positional audio;
  • 64-voice polyphony with E-mu's patented 8-point interpolation technology;
  • Uses SoundFont technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets; includes 2MB, 4MB and 8MB sets; can have upto 32Mb in main memory; (See Utopia Live! for a professional 32 MB GM soundfont customized for SB Live!).
  • Up to 1024-voice polyphony;
  • S/PDIF In and out (RCA/coaxial jack) on front panel;
  • In the Americas, Sound Blaster Live! Platinum ships with Live! Drive (A front-bay digital IO board with MIDI plugs etc.). In some parts of the world, Sound Blaster Live! Platinum may instead be shipped with Live! Drive II, which is basically the Live! Drive with additional optical S/PDIF input and output connectors; and a pair of RCA/Coaxial Auxiliary Input (Left & Right)
  • FAQ from Creative.
  • Here is a rumour/news site for SBLive under Linux.

    Recent News from that site is:

    Since the 1st of November 1999, Creative has fully gone open source. (hip hip hurrah) Their latest driver is under GPL and development is done by CVS!!! So, world's leader in Soundcards finally uderstands the ways of Linux and the Open Source movement. Way cool! This is hopefully going to be a precedent for all Open Source fighters working in the various commercial pc businesses.. But Creative will be remembered for this move..

  • Here is Creative's Open Source Site for Soundblaster Live drivers.
  • Creative Newsgroup about Soundblaster Live.
  • Online purchase from:
    • Advantage Computers NZ sells Cambridge Soundworks speakers for NZ$344 and Soundblaster Value/Player/Platinum for NZ$165/229/510 (all ex.GST) I bought mine from them.
    • CompuVest (SBLive Value=US$51.40 + (US Postal Shipping $23 or FED.EXP$47)
    • Australian Creative Pacific Online sells SBLive for A$499 and Value for A$299 (with Bonus Speakers), also Cambridge PCWorks speakers for A$149.
  • A review of SBLive by a non-gamer. (A+ for sound quality).
  • A comparison of the SBLive and SBLive/Value packages.
  • listen.to/sblive contains news about the soundblaster live series of cards, plus reviews of free and commercial soundfonts, including some good piano sounds.
• Creative Labs Soundblaster PCI512 (list price US$60)
  • Uses E-mu Systems, Inc. EMU10K1 music synthesis engine (same as SoundBlaster Live).
  • 64-voice hardware polyphony with E-mu's patented 8-point interpolation technology
  • Uses SoundFont technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets; 2MB, 4MB, and 8MB sets included.
  • 32-bit precision used for all digital processing (16 bit DA/AD converters).
  • "The most affordable Environmental Audio board".
  • Linux OSS support is the same as SBLive (not to be supported).
• Creative Labs Soundblaster PCI128 (about US$30)
  • Actually made by Ensoniq, but marketed by Creative.
  • Utilizes system RAM for wave-table synthesis. Comes with 2MB, 4MB or 8MB sample sets.
  • One user says: "Midi as good as the Creative AWE64 Gold";
  • Built in amplifier for the microphone input;
  • Linux: OSS driver supports this card.
• Creative AEW64 Value (US$40?)
  • I have one of these. Quite nice MIDI sounds. Not fully supported under Windows NT yet.
  • E-mu Systems EMU8000 wave-table synthesizer.
  • Digital effects engine for reverb, chorus, flange and delay.
  • 32-voice polyphony and multi-timbral capability.
  • 128 GM & GS compatible instruments and 10 drum kits
  • 1MB ROM of built in sound samples.
  • 512K onboard RAM supports downloadable SoundFont banks.
  • Physical modeling WaveGuide technology and WaveSynth software based music synthesis for highly expressive and natural sounding music reproductions (this is not supported under Windows NT yet). Adds additional 32 voice polyphony and multi-timbral capability.
• Yamaha SW1000XG (PCI bus, about US$530 -- too expensive for my needs, but very nice!)
  • Has 20Mb of sounds in ROM
  • 64 voice polyphony
  • 12 channel mixer in hardware with digital loopback (so you can mix repeatedly, all digitally).
  • Here is a glowing review by Tony Thomas from TechTrends.
  • Won Soundcard Of The Year at the UK MIA Awards in 1999.
• Yamaha WaveForce 192 XG (or [D]igital) (PCI bus, US$70-90, about $10 less for the Waveforce 192XG) (Shearers sells 192XG for NZ$295).
  • Wavetable/S-VA synthesis, using DS-1 (YMF724) chip, (with 2Mb HW wavetable/sounds plus 2Mb SW wavetable/sounds???).
  • up to 192 notes of simultaneous wavetable sound (polyphony) (64 HW using Yamaha's AWM2 wavetable system which is more flexible/expressive than a simple wavetable, 128 SW with Yamaha's S-YXG50 softsynth). There is also S-VA sythesis (physical modelling) which can only synthesize one note at a time, but very realistic.
  • 676 musical instrument voices and 21 drum kits;
  • The [D]igital version of the card has an S/PDIF (Optical) digital output connector (mini jack type) for enhanced digital capabilities;
  • SYXG100 (Yamaha's soft synth) is bundled with the WF192D, but the S-VA synthesis part of it does not work on Windows NT4.0. When I asked the Yamaha UK Tech Support Team about this, they replied: "You are quite correct in your assumptions as the 192XG will only work as a basic soundcard under Windows NT. The Wavetable is a hardware Wavetable (does not use the host computer memory) and at present it doesn't support DLS. Support for DLS should be available next year but only under Windows 2000. No V-LA (physical modelling) support is planned for NT at present."
  • A review by Eric Lisotte. "This card has absolutely the best MIDI performance I have ever heard in a sound card."
  • Linux OSS driver is available as a separately priced option of the commercial version of OSS. But they say: OSS doesn't support the hardware MIDI playback (wave table) features of PCI XG. However the SoftOSS driver can be used for MIDI playback.
• Guillemot MAXI STUDIO ISIS (PCI, retail of US$399)
  • 8 digital inputs, 4 digital outputs.
  • 4Mb wavetable RAM.
• Guillemot Maxi Sound FORTISSIMO (PCI, retail US$50) released sep99
  • An S/PDIF digital output with optical connector;
  • True full duplex playback and capture with different sampling rates;
  • A professional built-in music synthesizer with a 2MB 64-voice XG hardware wavetable;
  • Supports DLS format sounds;
  • 676 instrument sounds, 21 drum kits as well as a DSP effects processor;
  • the Sensaura supported Yamaha engine for 3D sound.
  • Not mentioned on Linux OSS page.
• Guillemot Maxi Sound 64 Dynamic 3D (ISA, about US$110)
  • 2Mb Wavetable, 64 voices, 405 sounds.
  • Here is a review.
• Turtle Beach Montego-II (OEM only?) (PCI, about US$???)
  • Based on the Vortex II chipset from Aureal Interactive.
  • Good A3D support.
  • Good quality (low noise) sound.
  • Has optional digital output board.
  • Wavetable Synthesizer: 320 voice advanced wavetable synthesis (64 hardware + 256 hardware accelerated software) with 4MB instrument samples stored in PC system RAM using dynamic caching to minimize RAM requirements for only the instruments being used. Reverberation and chorus on MIDI wavetable instruments.
  • The Extreme HW reviewer writes: "Midi is not especially impressive, but unless you're into MIDI composing and editing, you probably won't be disappointed with the MIDI quality. For MIDI enthusiasts who are looked for high-end MIDI options, there is a MIDI wavetable header on the Montego II, which allows for future hardware wavetable upgrades. Additionally, Turtle Beach will soon be releasing a new version of the Montego II with enhanced MIDI and digital input/output support.
• Diamond Monster Sound MX300 (about US$50).
  • Has a built in 320 voice wavetabale and an external 26 pin header.
  • Signal/noise ratio of 96db and has 4 channel output w/ gold plated connectors.
  • No Linux support yet, but OSS are working on it.

Here are comparative reviews of several soundcards:

• Extreme HW reviews cover quite a few of the main soundcards. Regarding best MIDI card, he writes: It was a tough choice deciding between the MagicWave PCI and Montego A3DXstream for best MIDI, but I decided to go with the Montego. Since the MagicWave PCI great MIDI performance is due to the Yamaha's synthesizer, it doesn't really count as the best hardware. The hardware MIDI wavetable on the Montego was marginally better than the MagicWave's. Another important aspect that was in the Montego's favor was upgradability. The Montego supports upgrading to a professional expansion MIDI wavetable.
• A Shootout between five high-end cards (US$350-700) in the Sept. 98 issue of EQ magazine.
• www.pcaudioreview.com