Good MIDI sound card?

bobo · Post by **bobo** » Fri May 12, 2006 9:29 pm

Hello.

I'm thinking of getting a PCI soundcard with a gameport, and I also want something thats good at MIDI synthesis, like in the old days using General MIDI on an AWE32. It may even be a standard feature in cards these days. Anybody have any recommendations on what's good for this?

bobo

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat May 13, 2006 12:52 am

a Vortex 1 or 2 cards are great ...if you can find one.

bobo · Post by **bobo** » Sat May 13, 2006 1:54 pm

Thanks for the input.

Do you think that the wavetable sythesis is better that, say, an old school sound blaster live?

Duper · Post by **Duper** » Sat May 13, 2006 2:04 pm

I really can't say with certainty as I've never owned a n AWE32. The 32 was and \"awesome\" card and was THE card to have in the day. If you have one, don't waste your time looking for a Vortex A3D. the latter are very rare anymore and are later than AWE32 by oh.. 3 years? Drivers are scarce as well.

anyone else?

Krom · Post by **Krom** » Sat May 13, 2006 2:05 pm

If you get the right drivers for a vortex 2 card you can download different midi packs and make the vortex 2 midi sound like any old soundblaster including the AWE32/64 and even the classic SB16, or virtually any other card's midi.

bobo · Post by **bobo** » Sat May 13, 2006 2:22 pm

Whoa.. that is cool. I already have an AWE64 Gold, but of course, you can't plug it into any modern system because it's ISA. I've always been partial to the EMU8K synthesis in the old AWE cards. If I can do as you say, then that seems like the way to go. Thanks!