What kind of MIDI device do you have?

[jharris01]

I never been a sound card collector, but having owned many computers over the years have left me with a few sound cards. Some I still have, others broke down or were discarded:

+ Game Blaster: Used it during its time with Silpheed, Police Quest 2 and Codename: Iceman. Unfortunately it stopped working after three or so years.

+ Sound Blaster Pro 2.0: It has a volume knob on the back which becomes pretty hard to reach once installed.
+ Sound Blaster 16 ASP: Not sure about the suffix. It's the one with the special effects processor. Anyone ever heard of a DOS game that actually supported it?

+ Ensoniq Soundscape Elite: I know this card gets very little mention in these parts, but it's a favorite of mine. I bought it directly from Ensoniq back then. Excellent card with nice wavetable/percussion set. Sounded great on general midi settings and was well supported. If you couldn't afford a Roland module, then this was the card to get. Highly recommended 

Unfortunately my Elite broke while fooling around with the Special Effects Toolkit. I bought a Sound Blaster 128 as a result, thinking the different sized wavetable fonts would suffice. Man was I wrong... The biggest set (8MB) was no where near Ensoniq quality. Returned it to the store the next day.

+ Yamaha Waveforce 192XG - I understand Yamaha made a lot of cheap cards with the  S-Yxg25 (50?) as a software bundled for MIDI playback. The Waveforce however was very high quality. It basically had S-Yxg50 integrated in the hardware with the reverb/chorus/variation stuff built-in. You could still install the S-Yxg50 soft synth (it came bundled with it) but it wasn't necessary for gaming (or for using XG in midi files). If you did though it added extra polyphony options (*I think* --- it's been awhile) that were helpful for MIDI composing. As a PCI card it also had an excellent backwards DOS compatibility mode. Unfortunately the only way to activate this feature was through the original drivers that came on the original install CD. The driver downloads offered from Yamaha's website have DOS compatibility taken off.

I never used the card with the Final Fantasy 7 PC game it's usually associated with, but have used it for the XG midis in this website and it sounds great. I think it serves as an inexpensive alternative to buying the more costly Yamaha sound modules.

+ Sound Blaster Live - Had this one for a while, but was never able to resolve latency issues causing snaps, crackles and pops in the audio. I eventually gave up on the card and gave it to a friend who had better luck then me and never had any problems with it.

+ Phillips Seismic Edge - This card is sort of unknown but it was a great alternative to Sound Blaster Live. It has a chip named "Thunderbird" for digital effects and sounded up to par with SB Live.

Anyway that's about it. If I typed some technical details incorrectly it wasn't intentional (that's just how I remember it).

[Alan1828]

I've got a MT-32, Original and clone MPU-401 ISA interface card, Original box Adlib ISA sound card. Sound Blaster 1.0 mono, SB pro, AWE-32 "the one with CDrom interface and, AWE32 "can add simms for memory, SB AWE64 Gold, SB64 PCI, SB Live! for Mac, SBlive! SBlive Platinum with drive bay and remote, SBlive audigy w/ firewire, GUS 1.0, Gus Ace addon, Generic USB to MIDI interface, and various PCI sound card from IBM's ensonic and PC Wave da da da da....

[Ari]

Looks like you're opening a museum... 

[Alistair]

I wish people who had such awesome collections would photograph them

- Alistair

[Crolstoper]

Turtle Beach Rio
SB Live
Roland SC-33
Roland SC-55 MK2
Roland MT32
USB Midi interface

[OxygenStar]

I currently use:

Sound Blaster 16
Pro Audio Spectrum16
ESS Audiodrive
MT-32
RME Multiface (for new school goodness, and main recording)
RME RPM (for live use, deejaying)

I have been trying to get some some older serial/parallel midi devices to work, but not having any luck with those yet..

[Hopeapaa]

After quite some years of collecting I could have a Listing(tm):

-Gravis Ultrasound Classic v3.4 with 1MB
-Gravis Ultrasound MAX with 512kB
-Gravis Ultrasound Extreme
-Gravis Ultrasound PnP with 2MB
-Roland LAPC-I
-Roland SCB-55
-Roland MPU-IPC-T
-Roland SC-7
-Roland MT-32
-Sound Blaster 1.5 with CMS chips
-Sound Blaster 2.0 (no CMS)
-Sound Blaster Pro 2.0
-Sound Blaster AWE32 with 8MB (CT2760&CT3900&CT3990)
-Sound Blaster AWE64 (Standard and Gold)
-Sound Blaster PCI (many of these)

Here the Retro-Rig.

I cover with these mainly tech-wise the Adlib (with Sound Blaster 1.5 & AWE32), Gravis Ultrasound GF1 (all but the PnP), and the Roland LA and GM synthesis. That's pretty much all You need in retro gaming.

I have been struggling not to buy actual Adlib cards, because early Sound Blasters do just fine, and the Roland MT-32, because LAPC-I does just fine. Well, MT-32 was still purchased because of the display "calling Roger Wilco". Also the Roland Sound Canvases I have tried to resist because the SCB-55 does just fine...

Anyone else out there trying to NOT buy this stuff ;-).

[Doctor Creep]

I got:

Roland LAPC-1
SC-55 (connected to the LAPC-1 using MCB-I)
SB Live! value
Gravis Ultrasound  (storage)

Added a MT-32 to my collection the other day! Love the display msgs in Space Quest 4, etc

Got now also a Roland CM-300 (19 (!) Euro *g*) for my Retro-PC *g*

Doc

[Silanda]

At the moment I've got these:

Roland D-110
Roland SC-155
Roland M-GS64
Roland SC-8820
Yamaha FB-01
Yamaha MU10
Yamaha SW1000XG

[Salient]

Currently I own the following midi stuff:

External:
- Roland MT-32 (first. generation)
- Roland CM-32L
- Roland SC-55 (first model)
- Roland SC-8820
- Yamaha MU2000
- Creative MIDI Blaster

Internal:
- Roland SCD-10 daughterboard
- Roland SCD-15 daughterboard
- Roland SCC-1
- Roland RAP-10
- Yamaha DB50XG daughterboard
- NEC XR385 (Yamaha DB60XG clone) daughterboard
- Gallant GMW1000 daughterboard
- Creative Wave Blaster 1 daughterboard
- Creative Wave Blaster 2 daughterboard
- Diamond Monster Sound daughterboard
- Pine Technologies PT-202 daughterboard
- Hizon DB333 daugherboard
- Terratec TWTT-11M Mini WaveSystem daugherboard
- Terratec WT64 Mini WaveSystem daugherboard
- Unkown DB IIA daughterboard

Laptop:
- Roland SCP-55 PCMCIA card

[petieken]

I bought my first midi stuff a few weeks ago on YAJ (Roland) and eBay (DB60XG clone), I'm expecting them to show up any day now.

-Roland CM-32L
-Roland CM-300
-NEC XR385 (DB60XG)

One thing that has already arrived is a
-Roland MPU-IPC-T

[Stefan_L]

I got:

Yamaha MU10
Yamaha MU100
Yamaha MU1000

Roland MT-32
Roland CM-32L

And also these but not in use:

Yamaha DB50XG
Gravis Ultrasound 512kb
Soundblaster 16

[Stefan_L]

And now i have an Yamaha MU90 also

[BlueMax]

I got:
Gravis Ultrasound 512kb

If you want to take that up to 1mb, I have the RAM chips. 

[jpxdude]

I currently have:

Roland SC-55
AWE64

Waiting to arrive:

Roland MT-32
Roland CM-32LN

Hopefully they will be working lol

[Stefan_L]

Now i added a boxed MU10 to my collection

[BlueMax]

A good module but I always thought the Hello! Music! branding was utterly ridiculous!   

[wocko1]

I currently have:
* Roland MT-32 (First Generation) (For MT-32 Games)
* Roland MT-100 (will be selling since the CM-32L will be replacing it)
* Roland Sound Canvas SC-55mkII (For GS enhanced and General MIDI games)

And I'm currently waiting on to arrive:
* Roland CM-32L (For MT-32 games that use the extra sound effects)
* NEC XR-385 (Yamaha DB-60XG OEM) This one my brother and I are building a Wave Blaster to MIDI adapter so I can connect this up as an external synth. This one is for XG enhanced games like FF7. And they're cheap as chips for 20 bucks a board.

[Mau1wurf1977]

* Roland CM-32L (For MT-32 games that use the extra sound effects)
* NEC XR-385 (Yamaha DB-60XG OEM) This one my brother and I are building a Wave Blaster to MIDI adapter so I can connect this up as an external synth. This one is for XG enhanced games like FF7. And they're cheap as chips for 20 bucks a board.

Yea good to hear you managed to find one! CM-32L is my favorite module. Low noise, low power draw, no buffer overflows and these 33 sound effects.

[wocko1]

* Roland CM-32L (For MT-32 games that use the extra sound effects)
* NEC XR-385 (Yamaha DB-60XG OEM) This one my brother and I are building a Wave Blaster to MIDI adapter so I can connect this up as an external synth. This one is for XG enhanced games like FF7. And they're cheap as chips for 20 bucks a board.

Yea good to hear you managed to find one! CM-32L is my favorite module. Low noise, low power draw, no buffer overflows and these 33 sound effects.

Mate, those CM-32Ls are so hard to find, and even CM-64s and CM-500s are too, and I finally found one on eBay, right next to the Wild Haggis and the Rocking Horse Poo (Joking, but I did find a CM-32L on ebay). I did find a CM-500 once but it was too dear (costed more than my SC-55mkII and my MT-100 put together) and the main reason I wanted a CM-32L was because of those extra sound effects for games like the LucasArts classics like Indiana Jones : Fate of Atlantis and my old time favourite, Day Of The Tentacle. Similar reason why I also got myself a first generation MT-32 as well.

I'm going to can the old MT-100 and put it up on eBay if anyone wants to buy it. The QD drive is stuffed, but the MT-100 works perfectly as a sound module.