Best soundcard for MIDI?

I was looking to buy a sound card for my (weak, slow-ass 1GHZ) computer because I wanted to improve the quality of my MIDI music. I just want your opinion, what sound card do you think is the best for MIDI music?

My favorite MIDI experience is Sound Blaster AWE32 with loads of ram, though the later Sound Blaster Live series and some Audigy cards use system memory for soundfonts. Prepare for static from the AWE series, unless you shoot for Awe64 Gold.
Roland fanboys will tell you to get some sound canvas card, but that doesn't sound too different than Microsoft Synthesizer IMO.

While the AWE series are superior in a lot of aspects to their successors, they have one small disadvantage: they only come in ISA, so unless you have one of those late-90s systems with both ISA and PCI, you'll probably have to settle for Audigy or X-Fi.

The Audigy line has well-known problems with static and data corruption on VIA chipsets (but also others), while only the original first and second gen Live! and Audigy 2/4 models have true hardware acceleration like the one you're looking for. Stay away from the Audigy SE, Audigy 2 SE, Live! 24-bit and "X-Fi" Audio, these are 100% software based like integrated audio.

If you are however hoping to use a Sound Blaster as a midi enhancers to use during other disk/bus intensive tasks (e.g. playing ZDoom...), you are really playing with fire. Ever since Creative dropped the onboard RAM (only to resurrect in on the X-Fi as "X-RAM"), her cards turned into PCI-bus hogs and manglers.

So the bottom line? Get an AWE, a Roland or even a GUS if your motherboard/pocket allows you to do so, and only resort to an AUdigy/Live!/X-Fi if you really are desperate for "acceleration" and "enhancement".

Maes said:

While the AWE series are superior in a lot of aspects to their successors, they have one small disadvantage: they only come in ISA, so unless you have one of those late-90s systems with both ISA and PCI, you'll probably have to settle for Audigy or X-Fi.

Untrue, at least techncially.

While looking at the AWE64 Gold, I wanted to get this card because of your opinions, but I checked my motherboard, and it doesn't have ISA. >:( Well, what's the best PCI sound card for midi?

Dgon92 said:

Well, what's the best PCI sound card for midi?

This is where the EMU10k cards come into play (Live 5.1, Audigy2ZS)

Live sounds a bit muddy in its audio output though

Lich said:

Untrue, at least techncially.

To me, dropping all on-board RAM was a big lose: the old AWE cards could do realtime wavetable midi with truly minimal CPU and memory/bus usage (something which practically crippled Audigys and X-Fis, no matter how powerful the new EMU chips were), something that only the Roland and GUS were also able to do. And most people wouldn't be able to tell between a cassette and a CD, let alone appreciate 20-bit vs 24-bit DACs through their "200 W PMPO multimedia speakers".

mmm awe64. Good memories with that card. Useless post but still. :)

EDIT: Oh there's also Turtle Beach. Heard they were decent back in the day. Not too sure about now. Thoughts?

Hey Maes, you seem to be a sound card wiz, what do you think of this card?

It seems my computer can support it. Trust me, if I had ISA, I would've picked the AWE64. :)

Dgon92 said:

Hey Maes, you seem to be a sound card wiz, what do you think of this card?

It seems my computer can support it. Trust me, if I had ISA, I would've picked the AWE64. :)

At least on paper, it's a good card, like most of the true Audigy cards. However, you must make your mind up about what defines "midi quality" for you: since FM synthesis is long dead, even an integrated soundcard will use wavetable midi, even if through software emulation, so you will get "wavetable sound" no matter what sound card you use.

Sure enough, the soundfonts used can make a difference, and with Creative's card you can sort of easily switch between banks of soundfonts (in the host's RAM however, not onboard memory). Reconfiguring e.g. timidity on the other hand is a PITA, so a CL may have an edge here.

However, what Creative Labs really has over its competitors is hardware acceleration of multi-channel digital sound, including MIDI wavetable synthesis. If you need a card with hardware acceleration, then Creative pretty much has the monopoly on the market, and only Creative cards have true hardware acceleration. Stay away from C-Media Oxygen based and other such sound cards, if having actual sound processing horsepower is a must.

If having a badass DSP is not what you were really looking for, then the only thing that can make a difference can reside in the card's analog parts (DAC, preamps etc.) and your speakers. Sure enough, CL cards score very well in this department, however hi-quality DACs are not a Creative exclusive anymore. If a better sounding analog part is what you really need, there are other safer (read below) alternatives on the market (as new cards, not used).

However, check out your mobos chipset before ever buying a Creative card. If you have an old VIA chipset or an nForce 4 and an IDE hard disk, then I'd strongly recommend that you steer away from Creative, if you consider your data precious. The best chipsets for the job are Intel's, preferably configured to do stuff safe and slow.

One thing I wonder though if AWE64 is compatible with XP especially newer games or do I have to X-Fi for that?

I always liked the AWE64 for any kind of Windows MIDI work. Problem was that the volume on some of its instruments was a bit different from most other cards, and I remember writing a song that had a subtle french horn far in the background while playing on my AWE64, but everybody else who I sent the song to was complaining about the french horn from hell while listening on their other cards. I took the song to a few other computers, including my current one, and the volume complaints were accurate.

SoundBlaster16 is always what I prefer for listening to the original Doom music though, especially map06 where the bass line sounds like an actual crusher to music and not just a bass instrument.

The card I have now is dedicated to audio recording, so its only MIDI support is in/out and uses the Windows default MIDI synths. It's PCI, and even though it's new and the system is new, PCI sound cards still can't match ISA. If anything, try to get a PCIx1 card, that's probably your best and only bet for a modern card.

Maes said:

While the AWE series are superior in a lot of aspects to their successors, they have one small disadvantage: they only come in ISA, so unless you have one of those late-90s systems with both ISA and PCI, you'll probably have to settle for Audigy or X-Fi.

You could always get a ISA to USB adaptor.

Here's MIDI samples I found on youtube using Rick Roll for example...


Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth

Soundblaster 16 (Microsoft virtual)



Soundblaster 16 Version (Dosbox)



Sound Blaster LIVE! Platinum



Yamaha XG



I would really wish that someone would sample Doom music with these midi files and a bonus....

Is this X-Fi or Audigy?



and here's the closest video I could find that has AWE32 midi...

The funny thing is that I'm fairly certain that the original song there was done with a MIDI too. The MS Wavetable Synth almost sounds as good as the original, but falls a little short. I'd really like a computer that had a professional-quality MIDI player. Probably not much interest in MIDIs these days in either the PC field or the music field though, so that seems unlikely.

EDIT: Actually, after listening to the original version (lol self-rickroll), it's pretty much the same quality. Kind of odd that the MS one sounds better than the Yamaha one.

The Yamaha definitely has an overproduced sound. But it did have extra instruments, so...

Danarchy said:

The funny thing is that I'm fairly certain that the original song there was done with a MIDI too. The MS Wavetable Synth almost sounds as good as the original, but falls a little short. I'd really like a computer that had a professional-quality MIDI player. Probably not much interest in MIDIs these days in either the PC field or the music field though, so that seems unlikely.

EDIT: Actually, after listening to the original version (lol self-rickroll), it's pretty much the same quality. Kind of odd that the MS one sounds better than the Yamaha one.

Expecting a "professional quality" General MIDI sound bank is a bit of an oxymoron. The main reason for this is that professional quality (as in "pick any CD off a store shelf" quality) songs have had certain operations performed on each individual instrument in order to make it sound clear, balanced, and rich. This includes compression and equalization, which are crucial steps in mixing and mastering final songs. The General MIDI standard supports neither compression nor equalization, and it doesn't support effects such as reverb and flange on a per-instrument basis. In order to achieve these effects, the MIDI signals must be routed to a professional sampler (be it hardware or software based) that combines the instrument sounds with the mastering effects.

I should also point out that most mainstream sound cards (such as SoundBlaster xyz) limit MIDI samples to 32 megabytes at any given time, an absurdly low amount, which means that sound realism is virtually out of the question.

Danarchy said:

lol self-rickroll

Almost every time that I've heard that song I willfully made the choice to listen to it.

Bottom line...if you need professional MIDI quality, get a professional sound card or an external "audio interface" or sampler. Consumer or gamer oriented sound cards offer nothing too special, at least they won't be sound like anything you haven't heard before or you can't achieve by using a different set of samples with timidity on a standard AC'97 or ALC/HDA codec..

Nightmare Doom said:

One thing I wonder though if AWE64 is compatible with XP especially newer games or do I have to X-Fi for that?

I can quote what happens with a Yamaha Waveforce, which is just a tad more recent: it does work, midi is able to use either FM synthesis or hardware wavetable (with a driver patch), but forget getting hardware acceleration or EAX support in games. Not even emulated.

However, I have an AWE64 (not gold) working on a windows 2000 box, I can try midi/winamp etc. and tell you how it fares.

fraggle said:

You could always get a ISA to USB adaptor.

Holy Crap, talk about inelegant and inefficient solutions....paying over $150 in order to use an old ISA card, no matter how good it is, is a bit overkill. Plus, the USB interface practically excludes using it with legacy software and OSes.

Maes has the right idea. Consumer grade soundcards are completely overpriced for what they do. Even a LOW end interface would suffice a lot better

Tascam US-122, get em for about 99-120 dollars.
Korg X5d module for about 150.

About the best quality you're going to get with GM.

Maes said:

At least on paper, it's a good card, like most of the true Audigy cards. However, you must make your mind up about what defines "midi quality" for you: since FM synthesis is long dead, even an integrated soundcard will use wavetable midi, even if through software emulation, so you will get "wavetable sound" no matter what sound card you use.

Sure enough, the soundfonts used can make a difference, and with Creative's card you can sort of easily switch between banks of soundfonts (in the host's RAM however, not onboard memory). Reconfiguring e.g. timidity on the other hand is a PITA, so a CL may have an edge here.

However, what Creative Labs really has over its competitors is hardware acceleration of multi-channel digital sound, including MIDI wavetable synthesis. If you need a card with hardware acceleration, then Creative pretty much has the monopoly on the market, and only Creative cards have true hardware acceleration. Stay away from C-Media Oxygen based and other such sound cards, if having actual sound processing horsepower is a must.

If having a badass DSP is not what you were really looking for, then the only thing that can make a difference can reside in the card's analog parts (DAC, preamps etc.) and your speakers. Sure enough, CL cards score very well in this department, however hi-quality DACs are not a Creative exclusive anymore. If a better sounding analog part is what you really need, there are other safer (read below) alternatives on the market (as new cards, not used).

However, check out your mobos chipset before ever buying a Creative card. If you have an old VIA chipset or an nForce 4 and an IDE hard disk, then I'd strongly recommend that you steer away from Creative, if you consider your data precious. The best chipsets for the job are Intel's, preferably configured to do stuff safe and slow.

Sorry I've been away for a while, I had a lot of stuff to do. I guess I'll have to catch up.

Maes, I never wanted FM synthesis, because I know it's dead. I just wanted a hardware-accelerated wavetable synthesizer sound card that sounded good, or at least better than the one I currently have, the Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth. I could care less about DSPs, DACs, THX certified sound or whatever the hell these sound cards come with, nowadays.

fraggle said:

You could always get a ISA to USB adaptor.

Hell, NO. Absolutely not. I'm not paying a hundred and a half dollars to get an old sound card that's 12 years old and probably never worked with XP in the first place to work on my computer. No offense...

Nightmare Doom, thanks for showing me examples of different MIDI samples.

Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth: Pretty average MIDI, nothing pops out and sounds more or less natural than common MIDI. Maybe it's the fact that I actually have the software wavetable synth, but I dunno.

Soundblaster 16 (Microsoft virtual): Sounds great, if I wanted my computer to sound like a Sega Genesis. I like the Sega Genesis, though, so nothing negative there, but like I said before, FM synthesis is dead, and there seems to be no reason to revive it again.

Soundblaster 16 Version (Dosbox): Ditto.

Sound Blaster LIVE! Platinum: Sounds richer then the current one I have, IMO.

Yamaha XG: UGH! Terrible! Sounds too overexpressive. I never liked Yamaha XG, could never get the piece of crap to work with my computer. It even crashed my computer while setting it up! That soft synth gives me bad memories... :P

X-Fi or Audigy: Sounds good, and a noticable improvement on the square wave over MSGSWS. Seriously, the square wave on MSGSWS sounds NOTHING like an actual square wave. I mean, it shouldn't be that hard! Anyway, like Live!, better and richer than the one I have.

Maes, Thanks for your sound card tips. I would've never gone anywhere without them. Well, I would, but I would've bought a sound card that sounded terrible. :)

I'm glad I could help you orientate a bit, here are some final tips:

Regarding "hardware acceleration" of MIDI wavetable: this is only available on Creative cards with an EMU DSP (8000, 10K1/10K2, 20Kx series) which translates as AWE, Audigy 1/2/4 and X-Fi series. However, Creative's Audigy/Audigy 2 SE, SB Live! 24-bit and X-Fi Audio don't have actual acceleration, and only the most expensive X-Fis and AWEs have onboard memory, the others hog and mangle the PCI bus badly, especially with large soundfonts.

It's also available on a handful of other cards like Rolands or Turtle Beach, but these are pretty much dedicated MIDI cards, not general purpose. A minor form of hardware acceleration is also present on Yamaha waveforces and some ESS Ensoniq/CL SoundPCI cards.

In general, most users judge a soundcard by the sound of their default soundfonts, however in most soundcards with wavetable midi (including Microsoft SWWS) these can be changed. It's a matter of taste whether e.g. Creative sounds better than Yamaha with the default drivers.

FM synth is fun to mess with for experimental music and IDM now, don't you know!

Yamaha XG is a good format as far as MIDI's go though.

I also want to know if there's any midi "emulators" that can be downloaded on the internet so it would give you a variety of midi choices without putting sound cards in? Meaning ripping the roland and other sound card midi files and putting them as software files or "emulators" like the OPL synthesis from the ZDoom SVN source ports. At least there has to be a easier way of doing this instead wasting 100 bucks for a old soundcard and going through the trouble of putting one in especially mines has a built in soundcard (which is Realtek or something like that) which the midi synthesis (basically FMOD) sounds like shit. I even tried to put another soundcard (which was a X-FI) beneth the built in one thinking that my computer would support two soundcards but I found out it doesn't work either because I don't have extra plug in wires from my speakers or computers can only take one soundcard bahness. (I wonder if there's computers out there that has multiple sound card support?)

Nightmare Doom said:

I even tried to put another soundcard (which was a X-FI) beneth the built in one thinking that my computer would support two soundcards but I found out it doesn't work either because I don't have extra plug in wires from my speakers or computers can only take one soundcard bahness. (I wonder if there's computers out there that has multiple sound card support?)

Funny, I tried this with a Yamaha Waveforce + Realtek AC'97 integrated and it worked. I also have one pair of (analog 2.1) speakers, so what I did was routing the Line Out connector of the Yamaha through the Line In of the Realtek, and it worked. Drivers from either card didn't give me any trouble at all. I could have routed a third and fourth soundcard as long as I had PCI slots and enough resources (IRQ, DMA channels) to allocate them, and all of them support line in/out routing.

I also don't get this "integrated soundcards sound like shit" thing: practically all soundcards made since 1996 use at least CD-quality capable DACs, so at least playing back recorded content shouldn't have any differences, unless the analog outputs are pretty poor, but even then they should all sound the same when using digital outputs (if present).

MIDI playback on the other hand is a bit more complex and depends a lot on the drivers, but that too can be leveled with a good instrument bank and/or good softsynth.

Maes said:

I also don't get this "integrated soundcards sound like shit" thing: practically all soundcards made since 1996 use at least CD-quality capable DACs, so at least playing back recorded content shouldn't have any differences, unless the analog outputs are pretty poor, but even then they should all sound the same when using digital outputs (if present).

I never said that "integrated soundcards sound like shit" what I'm actually trying to say that the sound/video card I have now makes the midi files sound like shit (particularly FMOD from ZDoom) and I tried to put another soundcard (X-FI) in the slot below the Realtek one but it didn't work for some reason so I took it back.

Nightmare Doom said:

I never said that "integrated soundcards sound like shit" what I'm actually trying to say that the sound/video card I have now makes the midi files sound like shit (particularly FMOD from ZDoom) and I tried to put another soundcard (X-FI) in the slot below the Realtek one but it didn't work for some reason so I took it back.

I was not referring to something you said in particular, just an attitude that's around, according to which plugging in an Audigy or whatever will automatically "improve sound quality", something hard to define/pinpoint and to quantify, especially since nowadays installing an add-on PCI Sound Card is not exactly bringing DVD-Audio quality to something that was formerly 8-bit...

X-Fis and their bloated drivers are a world of shit on their own, so it wouldn't surprise me if the card didn't even get properly recognised by PnP or something to that effect with a second soundcard in the system. I just mentioned what happened with my twin soundcard setup.

However, it seems strange that ZDoom uses FMOD for midi...I always though that MIDI support is just routed through whatever midi mappers your system reports, and FMOD is just there for playing back formats like MP3, MOD, S3M etc., correct me if I'm wrong.

Maes said:

However, it seems strange that ZDoom uses FMOD for midi...I always though that MIDI support is just routed through whatever midi mappers your system reports, and FMOD is just there for playing back formats like MP3, MOD, S3M etc., correct me if I'm wrong.

The latest FMOD does come with its own MIDI player. It uses the same DLS file than the system's MIDI player so it isn't really better. It also has issues with a few MIDIs.