On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 12:24 PM, Josh Lawrence <hardbop200@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > ok, now you've got me curious... > > so if I were to purchase one of these cards, how do you go about using > it in a computer or via MIDI? is some additional hardware required? The simplest way is with an ALSA-compatible soundcard containing a 26 pin wavetable header. Per https://vsr.informatik.tu-chemnitz.de/twiki/bin/view/Sonstiges/WaveTableSoundCards the two soundcards I've determined as being of recent design, and still available are: "Terratec DMX 6fire 24/96 PCI inside the breakout box, Good as of 2005!" and the Dynex dx-sc51 (which is a POS with an recent soundchip but a throwback AC97 codec that imposes a 48k sample rate). Note that the "original" files from my examples are recorded on the Terratec, and the better sounding files, whose filenames contain "on-analog-modded-dynex", are recorded at 48k on the Dynex... but "better sounding" is due IMHO to my modification helping get rid of a bunch of analog coloration that I felt was going on, mostly due to eliminating three 10uF coupling capacitors and a low-quality op-amp out of the signal path from D/A and into A/D. The terratec adding a slow opamp and another too-small coupling capacitor to the signal path. All those caps and op-amps in the signal path was IMHO responsible for eliminating a lot of "thump" and fundamental bass frequencies (listen to "Intelligent Summer" example for a D&B track that emphasizes this aspect of the sound). Unfortunately, the next step, getting rid of the D/A -> A/D costs $75.00 and involves tapping directly into the i2s-format digital stream feeding the NEC's AK4510's DAC... which is sort of absurd for a $13.00 synthesizer: http://www.twistedpearaudio.com/digital/wm8804.aspx [[overall, I recommend the Terratec because it has a better soundchip with digital mixer, excellent digital I/O capabilities, and external MIDI courtesy of via vt1712 chip, well-supported by alsa's snd-ice1712 and envy24control... once you get it running, you can always figure out something to improve the sound of the db50xg ... see also http://old.nabble.com/turning-a-consumer-soundcard-into-%22prosumer%22-w--quasi-balanced-outs-ts28791831i20.html && http://old.nabble.com/digital-upgrade-of-older-equipment-via-I2S-with-jitter-attenuating-S-PDIF-receiver-evaluation-board----ts28997419.html ]] FYI, recently, the entire package was available on http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170501815638 (which sold overpriced, given that you can get the db50xg clone for about $15 with shipping and DMX6fires are available all the time in Europe: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230491593275 ... Note that many of the terratecs prior to 2003 have waveblaster headers, not just the DMX6Fire.) The $1.00 card I modified, Dynex dx-sc51 is the US name (sold by Best Buy). In Asia, it's more appropriately called "mediatek 1723" because the card uses Via 1723 ( http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/controllers/tremor/ ). Note unlike the Terratec's superior soundchip, this one doesn't have a digital mixer -- use alsamixer -- nor an extra external midi port, and really only has one thing going for it other than the wavetable header -- a toslink digital output and alsa support via snd-ice1724 driver... http://www.9final.com/computer/mediatek-1723-sound-51-channel-with-wavetable-connector-p-2084.html http://www.pcresource.co.th/html/product/karaoke/images/mediatek_1723/1723_gal_800_2.jpg http://www.pcresource.co.th/html/product/karaoke/images/mediatek_1723/1723_gal_800_4.jpg (pictures of the original card whose top analog CD input I modified, removing series resistors and increasing the 10uF coupling cap to 100uF.) Or if you really want to go back in time there's the all-AC97 solution of the Turtle-Beach Santa Cruz... which is certainly supported by Linux, although I have no experience with them. I can't imagine they'd sound very good -- I'd imagine even the dynex has a better and more modern codec ( http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/codecs/vt1616/ ) than the Santa Cruz. -- Niels http://nielsmayer.com _______________________________________________ Linux-audio-user mailing list Linux-audio-user@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx http://lists.linuxaudio.org/listinfo/linux-audio-user
