[LAU] "discovery" on db50xg clones (NEC XR385)

[Niels Mayer]

On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 1:53 PM, James Morris <james at jwm-art.net> wrote:
> Can you use your own samples with the DB50XG?

There's plenty of things you can fill with samples. And even with the
finest of samplers, unless you spend a lot of time remapping a
standard midi file to the foibles of the individual sampler and
samples, it ends up useless. Or rather it sounds like this (Emu EIIIxp
w/ extra digital domain ambience added to make it a fairer comparison
to the Yamaha... and all-digital signal path to hard disk):
http://nielsmayer.com/npm/chpn_op53_gnulem.ogg
versus (recorded on db50xg):
http://nielsmayer.com/npm/chpn_op53-on-analog-modded-dynex+15db.ogg

Of course, if you're playing a track specifically for that sample and
sampler, then it's not as useless, but it'll be difficult to translate
to a different instrument.

I think the db50xg is best used as an XG-instruments starting point
for songmaking or song-remaking, and then add other softsynths,
samplers, or qsynth/fluidsynth w/ your own preferred sounds. At least
the mundane stuff -- drums, basses, pianos etc -- sound quite good
even today and will take up no cycles  in use, while responding
speedily, and reliably no matter what load or I/O is going on with the
computer. If you really find no use for it, at least you'll have an
excellent metronome, with easy access to full XG drumkit via
kmetronome's cakewalk instrument definition compatibility (
http://midi-clorianos.blogspot.com/2010/05/weird-kmetronome.html --
though I think Pedro Lopez-Cabanillas used Rui's qtractor code to
achieve this useful feat).

-- Niels
http://nielsmayer.com

PS: For those without soldering irons and compatible soundcards, and
with access to eastern markets and mail, there's always this:
http://www.navcoms.com/MySite/SboxIII.htm
e.g. http://www.9final.com/computer/sboxiii-external-sound-module-with-hardware-wavetable-4mb-p-2380.html
(Although this one appears to have a Dream-based GM chip (
http://www.9final.com/computer/wavetable-daughter-board-sound-for-karaoke-music-4-mb-p-2071.html
), it's the same header that would fit the Yamaha or Roland cards w/
same header).