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

On Sat, Jul 3, 2010 at 1:53 PM, James Morris <james(a)jwm-art.net> wrote: 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-… (Although this one appears to have a Dream-based GM chip ( http://www.9final.com/computer/wavetable-daughter-board-sound-for-karaoke-m… ), it's the same header that would fit the Yamaha or Roland cards w/ same header).