Upgrade your existing 16-Bit sound card to Wavetable General MIDI synthesis, and listen to a new dimension in sound.
This manual explains the features and specifications of this product, along with details on installation and explanations of popular sound card 'jargon' like GENERAL MIDI / MPU 401 / WAVETABLE / FM.....
The YAMAHA OPL4-ML Wavetable upgrade daughterboard connects to any standard 16-Bit sound card which supports a standard 26-pin (13 x 2) wavetable upgrade interface connector. This turns your existing FM synthesis sound card in to a card capable of producing an orchestra of sounds, providing samples of real instruments contained in the on-board 1MB of Wave Table ROM. It is GENERAL MIDI compatible which means it can play sound tracks of thousands of General MIDI compatible games, or MIDI (.mid) sound track files. Installation is simple, and no software drivers are required. This makes the YAMAHA OPL4-ML wavetable daughterboard your ideal choice for installation-easy top quality sound upgrades.
Installation is simple because this product does not require any software installation drivers.
Please follow this simple instructions....
To listen to the sounds of the wavetable you must first ensure that whatever software you are using is directed to the GENERAL MIDI wavetable. This can be achieved in Windows 3.1x by choosing MIDI MAPPER or in Windows '95 by choosing MUTLIMEDIA in their respective CONTROL PANEL's. Other 3rd party software packages usually give you options for directing the sound information to either your existing FM synthesis sound or GENERAL MIDI / WAVETABLE SOUND within the software setup or options programs.
FM SOUND ?
Traditionally sound cards just made awkward 'beeps', however today the requirement for a quality sound system is essential. FM is a method of generating sound by means of Frequency Modulation. This basically re-creates sounds by synthesizing a 'signal' and adding modulation etc. To do this you need signal generators or 'operators'. In basic terms the more 'operators' you have the richer the sound quality. This method is great for creating synthesized sounds but lacks in quality when 'real' instrument sounds are required. 'FM' was pioneered by YAMAHA.
WAVETABLE ?
Most sound cards have an option for a wavetable daughterboard, or have a wavetable built in to the chipset or sound card. The difference between wavetable and FM synthesis is that wavetable sounds are actual 'samples' of the original sound source (or instrument). These are sometimes referred to as 'TONES'. These sounds form the term 'table' (a table of sounds) and they can be subject to a variety of waveforms (the term 'wave') to add depth & quality to the original sound (such as adding a particular wave to create a tremolo effect for a violin sample). Wavetable synthesis also allows extra creativity with the use of digital looping, pitch shifting etc.
MIDI ?
Musical Instrument Digital Interface was pioneered by Roland over 10 years ago and has become 'The Standard' for digital music composition & performance. MIDI is a means of recording musical compositions on to a computer. Recording the actual sounds or tracks for a musical piece is extremely storage intensive (requiring at least 10MB per minute of mono sound). What MIDI does is transfer the information in terms of bits & bytes (in a binary code) which works out at only 10kbytes of data per minute of sound. To utilize MIDI you must have an instrument capable of transmitting & receiving MIDI data (all new keyboards are nowadays) and a sound card which has a MIDI interface (MPU401). Besides instruments talking to computers, MIDI has many other advantages, especially within the games industry.
MPU-401 INTERFACE ?
To use MIDI with a personal computer you need a PC-to-MIDI interface. The standard interface developed by Roland is the MPU-401. Almost all MIDI hardware and software packages available today support this interface, so when buying a sound card you should always look to this option if you intend to use MIDI.
GENERAL MIDI ?
General MIDI was pioneered by Roland and The General MIDI Association as a means of setting a standard for all MIDI equipment in terms of sound mapping (the relationship between the type of sound and it's 'patch' number or 'instrument' number), and in terms of MIDI channel recognition (MIDI is capable of transmitting data on 16 channels simultaneously, but a standard was required to set out what type of sounds should occupy what channels). This standard is essential for commercially available musical compositions and games which have their music typically written in General MIDI format. Also Windows'95 and the Microsoft Multimedia PC (MPC) specifications support General MIDI.