64-bit Alternative to Microsoft GS Wavetable Synth MIDI Generator?

Anonymous
2010-03-16T09:40:24+00:00

I'm trying to find an alternative to the MIDI synth driver built into Windows 7 64-bit - namely the MS GS Wavetable Synth.

I have a Creative X-Fi card (64-bit drivers of course) but to my woe I discovered that the very nice Creative MIDI synth supports 32-bit systems only.

I do a lot of work with MIDI files and am supremely dissapointed with the Microsoft Synth - it sounds like the instruments haven't been updated since Win 3.11, which is probably true. I'm trying to find a better-sounding alternative that is compatible with a 64-bit operating system, but hours of searching have yielded nothing useful.

Does anybody have any reccommendations?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Music, photos, and video

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2011-06-05T20:03:20+00:00

What I do, is I use this card for my music, games, movies, etc. but for MIDIs, I have an old Pentium III computer with an ISA SoundBlaster AWE64gold sound card. It's a much older card and is not as good with games and media, but it actually has a better synthesizer than the SB X-FI HD.

Yes, all of the AWE32/64 cards *had* near professional quality synthsizers [1], but they are a bit old now.   The super awesome synth of the AWE32 was a benefit Creative Labs got when they bought the professional synth company EMU out years ago.  If you are a professional and you are willing to use a standalone synthesizer, then you can consider getting a rack module for a few hundred dollars off of ebay:

http://www.vintagesynth.com/emu/emuxl1.php   [2]

or you can get the highly recommended EmulatorX3.  EmulatorX3 is without a doubt absolutely awseome and it can run on your main computer or a standalone separate computer:

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?category=501&subcategory=168&product=17681

Also recommended is the kx project that Poidude mentioned.  If your emu10kX based sound card/OS is supported by the kx project, then you can do almost anything with it...

[1] - The Wave Table synthesis of the AWE Cards was near awesome, but the cards were a bit lacking in real time filters that are available in the more recent and expensive EmulatorX and stand along rack products for professionals.

[2] - While these stand alone rack modules work well for pro-audio, they probaby won't work that great for gaming because they don't tend to come with a General MIDI bank.  You would have to find such and expansion card and that might be difficult . On the other hand, EmulatorX3 does come with a General MIDI bank if I remember correctly, but it is a software only solution.

Best,

Shawn

Lastly, this whole dicussion is a bit on the silly side since I don't think most modern games actually use MIDI and SoundFonts/Wavetable/SoundBanks anymore.  Instead, I think game writters tend to compress their sound tracks into variations of MP3/OGGs files which are then decompressed by by main CPU and send straight to the Digital to Analog chip on the sound card thereby completely voiding the need for Wavetable or MIDI.  If I understand this correctly, mostly only professional musicians use MIDI these days. 

Note: I am a professional *.NET programmer and hobiest musician.  While I don't know much about writing video games, I do know a bit about music and Creative Labs...

Was this answer helpful?

4 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments
Answer accepted by question author
Anonymous
2011-05-28T07:20:02+00:00

I don't know if you still need help (your post is really old) but I'm having the same problem with my SB X-FI HD card. I have searched high and I have searched low and, sadly, I don't think there's any solution to this. What I do, is I use this card for my music, games, movies, etc. but for MIDIs, I have an old Pentium III computer with an ISA SoundBlaster AWE64gold sound card. It's a much older card and is not as good with games and media, but it actually has a better synthesizer than the SB X-FI HD. You can buy this card on ebay for like $7.00 it's really cheap. I know this doesn't really help at all, but it is a very good synthesizer, and I highly recommend trying it!

Was this answer helpful?

3 people found this answer helpful.
0 comments No comments

43 additional answers

Sort by: Newest
  1. Anonymous
    2013-08-30T09:24:25+00:00

    I'm returning to this thread after the lapse of several years to see if things have now moved on regarding the mutual heartfelt plea:-

    "All I want is for my 64-bit sound card driver to have a built-in MIDI wavetable like every 32-bit driver Creative has ever released."

    Can anyone update me on the current status for excellent quality soundcards compatible with Win 7 64 bit with Midi wavetables built into their drivers?

    Thanks in advance for any advice offered.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  2. Anonymous
    2013-08-29T20:42:36+00:00

    Since I started using more advanced sound cards with MIDI (486 processor, win 3) until today (win 7 / 8 -64 ) twenty years ago I have al kinds of technical problems with them. I started with a Logitech soundman wave , then I bought a creative soundblaster with a special daughter board sold separately containing the hardware synthesizer. Finally the creative x  fi elite pro with breakout box which i am still using and , another creative xfi card internally and recently an ESI Julia board with breakout cable for midi.

    For some reason, hardware synthesizer boards are not available anymore, everything is using software synthesis nowadays it seems to me. There is one part of the problem since you cannot connect from one program to another. You might see this as a sort of virtualization and although some people might say that this has no disadvantages they have if you try to use it in a more creative way. I have exactly the same problem that the last hardware synt sound card that I bought (the creative x fi elite pro) did not work properly  even under vista. I think it also has to do with the windows driver model for audio. In XP you could open more than one audio channel in the mixer and combine them, even causing feedback when output was coming back as input. Although creative has drivers for win 7 it never worked the way I was using it with Cubase

    later on with the other x fi card I bought I was not able to put the differnet audio streams together from the software synth and the audio wave tracks recorded (digital, analog it was, although I had also problems with latency0

    just testing my new emu card and again latency problems with the connected midi keyboard combined with software synthesis drums

    The best solution is to create a dual boot system with win xp especially for the midi and audio software and then win 7 / 8 64 for the rest. You might disable the network card in your setup when support for XP ends. I think XP was the last win OS supporting hw synthesis audio combined

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments
  3. Anonymous
    2011-08-10T13:12:25+00:00

    In 1996 Microsoft purchased Sound Canvas from Roland. Now we are seing the result of that move. Windows 7 unlike XP no longer accepts Roland sound canvas VSC 3.2.  Now after a bios upgrade Windows 7 is blocking FL Studio pluggins. I am holding on to my Windows XP realy tight right now. There is a lot of small studio's that relies on sound canvas including mine. I wonder what other freedom will be taken way by Microsoft. The only reason I own a windows computer is for music.

    Was this answer helpful?

    0 comments No comments