[MIDI Comparison Project] Ensoniq AudioPCI

This is the Ensoniq AudioPCI, Ensoniq's cheap yet pretty good little sound card. This particular one was an ES1373 on the motherboard of a Gateway G6-450 computer. This was the very first MIDI synth I ever heard! I still think the clarity and crispness of its samples is unmatched. Recorded in Windows 98SE and uses the standard 2MB .ecw sample set.

Make sure you set the player to 480p for the best audio quality! The recordings may sound scratchy otherwise.

In the MIDI Comparison Project, a standard playlist of nine MIDI files is used. Here is that list (click the times to jump to a specific song):

Striving (Gravis Ultrasound sample song) - 0:00
Trip Through the Grand Canyon - George Stone (Canyon.mid) - 2:53
Earthlight - from Einhander - 4:57
Beach - from Plok - 8:01
Band Land - from Rayman - 13:06
Santa Claus is Coming to Town - 14:13
Budget - from SimCity (SNES) - 17:18
September - Earth, Wind and Fire - 18:35
Mr. Roboto - Styx - 22:41

Category:

Music

Tags:

• midi
• synth
• music
• gateway
• ensoniq
• creative
• audiopci
• windows
• 98
• computer

[goniochromism]

Great video! And thanks for using my Sim City midi as demonstration :)

"This was the very first MIDI synth I ever heard!" - mine too, back in '98. Many fond memories of these sounds. Fortunately I'm still using an Audigy 2 at the moment, which includes the ECW-using "SW Synth" as standard. However, I don't plan on keeping that forever, and it's a little saddening to think that there are no other modern means of using the Ensoniq soundbanks (at least at the moment.)

[izlude2]

I miss the ecw format. I wish they had developed it more. Guess creative didn't want to bother with ensoniq's documentation.

I used to have the SB-PCI128 sound card and used the 8mb wave set. My newer PC can't use this sound card. I emulated the card in VMware via WinXP.

If you don't want to emulate, you can use a utility to turn the ecw into a file called gm.dls and replaced it with the one in the Windows system32 folder. You get good ecw sound, but not as nice as the real thing.

[shalpp]

The drums in the Rayman midi sound just like the drums used in the actual song

[manuelink64]

wow!!

kick ass the ESS solo1 ass

amazing sound!!

[Zolg08]

I had a motherboard with this chip. It's midi capabilities are are awseome