Yamaha SW1000XG

OK, so you're into music. You want a new sound card. You want a hard disk recording system. You want on board synthesis with 1000+ voices. You want 6 independent effects busses. You want all processing to be handled by the card. You want an unrivalled signal to noise ratio. You want a Yamaha 02R digital mixing console worth £3000 on a card the size of 2 floppy disks for £400. Well - what you're basically saying is that you want a studio in a box... and that is more or less what the SW1000-XG is. Where to start. Firstly - if you want to get the full potential out of this card you must understand MIDI - especially system exclusive messages. Although ...

This is an absolutely stonking soundcard, well worth every penny, even at the R.R.P. The General MIDI set of sounds is the best I have ever heard; far better than the Sound Blaster series. And the fact that the card is built on Yamaha's XG format means that the GM set is expanded by several banks to over 1200 presets, most of which are of superb quality. (Although there are still the seemingly obligatory tweets, bumps and squeals which you will never use). The very best aspect of the card, though, is its synthesis capabilities. When used with an editor such as XGEdit, (which can be downloaded at the Yamaha site, but must be registered), almost every aspect of ...