This is a great review, Phil! I have one of the X1 prototype boards and it just sounds very good. Anyone looking for a wavetable board should look no further and just buy one of these.

The sound out of the X1 is excellent. I’d say they are giving the Sound Canvas a run for their money. But I was sad to see they are sold out? Maybe a follow-up video to cover other alternatives? Also thanks for the videos!

Sounds very nice and clean! Great review.

Descent - The best soundtrack ever.

After much deliberation and searching for an old school MIDI wavetable module for my Diamond MX300, I went ahead and purchased a DreamBlaster X1 today. It's the best solution for the job available. The price is much less than comparable MIDI boards like the two Turtle Beach Cancun FX's on eBay for $220. BTW, the Cancun FX sounds great (My buddy let me borrow his for 2 weeks) but the X1 is better for more than half the price.

Thanks for the review. Is there space for this on the ESS Solo-1? (Terratec 128i PCI)

In the descent title track, a lot of the percussion is panned hard left using the X1 - I wonder what is causing that. It doesn't happen on OPL or a sound canvas module

I love the guitar sounds in wing commander privateer and decent 2.

Awesome video phil I hope those belgian guys make good products in the future

does it work with a SB Pro2?(CT1600)

I love that you can still buy wavetable boards today, and considering that this is a niche market I find the prices to be excellent. But this video actually made me decide not to buy one. I'm not a fan of General Midi music, aside from Sam & Max most of the games just sound off, quiet and faceless to me. So I'll be sticking with module/tracker music games and using the OPL synth for midi. I would go nuts for a Ultrasound compatible ACE clone instead ! Excellent video by the way

Hi Phil, nice video. Since you have the board can you make a comment about the clearance of those jumper blocks if there is a card in the near slot?

This looks like a great option if I hadn't gone overboard with the external Roland midi units already

Hi Phil, Awesome review mate - I laughed my head off when you said you were going to included Leisure Suit Larry 6 (thanks for throwing that one in for me!). You know what? I've changed my mind about the X1 it does actually sound better/fuller when you do the side by side comparison with the S1. I guess it just because you can get better impression of how it sounds when it compared like that. Good work fella, thanks for doing the comparison and showing if it fits of the Yamaha Audician 32, oh and the inclusion of LSL6 theme! Top marks! ;o)

cm300 or this? CM 300 is a roland midi device and the sucessor to the MT32, and yes you can use this with dos

I wonder how one of these will go in a Korg NS5R module. They have a Wave Blaster expansion port, and I'm mulling over whether to get a DreamBlaster X1 or X2 and attach it to the Korg.

Great video! Quick question. Taking aside the jumper features, and only considering the sound quality, do you think this board is worth the extra 50 euros? I was about to buy the S1 when I saw this video, Now I'm in a crossroad

Nice review, the x1 sounds super clean compared to the s1. Is this just a change in the sound bank?

Another great video Phil cheers, I would have liked if you could have demonstrated a db50xg to hear the difference in gm, I probably know that the xg would blow it away but would have been nice to hear if there were any instruments that bettered it, I have ordered a wavetable daughter board to connect my db50xg so I can link it to any midi device, I have santa cruz and terratec sixpack 5.1 to connect my db50xg and I recently aquired a sw60xg isa, I love my sound modules and couldn't pass up on a Roland SD-20 24BIT midi2/gm/gs and xglite to go through all my dos games again, now I just have to figure out how to get my sw1000xg pci card working in dos 😀

Hey, Phil, do you know if there are any wavetable boards that connect to RS232 male ports? I have a DOS laptop with an ESS Audiodrive (PnP, unfortunately) and this is the only output it has. I just want some way to be able to get General Midi support in DOS, so I can have better sounding music than ESS' Sound Blaster Pro emulation. I will be using SoftMPU for compatibility reasons.

Thank you for uploading this video. I have a soundblaster 16 CT2290 and a Roland MT-32. When connecting soundblaster 16 to Roland MT-32 I am not getting any sound. Would a Dreambaster X1 installed onto the soundblaster 16 solve this issue?

Sounds quite different to me from an sc55mk2 in duke, not bad at all, but I wonder if for 80 euros is worth the price. An used sc55mk2 i don't think is gonna cost much more than that. If there was any adapter for using it through PCMCIA btw, it would be really really interesting

I wish my SoundBlaster AWE came with a daughter board. This would be great to use with those games that came out before the AWE but supported General MIDI. I got jipped when I bought it. The Ebay listing said Sound Blaster AWE every step of the way, had a generic photo, but it was actually a SoundBlaster 32, basically the same card without coming with memory or a daughter board connection. Didn't bother me at the time, I put way more memory in it than it would ever need, and I use my MT-32 with a remapped General MIDI mode for the GM games before the AWE, which comes out nicely, besides those pianos... I really wish that thing could do a piano... The AWE comes with a TSR to emulate the MT-32 and GM games but that thing is a piece of junk, rarely works. Sounds good when it does, but that's not often. That was part of my long process of killing all traces of Adlib/SoundBlaster FM from my system. At first I got a slightly different Sound Blaster 16, which made the FM sound slightly better to my ears. I think it was Vibra model. Better, but not good enough. Got the AWE/32, great for the games that supported it. Made a handful of MT-32/GM games sound good, but it was mostly a disappointment in that regard. It did let me add reverb to the FM stuff, which was almost good enough for me, because it truly does add so much to it by just giving it a bit of stereo. But I was still unhappy so I finally took the leap and got all the equipment necessary (at the time) for the MT-32. Growing up with the Amiga, I can't tell you how much I hated the standard Adlib/Soundblaster FM. I almost think the PC speaker sounds better than it... It's certainly doing more with the hardware... Can't tell you how many lazy Soundblaster games were made well into the mid-90s. Wing III, Under A Killing Moon, most games were still supporting the original Adlib FM, never making use of OPL2-3 stuff. Makes me feel so sad that so many people had to deal with that terrible sound. Anyway, great video!

i like more the roland rap10 general midi.

Sounds better than the Roland Sound Canvas SC-55, up there with the Creative AWE32 and AWE64.

The Cleanwave patch set is such a mixed bag. Some sounds are awesome while others are complete crap. Not much in between with it... Overall it sounds heavily influenced by the original Ensoniq Soundscape.

All gone now... :(

I don't agree that this board sounds good. I think it sounds flat and kinda detuned for certain wavetable instruments. Sam n Max sounds awful.