Hello, I made Yucatan Fx, so I can answer some questions. Yucatan Fx is using the exact same DAC and ROM as Turtle Beach Cancun Fx. I took great care to design this card, and match not only the sound output, but also component choice & placement, dimensions, ... all exactly as Cancun Fx. So it behaves 100% exactly like Cancun Fx. This is on purpose, to bring back a rare and well regarded soundcard. So no hardware changes are planned. I thank Phil for the review and respect he encountered this problem in his setup with default mixer and Yucatan settings, it results in poor recordings. Indeed, you need to avoid clipping. If you have this problem, like Phil, first of all arrange your input mixer settings, and optionally also lower the midi master volume for very loud games (like descent). This is long known for Cancun Fx (similar as for other loud waveblaster cards like XR385), and easily resolved. In my setup it sounds really great out of the box (plugged on a high quality soundcard and through good speakers). Additionally, I now added more information at the Serdashop page, about special presets (developed by Hummtaro from vogons) : These adjust both the volume and equalizer settings, for a more 'SC-55' like balance. So, for headphone use or very loud boomy game tracks, run a batch file once, after bootup, to make it less energetic. There are currently 'Default', 'Medium', and 'Low' settings. The setting stays active until reboot. This addresses the mentioned issues, and works exactly the same for both Yucatan Fx and Turtle Beach Cancun Fx. If needed, further presets will be made available, depending on feedback. I welcome you to check out the Yucatan Fx thread on vogons.org for more recordings and further preset progress. I will keep supporting this card, as I do for all my products.

I just got a Yucatan! But I have not been able to use it yet. Looking forward to it though.

Mom can we have Roland SC-55? "We already have a Roland SC-55 at home."

love the turtle beach inspired wavetable board.

I've listened to that Descent track a zillion times and I never get tired of it.

Premium content, once again! Thank you Phil!

Wow I remember playing those games in the mid to late 90's. What a memory rush. Thanks for that. 😀

Been craving for some Midi content for some time! More please ;)

Glad to see these types of reviews coming back! I miss the videos. 👍

oh man i'm glad you reviewed it, i nearly bought one and i'd be screwed! i have the low profile ess audiodrive too. here's hoping there's a revision 2 with better synth or maybe another card that gets made with the GS rom... it sounded fine on the serdaco youtube channel but i guess there was no comparison like this. praise the mighty phil!

Nice video, thank you for retro parts!😎😊👌

Greetings from Yucatan!! Great work Phil! Can´t wait to hear your thoughts on the Orpheus card, X2GS waveblaster card and WP32 McCake.

Great work! Keep up the content bro.

Yeah, theres quite a difference but I think the Yucatan fits Descent much better. And of course you are right when it comes down to decide between Yucatan and X2. Great video, Phil. Grüße aus Deutschland!

Doom, Descent and Duke Nukem 3d, wonderful soundtracks.

Beautiful!

Hi - i am a stubborn SB16 person because i still have my first one with 2 speed cdrom i purchased in @ 1992 - and both still work fine. Between 1988 my first PC to say 2000 i think i bought everything ( not on release date normally 6 months later when the price fell to1/2 as something newer comes out ) Somewhere on youtube ( it may even be phils computer lab :) ) i found sound samples of Doom1 and Duke Nukem 3d all with different audio playback - sounds are totally different - SB8 SB16, Vibra , sb64 gold, SBawe , Turtle Beach , Roland General, Roland V2 So yeah, to me unless it is the SB16 that i used on my main machine for 10 years they sound different / wrong I am sure phil has done downloadable sound fonts / maps / samples on add on boards Regards George

No one will be throwing away Roland anytime soon. I can hear mega difference in clarity alone.

FYI: this board will fit on a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, and I had a Cancun FX on one 15 years ago. The samples were GS standard.

EXCELLENT DOOD!

Sound Canvas has a hell of a lot more dynamic range. Yucatan sounds alright but it feels like a poor substitute for me. Could be someone else's cup of tea though.

Nice video phil. Thanks for checking out the board and pointing out the volume bug! Btw I believe Descent is pronounced 'Deh-cent" not "Dee-cent"

Nostalgia overload

Tuesday bonus video fun!

WIng Commander Privateer, i have to dig that game out and play it again after all these years. @.@

4:38 : i just stop and googled Midi master volume command, and its a Sysex command, the whole chain is 8 steps of byte, but on the 3rd step, its the manufacturer ID, and maybe thats one of the issues , that some card only exclusive work on a certain byte. imagine this chain : F0 7F 41 04 01 7F 3F F7 , where the 41 is the ID , and in this case 41 is Roland Corp Japan. Creative on the other hand have 00 , 20 or 21, but Roland has only 41

Yucatan sounds like Roland SC-55 but some samples was Roland SC-88

My god Raptor! I haven't seen this game in 20 years.

Nice overview Phil, thanks! In regards to opinions, the more I do with retro hardware, especially the sound hardware, the more I understand, that this things depend on extremely subjective perception. For example, back in the days I had no sound canvas, nor any other Roland stuff, however I invested my savings into a Diamond Monster wavetable one day, which as most people think, is average at best. I still have that wavetable today and if I hear that, it sounds for me like the real thing. The Sound Canvas on the other hand is simply not what I'm used to. I guess, this is the reason, why so many people are keen to have Yamaha OPL3 chip on their sound cards. Not because other things are bad, but probably because this sounds like the one in the childhood....

It sounds like you're hearing a raveparty next doors: all base, some mids, very subdued highs. I don't like it much, it puts a LOT of pressure on my ears.

G'day Phil, I agree it just feels like something is missing, but maybe that is my memory as we are reminiscing on memories of over 20 years ago, But it definitely produces a nicer sound than your GTX285 in it's second video appearance 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I like how it sounds, but It's also missing some clarity.

The Canvas puts out Uncompressed audio and has better presence of midrage, and overall better balanced sound, while the Yucatan has more compressed sound, sound is over powered, not as good midrange presence, but i like the bass presence. In general i would go with the canvas.

I like the engaging bass, but the volume needs to be fixed before I consider it. Mabe a simple potentiometer

The sound is very unbalanced in most tiring way: super heavy bass, unnaturally punchy percussions. As you said, the sound is extremely compressed in general. It may sound good for a minute, but then it turns into a headache. However, it might sound better on very small and low quality speakers.

Interesting, I like the punchy bass on the add-on board. The Roland has more detailed drums for sure. I seem to be alone that I kinda enjoy it. But I also just like different things, my 98 pc has one of those audiopci cards running in the Ensoniq Soundscape modes. I hear the "perfect" cards enough in videos and such to like something unique for its own rights.

Man, this card sounds great. It easily beat out the Sound Canvas.

Es gab bisher nicht ein Produkt von Serdaco, das mich überzeugt hat. Das hier ist auch wieder ein Schnellschuss.

wonder how it compares to the old waveblaster II addon for sb16asp and the ultrasound clone that I .. still.. have.. somewhere..

the SC-55 had more treble in it; and the reverb sounds cleaner and more...reverby...(The lower reverb makes the Yucatan sound muffled to me) Yucatan definitely feels compressed and puts pressure on the ears with the overdriven bass. It's not terrible but I think the Roland or Yamaha units sound better; as does the dreamblaster (which for me doesn't sound right either but that's perspective as I grew up with the Roland and Yamaha synths)

Roland 😍😍😍

This sounds really like original SC-55 sound ROM, but with some over boost master equalizer, maybe difference is coming from different sound engine/ onboard processing (SC-55 used 32Khz and 16bit). Anyway they probably didn't tested it properly, as they have huge issue with volume/ clipping, maybe on last minute they changed DAC for cheaper one. :-)

5 minutes into the video and I already saw too many caveats. But being honest it sounds fine for me. I like the somewhat muffed sound. Gives it some woof

I think the Dreamblaster X2 is probably a better buy, although I'd love to sort out how to load a patchset into it's flash IN LINUX.

That's a lot of bass!

I'd rather use the munt etc solutions then a physical daughter board because you can load all kinds of different roms no problem. My old audigy2 I'm still using loads everything pretty much anyhow. I used to have a sb16 asp with a waveblaster and that sounded pretty good at the time. Way better then the fm synthesis sound coming out of a standard sb.

As an alternative to the sound canvas you can also get some korg gear which sells for way cheaper on ebay

as a Turtle Beach fan I don't remember the cancun fx having such problem, if this company could produce the Turtle Beach Kurzweil HOMAC daughter board that would be amazing. Edit, this card was bundled and mostly meant to be paired with the Montego 2.

You can download the Hummtaro presets now at serdaco.com/downloads/?dir=YUCATANFX Yucatan Fx Presets (for DOS). after boot, run the following presets, for optimal enjoyment of your yucatan Fx : These presets stay active until reboot. YucMe.bat : PLAYMID YMedium.mid --> Sets Mild Yucatan settings for line recording, and roland style equalisation YucLo.bat : PLAYMID YLow.mid --> Sets Very mild Yucatan settings for sensitive sound card input mixers YucHi.bat : PLAYMID YDefault.mid --> Sets Yucatan settings for cinematic game effects with a lot of punch. This is also the default setting at bootup.

Let's do a Mexican wave for new Wavetable boards! Woop! Woop!

Does anyone make a board that these wavetable boards can plug into that breaks out the header connector to power and midi? so you can make a standalone midi tone generator using these wavetable boards with no PC....

Side by side it seems the roland sc-55 is miles better, but I know that isolated it must be a bit dificult to say one is better than the other. Great video Phil, thanks. Just one thing, it would be cool to have a comparison to the tracks on the soundcards without the daughter board as well. Does not take away from your work though, always good stuff.

I know you probably get a lot of midi requests, but if possible can you test the Tyrian 2000 Jukebox (in the setup.exe) with the song "Tunneling Trolls" I think it's track17. In my opinion the OPL3 does great with this song, it would be nice to hear the difference though

By now, the Serdaco Dreamblaster X2GS is available, incorporating a 16MB GS licensed Roland ROM (which has a lot of resemblance to the SC-88 actually) and a 48MB user changable bank. This thing sounds miles better than the yucatan imho.

Could you make a video on various IDE adapters, i.e. SD, microSD, CF and SATA to IDE? Compare it maybe with some SSD IDE too and Disk on module modules, which are also pretty nice. I have "Super Talent DuraDrive ET3 256GB 2.5 inch IDE Solid State Drive (MLC)", but it is 2.5 inch drive, so not extremely suitable for a desktop, and it was costly, at 180$ (with shipping) about 4 years ago, now available for 167$, but hard to find actually.

Is it really to long for Yamaha/ess sound card ? even if you try to put it in the slot with it added, as i guess card will be a bit higher from the board because of the isa slot :P

90's MIDI (BASS BOOSTED)

I'm not understanding the point of this product, the screwy physical dimensions (kudos to the attempt at truly duplicating the original though), the odd volume / EQ settings, the lack of customization, and the price compared to the X2…. This seems like something that could have been achieved in a modified S2 form factor, like the "McFly" (www.serdashop.com/McFly), or perhaps in fact a modified S2 design with a larger 4 meg sample ROM chip (call it the R4?) to hold the 3 meg Roland GS "inspired" soundfont that the Yucatan is trying to emulate?

Alas I still prefer the Roland. The bass and distortion and such are just non-starters for this one. As for the X2, it sounds "nice" but it just doesn't sound "right" to me either with the soundfont shown. It doesn't really sound like "game music" so much. But between the two I'd have the X2 for sure and I could put different samples on it. Honestly I'm not even willing to try listening to this one through headphones. Ugh. I think I'd have to go to bed afterwards.

To much bass and distortion on the Pineapple card ...

This is unrelated but when you benchmark games what fps counter do you use

how do you enable the Dream blaster synch S2? just set it to general midi? I got one to work with my SB and I'm lost if its enabling..

Even after the volume reduction the high ends are piercingly loud, I have the video video at 100% and the master level in ALSAmixer at 74%, what I usually listen to music at and I was wincing when it peaked, the bass is also loud which I'd consider a plus if it weren't for the last issue, which is the midrange is way too quiet, I can barely hear it when the highs and lows ramp up, the SoundCanvas has far better normalization, and as I have no nostalgia with the device I'd say this is my unbias conclusion. Also, this might just be me, but the stereo separation sounds... Off, I only noticed it in the Descent comparison, the left channel drowns out the right. I'd say the DreamBlaster is the far better option.

Why did they make it so long. There clearly is space to reposition chips to make it shorter by 2cm. I hope there is improved revision soon. Also a JTAG connector (not soldered by default) or something to mess around with it would be nice. Also, the main header could be made to stick out, and not be on so wide area, this would help putting it for example on something like recent PC/104 ISA audio card by TheRasteri. I think thes module has a lot of potential otherwise, once the issues are fixed.

can you do anything with a 2001 sun micro mobo

The biggest difference in the Decent track between the two sources is the drums, and I'm betting you can adjust the SC to have the more scooped mids with pumped sub energy if you wanted it. You can't do that on the header I guess. Both sound cool, but Roland has always done drum machines right out of the box imo. I mean come on.

Seems like with some board revisions this could be great. But as-is? No, thank you!

Hi Phils, what do you use to capture and record your VGA devices?

X2

I don't get the point of making a 1:1 clone of a flawed device. Unless, as mentioned already in the comments here, it's a wavetable board specialy tailored to certain Turtle Beach soundcards. So if the latter is the case you should've included some tests on such a soundcard if you actually own one. Another question that came up for me is if this Dream chip is the same as found on several models of Terratec and Guillemot soundcards and if it is if the issues exist on those implementations, too.

There is something wrong with this device, and don't just mean with samples which are clearly different; there is something messed up either with digital or analog filtering, the whole thing sounds like it's in NOS mode with harsh and scratchy treble, it also has severe v shaped eq signature on it, like a cheap crappy pair of headphones or speakers.

Guess it's better than no sounds, but some didn't sounds great 😕

#DOScember

Something's wrong with the Privateer in-game music, it's playing back at about half the correct speed. The music in the intro and on the base sounded fine though.

Yeah the base is way too high for my taste and highs seem somewhat muffled. Also mids are.. I don't know none existent?

Did the original Cancun FX also have the volume issue? I'm a bit baffled as to how such a simple mistake was included on a modern enthusiast release.

It sounds like an AWE32.

So why does this product exist? And do you think it would behave correctly if it were on its intended Turtle Beach host board?

The sound isn't bad, its really too bad the compression and the equalization is so uncomfortable.

It's not even close to Roland, it's just trying to mimick it.. still, for it's cost i might get used to it, yeah.. another nice video Phil

Phil, since you tested this on a CT1740, should I assume that these 3 choices will work on my CT1700 SB16 SCSI?

2:24 earrape at its finest

It sounds muffled.

I am curious. Out of all of the midi devices I have heard, what sounds significantly better than a Roland Sound Canvas? I would like to look into that device.

The volume issue surely couldn't have got past quality control checks or gone unnoticed before it even got to that stage? O.o Even with the volume cranked down, it sounds like something you'd get if someone mixed their audio for a track on really small/shitty speakers or bad headphones and it's all over the place

Too much bass, too low midrange, treble varies from enough to too much. Price difference says go with X2 (€ 68,00 vs. € 75,00 respectively) The S2 seems to sound better. Maybe a simple playback comparison Tuesday video between Yucatan, S2 and X2 is in order. Still hoping for an accurate MT-32 clone from Serdaco. I'd be all over that. Thanks for the retro vid!

Doesn't sound that great to me and I'm not even using my 'good' headphones now. Bass heavy, muffled highs, compressed sound, no space between the instruments. It's not even good bass, because it also sounds like it's cracking/distorting at times (perhaps due to volume issues?). I suspect if I played it on speakers, it wouldn't bother me as much, but on headphones I think it would get tiring very quickly. Of course the volume problem that you have to work around isn't exactly something that speaks well for this project as it stands.

The Yucatan almost sounds out of phase.

it sounds like roland because GS is roland's gm sound set.........

It's no McFly 🤓

To me its not a very good device from the looks of it. If it is to large for most cards and produces to loud results its not going to compete with the other modules in the video.

>celeron oh no

I think better to stick with old hard

I believe Dream got in trouble back then because they stole the Roland samples

Seems to be an amateurish design all around, not to mention the volume issue, how do you even fail so hard at the board dimensions, they don't know the half-height sound cards exist? And avoiding that would have been extremely trivial, it's not like the board is anywhere near densely packed with traces and chips as is.

It's uncomfortable to listen to such loud bass over the otherwise quiet music.

The actual MIDI patch set is good, but it's ruined by how much fucking exaggerated bass there is.

you know..people should do it for free..with roland canvas vst...they all sound the same with same samples...only difference is i using Roland Hyper Canvas samples..sound way different in drum sets and guitars ...it makes games sounded CD MUSIC playback..

Definitely don't like this one at all. Very fatiguing on the ears to listen to even for a couple of minutes, even at the lower volume levels.

errrr its 6cm wide and 8cm long you plonker