Yamaha MU500 as a sound card under Windows?

[fibre]

Hi everyone,
 
I am a long-time lurker that decided to take the plunge and buy a sound module for games and creating music. After reading the very nice review of the Yamaha MU500 posted here, I became very interested in acquiring one.
 
Information concerning that particular model is however not easy to find (it appears to only exist in Japan). Since this forum seems to contain the highest concentration of sound module fans for older games, I decided to post my questions here.
 
First, I wanted to know if the MU500 doubles as a sound card under windows or is the USB connection solely for using MIDI input/ouput? Basically, if I want to use it in a normal Windows setup, do I need to plug its line-out in the line-in of my sound card to have both normal Windows sound and sound from the module?
 
Also, is there any example of the MU500 playing orchestral music? I only heard modern-ish pieces on it, and the orchestral music demo on the Yamaha Japan website seems to be more or less a french horn demo (which sounds pretty good BTW). In particular, I'm curious to hear how Betrayal at Krondor theme would sound in-game.
 
Thanks!

[shad0wfax]

Hi fibre, and welcome to the QS forums. Sadly, I'm afraid that it's not possible to use the MU500 as a soundcard. It's a midi sound module, that is, a synthesizer in a rack format, but it doesn't send/receive audio data. As all midi synths, it receives midi data (either using the midi terminals, or a usb cable) and plays its internal sounds and effects.

Fortunately, it's quite simple to integrate the PC and the MU500 sound input/output. Either you can connect the audio output of the MU500 to the audio line input of your sound card, or you can connect the output of the soundcard to the audio input terminals of the MU500. I'd recommend the first option, as this way you would be able to record the MU500 output into the computer.

Soundwise, the MU500 is not at the same level of quality that some other more recent synths (If I'm not wrong, it was released in 2000 or 2001), but it sounds quite good, it's relatively cheap, it has tons of sounds, and it's fully compatible with GM/GM2 and XG standards, and also plays GS midi files quite well.

[fibre]

the MU500 is not at the same level of quality that some other more recent synths

What would you consider the ultimate setup for gm playback for games? (more or less disregarding money)

[shad0wfax]

I would here make a quite sharp distinction between using synths for gaming and for composing/creating music. If your main interest is getting a GM synth for games, IMHO there's hardly a better option tahn the good old Sound Canvas, such as the SC-55 mkII or the SC-88 (if you want/need more polyphony). They sound good and, more important, with them the games sound as they were intended to sound.

Synths for creating music are a very different story. Here compatibility (GM, GS, XG or whatever) is not very important, as they aren't conceived to play midi files, but to create audio tracks. IMHO, today's best "all in one" synth module is the Yamaha Motif Rack XS. Roland's Fantom XR is also excellent, although you need some SRX expansion cards in order to take the most from it.

The MU-500 is a good compromise between both worlds, considering the money. It's compatible with GM, GM2, XG and it has a "TG300B mode" which is supposed to be compatible with GS, and it mas enough sounds and of enough quality to use it for creating music with good results.

[Gradius]

The best today is Korg Kronos:
http://www.korg.com/kronos

Perhaps I'll get the rack version when (IF) it comes out.