Frankly speaking, in the first minutes of getting to know this card, we experienced a real shock – its difference from other boards in terms of the capabilities of serious work with music turned out to be so striking. On the other hand, this is exactly what was to be expected, because Yamaha has always been famous for its serious approach to the manufacture of sound cards.
The WF192D supports its own MIDI standard called Yamaha XG. This format is an extension of the usual GM (General MIDI) and includes a larger number of instruments, as well as additional voice editing capabilities and a wide selection of special effects. Thus, the WF192D supports 192-voice polyphony, 676 musical instruments and 21 drum kits – more than impressive figures. The instruments sound great, all the drums are really different from each other – this once again proves the complete and undeniable superiority of Yamaha’s proprietary development over the well-known General MIDI, which, by the way, is also supported. It is also possible to load instrument banks in DLS format, and Yamaha supplies software for working with them along with the card. It is impossible not to mention another technology used in the WF192D – a wave synthesis method called Soft Virtual Acoustic (S-VA). It is based on the principle of physical sound modeling, which allows you to achieve amazing realism for wind and string instruments.
The card also implements a variety of effects, such as reverb and chorus.
The high level of performance of this board is also evidenced by the presence of an S/P DIF digital output, designed for working with external devices, such as CD, mini-disc or DAT cassette drives.
Gamers aren’t forgotten either – thanks to Sound Blaster Pro compatibility, Yamaha’s card supports older games running under DOS. The DirectSound3D and Sensaura 3D Positional Audio APIs are used to play 3D positional audio. However, support for both interfaces is provided only in software.
The disadvantages of this card include quite noticeable noise of the linear input and output. Its level, of course, is quite acceptable for simple listening to music and even more so for games, but when recording sound it makes a rather unpleasant impression. This issue is partly resolved due to the presence of a digital output. The most suitable solution for a composer-arranger’s home studio would be to use the Yamaha WaveForce 192D together with another board, inexpensive and low-noise, such as the Creative Ensoniq, the first of which is best used for music synthesis, and the second for recording it.
