wrote:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ome3vfadYvs

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/midi/GROOVE.MID

http://www.fileden.com/files/2012/6/...408/groove.wav

Your system is using the GS Wavetable SW MIDI device, the same as
mine. All computers made after 2000 come with AC'97 cards. There's
nothing wrong with the new MIDI device, but MIDIs sequenced and
intended to be listened with the old OPL3 MIDI device don't sound
as good on the more modern ones.

Well, I beg to disagree.

I have listened to both my .wav recording and your version on youtube,
and hands down I think the musical quality (instrument quality) of my
..wav file is superior.

I clearly hear the aliasing in the youtube version when the high-hat is
tapped. It sounds awful.

You might want to read this, particularly the last sentence in the first
paragraph:

http://www.schristiancollins.com/generaluser.php

====================
About GeneralUser GS

GeneralUser GS is a GM and GS compatible SoundFont bank for composing or
playing MIDI files. There are currently versions for use with FluidSynth
(or Qsynth), MuseScore, Sound Blaster Live!/Audigy/X-fi sound cards, and
other SoundFont-compatible hardware and software synthesizers. For
owners of Sound Blaster audio cards, GeneralUser GS can greatly enhance
the sound quality of GM/GS compatible MIDI files when loaded into the
sound card's RAM. Compared with the default SoundFonts that Creative
Labs ships with their sound cards, the instrument sounds in GeneralUser
GS are far more realistic.

Although GeneralUser GS was originally designed for use with Sound
Blaster audio cards, most recent development has been for the excellent
FluidSynth, the best software SoundFont player available, in my opinion.
It also sounds quite good on many other softsynths, although not all are
guaranteed to sound fully correct.
=====================

I went out and downloaded the GeneralUser_GS_1.44 sound-font file and
installed it in my VLC player (it uses fluidsynth), so now VLC can play
midi files. The wav file that I recorded earlier was played by Windows
Media Player 9. I don't know what sound-font WMP is using - if any.

I've played the mid file with both WMP and VLC and I can't hear any
difference.

For those that are interested, here's the link to the sound-font file:

http://www.schristiancollins.com/sou...FluidSynth.zip

As a Win98 purist, you should be apalled that you don't have a
genuine Win98 environment.

I don't see how having AC-97 audio hardware (not the inferior SB16 sound
card) makes my system any less of a "pure" win-98 system. By late 1999
or early 2000, many win-98se systems came from the factory with
motherboards that had on-board AC-97 hardware.

See the YouTube link for how groove.mid should really sound like.

Yes, and as I've said, it sounds awful compared to my version. I
welcome others to weigh in with their opinions.

On a tangent, I found this in the wikipedia entry for Sound card:

--------------
Crippling of features

Most new soundcards no longer have the audio loopback device commonly
called "Stereo Mix"/"Wave out mix"/"Mono Mix"/"What U Hear" that was
once very prevalent and that allows users to digitally record speaker
output to the microphone input. Many users suspect the RIAA is
responsible for colluding with or pressuring computer and soundcard
manufacturers to disable this and other features because of their
ability to be used for copyright infringement (although many legitimate
uses exist for this feature), but no proof of this currently exists.

However, virtually no other answers exist as to why computer and
soundcard manufacturers have been discontinuing this feature. No notice
or information is usually given to consumers of the exclusion or
inclusion of the feature when purchasing or in specifications. Lenovo
and other manufacturers fail to implement the chipset feature in
hardware, while other manufacturers disable the driver from supporting
it.

In some cases loopback can be reinstated with driver updates (as in the
case of some Dell computers); alternatively software (Total Recorder)
can be purchased to enable the functionality.

According to Microsoft, the functionality was hidden by default in
Windows Vista (to reduce user confusion), but is still available, as
long as the underlying sound card drivers and hardware support it.
----------------

This is what allowed me to easily record to wav file the audio signal
why the midi file was being played. I have used this sound-recording
feature a few other times when recording music being played (streamed)
from various web sites.