what happened to yamaha xg?

[xo]

OK, so I know what happened. It was shut down and removed from the website.

But how about alternatives. Is there anything out there that can compete with the Yamaha XG softsynth?

[Chris Abbott]

Seems like soft midi players died a death, though the Yamaha XG standard lives on in many of their keyboards. It just didn't take off in other manufacturers' stuff like they hoped.

Chris

[Joker1974]

I've had a bit of experience in this area... I've been trying to make Midi files sound decent, using a standard soundcard, since I started using Win95

The first reasonably well-known softsynth I heard of is WinGroove, but that seems to have been discontinued -- page was last updated in 2001. The newer version works under XP tho, as far as I can remember. And strangely enough, some Midis sound better on Wingroove than the Yamaha XG synth!

The Yamaha XG is definately the best softsynth I've found... that was my replacement for WinGroove. Although I had a hell of a time finding a version that worked under XP after I upgraded from Win98! The SYXG100 won't work under XP so I had to use the Yamaha SYXG-50. It's almost as good as the 100 tho.

I'm always looking for better alternatives (short of buying an expensive Midi card or keyboard) so I'll let you know if I uncover anything. There's an interesting discussion here about softsynths I'm reading now

[xo]

It's really sad. I've always had a good eye for MIDI/XG software synthesizers. Being able to breathe life into "dead" compositions.