[MIDI Comparison Project] ESS Solo-1 (ESFM)

The ESS Solo-1 chip has a synth called "ESFM" which is pretty much just a good Yamaha OPL2 clone. In fact, it is pretty much indistinguishable to me in DOS games... when it works. However, I found it worth recording MIDI playback in Windows because it uses a different patch set than the standard Creative cards. You can tell in a few places where it runs out of channels, though. Recorded on a Compaq Presario 3550 in Windows 95 OSR2 (Solo-1 chip is on the board) Make sure you set the player to 480p for the best audio quality! The recordings may sound scratchy otherwise. In the MIDI Comparison Project, a standard playlist of nine MIDI files is used. Here is that list (click the times to jump to a specific song): Striving (Gravis Ultrasound sample song) - 0:00 Trip Through the Grand Canyon - George Stone (Canyon.mid) - 2:54 Earthlight - from Einhander - 4:57 Beach - from Plok - 8:00 Band Land - from Rayman - 13:04 Santa Claus is Coming to Town - 14:08 Budget - from SimCity (SNES) - 17:18 September - Earth, Wind and Fire - 18:35 Mr. Roboto - Styx - 22:38