Yamaha

Yamaha is a Japanese company that manufactures audio equipment, among many other products. Their audio chips are often used on third-party sound cards.

Sound chips

OPL2

The Yamaha OPL2 (YM3812) is the chip used on the original AdLib card and clones. This is an FM-synthesizer chip, featuring 9 two-operator channels. OPL2 is an abbrevation of 'FM Operator type L2'.

OPL3

The Yamaha OPL3 (YMF262) is an extended version of the original OPL2 chip, adding an extra register base for a total of 18 two-operator channels. Twelve of these channels may be combined to form six four-operator channels. Each channel can be routed to a maximum of 4 output channels, though there are no sound cards that actually use all four. Normally only the first two channels are connected to a DAC (YAC512), providing crude stereo support. OPL3 is an abbrevation of 'FM Operator type L3'.

OPL3-SAx

The Yamaha OPL3-SAx is an all-in-one sound chip, featuring SBPro2, WSS and OPL3 compatibility. Chips in these series include YMF-715, YMF-718 and YMF-719. Sound cards using these chips were manufactured by Labway and Addonics, among others.

Waveblaster modules

OPL4

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DB-50XG

The Yamaha DB-50XG is a wavetable synthesizer card with a Waveblaster connector. It is compatible with General MIDI and the Yamaha XG standards.

DB-60XG

The Yamaha DB-60XG is an extended version of the DB-50XG, sold only in Japan. In the rest of the world this card is known as the NEC XR385. It is exactly identical to the DB-50XG, with two extra analog sound inputs that can be routed through the effects processor.