The MU10 is heaven for technophobes. Most people hate opening up their PC or Macintosh to add new hardware (more so on the PC). Computer novices like to have everything ready to go when the machine arrives. Unfortunately the problem is that when they see a more powerful component such as a sound card or video card, they often feel tempted to upgrade, so that they may keep up with their friends. If you have no PC knowledge (or very little), especially with regards to what goes on inside your new wonder machine, this can be a daunting task. Introducing the MU10.

The MU10 from Yamaha provides all of the state of the art sound creation capabilities that their multi award winning DB50XG daughtercard had, but without all of the fear of opening up your PC. As an external wavetable upgrade, much in the same way that a tone module would be, this little box, while being not much larger than a modem, packs a mean punch when it comes to sound. Connecting either via your serial comms ports or directly to any midi compatible cable or device, the MU10 is staggering not only in sound quality, but also in value for money. It can be connected to any MIDI keyboard or device and has direct connections to both a PC and Macintosh.

That will not affect the operation of the MU10 at all. As you already know, a PC can come loaded with many cards, be they for sound reproduction, MPEG,Video,etc., as the MU10 is an external device it sits comfortably alongside your PC (laptop/desktop or palmtop) and enables you to produce music you could only dream of before. As it uses existing COM ports or the already present MIDI interface found on most sound cards, plugging it in could not be easier.

Most games nowadays feature MIDI soundtracks. Take DOOM for instance, one of the most popular games ever written. This games sound setup utility lets the user select the sound effects card and the music playback device. For sound effects you would normally select SoundBlaster or similar.

As the MU10 is not designed as a stand alone sound card in the sense of SoundBlaster compatibility, you will not be able to hear your sound effects using the MU10 alone. That is not what it was designed for, it is a professional music playback device. Therefore, when the option for music playback device presents itself in your game, you would then select MPU401 or General MIDI, and select the port address that the external MIDI port on your sound card is set to.

The difference in quality has to be heard to be believed. In Windows 95, you would select YAMAHA SERIAL PORT DRIVER as your MIDI option in control panel, and again all of the MIDI music for your Windows95 game would now playback with glorious Yamaha wavetable technology. If you have one of the new games that support XG, then the experience is even greater.

This is probably more relevant to PC users. The problem lies in the fact that PC's generally only have 2 communications ports COM1 and COM2. COM3 and COM4 are actually the same as COM1 and 2 respectively, so at times it can be difficult to access all 4 at the same time. By the very fact that you are reading this document, you probably have a modem using up one of your precious COM ports, and more than likely you will have a mouse using up the other one. This makes it very difficult to install the driver for the MU10 to access via the COM port.

A version 1.4 driver which does not have some of the multiport options( more for the MU80 than the MU10) is available on this web site for Windows 95 and Windows 3.1 drivers are also in the software section. If you find that you cannot get the COM ports free, then Yamaha have another solution in the MDC-01 cable which will allow you to attach your MU10 to the joystick port on the back of your soundcard. This requires no drivers to install and will offer the same functionality as the serial driver. The MDC-01 cable is available from all good Yamaha dealers.

One of the beauties of the MU10 is that it is not confined to sitting inside your expensive PC. It is as portable as an external Modem (and makes a nicer sound too!). This means that you can create a stunning MIDI file using your favorite sequencer, and hen save this to floppy disk, and take it out with your MU10 round to a friends house where he or she can listen to your stunning creation how you want it to sound. And as the MU10 can also be powered by battery you don't even need a power supply.