Yamaha XG
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Yamaha XG or just XG is an extension to the General MIDI created by Yamaha. XG increased the number of available instruments from 128 to over 600, and introduced a set of parameters/controls that composers could employ to achieve greater subtlety and realism in their compositions than had ever been possible before with the MIDI format.
In the mid-1990's, Yamaha released the first XG-based products for PC users, the DB50XG daughterboard and SW60XG ISA PC card. Both devices were strictly tone generators, but became highly desirable among MIDI fans due to their crisp, high-quality sound. Featuring a powerful professional-class effects processing system with individual stereo reverb and chorus effects on any of 16 channels, and the ability to route any of the channels through an additional 'insertion' effect, sporting even guitar amp and wah-wah pedal simulations, Yamaha's talented in-house song-writers often put these tools to use to demonstrate the power of the XG format, notably recreating Jimi Hendrix leads complete with feedback, flamenco guitar with distinct pick/hammered notes and finger slides, growling saxophones, and even a very convincing sitar.
The DB50XG and SW60XG are discontinued, but the SW1000XG is popular in the professional music industry, and even many of Yamaha's "toy" keyboards are XG-compatible. Many notebooks include the Yamaha YMF7xx chipset which has a scaled-down XG-compatible MIDI synth. Available only in Japan also is a DB60XG, effectively a DB50XG with an analog input[1].
