Yamaha XG

Relative to General MIDI, XG gained popularity by increasing the number of available instruments from 128 to 480 with an additional 11 drum kits and introduced a large set of standard controllers and parameters that composers could employ to achieve greater subtlety and realism in their compositions.

It features a reduced set of 361 instruments (381 in some models) and greatly simplified effect parameters and controllers.

In 1995, Yamaha released the first XG-based product for PC users, the DB50XG daughterboard, a Creative Wave Blaster competitor.

In 1996, Yamaha released MU10 external module, basically, a DB50XG in a case and later the SW60XG ISA PC card and the DB51XG a smaller version of the DB50XG daughterboard.

Yamaha's in-house songwriters often utilized these tools 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 [1].