Ultrasound Daily Digest Fri, 13 Nov 92 Volume 1 : Issue 18 Today's Topics: Daily Digest Breaks 500 mark! Getting the word out (2 msgs) Gravis and Australia gus snd files Info on Ultrasound ? kbmidi Many a questions concerning the Gravis Media Player and 256k RAM MODEDIT 3 is great! More EA. More stories. (Less GUS cards.) News posting is a good thing Novice GUS Questions (at least I've got one!) Patches Posting the digest to the net. shipping dates Some answers The Administrator's Suggestion The Infamous Midi Cable Ultrasoun Upgrading your GUS RAM! Windows woes... Digest Address: ultrasound@dsd.es.com To post to tomorrow's digest. Request Server Address: ultrasound-request@dsd.es.com To subscribe, unsubscribe, and request files. Owner Address: ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com To contact a human if the server has troubles. FTP Site #1: ftp epas.utoronto.ca (/pub/pc/ultrasound) Digest back issues, mirror of request server People responsible: David DeBry, Adam Iles, Thomas Wong, Chris Yuzik, and many others who should be thanked often. :) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 18:09:55 MST From: ddebry@itchy (Dave DeBry) Message-Id: <9211130109.AA05616@itchy> Subject: Daily Digest Breaks 500 mark! To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Just thought I'd let everyone know that the Digest readership broke the 500 mark list night sometime. We are currently at 512 members. Yay! -- Dave ddebry@ debry@ \ DeBry dsd. peruvian. | "Hurry, man! Cling tenaciously to my buttocks!" es. cs.utah. | - Powdered Toast Man com edu / ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 14:02:08 EET From: s106275@ee.tut.fi (Anssi Saari) Message-Id: <199211121202.AA13952@ee.tut.fi> Subject: Getting the word out To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > Ok, folks, I've heard your cries. Yes, it is important to get >the information from this list out onto news. I agree wholeheartedly. > > In fact, I agree so much that I'd be happy to set something up >from this end to get the info out to news. I'll set it so that the >digest gets posted to news every night, or the server compiles digests >for a week and then puts them all out on the net Saturday night (I >like this idea)... > > HOWEVER: I need suggestions for the best method. There have >been several arguments against posting all the digests to news. In >fact, I've heard a lot of argument about what we *shouldn't* do. Now >I'd like to hear ideas on what we *SHOULD* do. > > I'll do my best to get whatever you readers want done... just >let me know WHAT you want done so I can do it! If all the discussion on the mailing list is posted to the news, what is the point of having a list at all? Just kill the list and start reading news instead. Here's my suggestion: periodically (once a week) post info about the list, including how to get on it, how to get files from the server etc. Maybe that would reduce the entirely too frequent add-to-list requests on the mailing list, too. Anssi ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 10:01:05 -0500 From: adam@epas.utoronto.ca (Adam Iles) Message-Id: <9211121501.AA22325@epas.utoronto.ca> Subject: Getting the word out To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > Ok, folks, I've heard your cries. Yes, it is important to get > the information from this list out onto news. I agree wholeheartedly. > > In fact, I agree so much that I'd be happy to set something up > from this end to get the info out to news. I'll set it so that the > digest gets posted to news every night, or the server compiles digests > for a week and then puts them all out on the net Saturday night (I > like this idea)... > > HOWEVER: I need suggestions for the best method. There have > been several arguments against posting all the digests to news. In > fact, I've heard a lot of argument about what we *shouldn't* do. Now > I'd like to hear ideas on what we *SHOULD* do. Please do not dump the whole weeks news at once. Many sites do not and cannot keep newsgroups for more than a couple of days. Having the news go out on a Saturday night will only mean that people will not get the contents of the digest in a timely fashion, and be forced to rush through seven in a day or two. I am not sure how many subscribers you have for the mailing list, but if it's a significant number we could always look at trying to start a new news group (say comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.gus) that would be gatewayed to the mailing list. This would also ensure that people who reply to the digest via news will have their response included in the next digest. Another alternative would be to post each piece of e-mail to the mailing list as a separate news article with a keyword of "ultrasound-digest" (or some other esoteric keyword) and include any postings that have the keyword in the next digest. I cannot see how anyone subscribing to c.s.i.p.s could argue that the traffic does not belong there, considering that GUS is a soundcard for PCs. > I'll do my best to get whatever you readers want done... just > let me know WHAT you want done so I can do it! My personal favourite would be the final one, which would allow me to use trn to read the news about GUS, and not have to consolidate the information from the mailing list AND the newsgroup. -- Adam Iles -- EPAS Computing. adam@epas.utoronto.ca ------------------------------ Date: 13 Nov 1992 02:15:27 +1000 From: MIENG01@csdvax.csd.unsw.EDU.AU Message-Id: <01GR34G51JNMBCDUDP@csdvax.csd.unsw.EDU.AU> Subject: Gravis and Australia To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Could anyone from the Gravis company please supply an exact date that electro nic Arts here in Australia will recieve their order. I would appreciate it very much !!!! Electronic Arts did say that they should have recieved their order by now, and I am wondering what has happened to it!!! Thanks for your trouble... .. ... DAVID. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 21:56:12 PST From: laurinol@sfu.ca Message-Id: <9211130556.AA25111@fraser.sfu.ca> Subject: gus snd files To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Does anyone know where we can all get 16 bit sound samples for the GUS? The .SND files it comes with are ok, but there must be a place to get some more. I've tried coverting some NeXT (.AU) 16 bit sound files I had to .SND and all I got was garbage. Is there different types of .SND files? If so which one does the Gravis use. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Nov 1992 22:29:34 PST From: chrisw Message-Id: <9211130630.AA20340@leland.Stanford.EDU> Subject: Info on Ultrasound ? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest ------------ IS THERE ANYONE OUT THERE USING THIS CARD FOR WRITING MUSIC ??? At the moment all the discussion seems to be about games and talking error messages. If there's anyone out there who is actually using this thing as a synthesizer / sampler particularly with sequencing software could they please tell me what they are using and what they can do with it? A few questions on this theme: 1) Can I plug a keyboard into this thing and `play' the sampler ? If so, do I need to run some program to do this? (If I do, why hasn't anyone mentioned it as part of the included software ?) 2) Assuming I can plug in a keyboard, how do I set up sounds, midi channels etc. Can I do this with standard midi patch change commands? Can I save setups using Midi Sysex? How, exactly, does the loading of patches into RAM on the card take place? How much control of this is there? 3) How much real-time processing of the samples does the card do? A minimum, I presume, is looping until note off messages. Also, it must have some sort of response to the velocity information in midi note press messages? But does it do any real time filtering? Has it got any forms of modulation of the sounds (pitch, filter, envelope)? I know there must be programs that let you modify the samples permanently, but this is not much good if you want the sounds to respond as you play to Midi velocity and controller messages. By the way, can the thing cope with multi-samples (i.e. a series of samples of the one instrument at different pitches) ? Does it come with any? How about velocity cross-fading between samples? (Am I being a bit too optimistic in this price range ????) 4) Is it currently possible (or will it ever be possible ?) to use the card with either Cakewalk or Cakewalk for Windows? (In fact, with any sequencer software?) Keyboard magazine in October suggested that Win 3.1 was useless for playing back samples along with sequences because the timing was appalling (3/4 of a second slop each way). Does the Ultrasound overcome this by having its own RAM and doing the clocking out of samples itself? (i.e. does the sequencer just have to send Midi note press messages to the card as for a normal module?) Has anyone spoken to Twelve Tone Systems about Cakewalk driver support? SHOULD I BUY ONE OF THESE THINGS IF I DON'T PLAY GAMES AND DON'T WANT MY COMPUTER TO IMPERSONATE FAMOUS TELEVISION AND MOVIE STARS ??? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 22:17:47 PST From: mtichy@sfu.ca Message-Id: <9211130617.AA26334@fraser.sfu.ca> Subject: kbmidi To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Well, I downloaded KBMIDI and I haven't gotten any sounds out of it yet. Yuri, can you give some details how we're supposed to get that puppy going? ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 12:28:48 GMT From: bjornhk@dhhalden.no (BJORN HAAVARD KLEVEN) Message-Id: Subject: Many a questions concerning the Gravis To: Ultrasound Daily Digest >1.) Is the GUS *completely* compatible with the Adlib and Soundblaster? > What about the SB Pro? The SBOS driver, which makes it compatible with the Ad Lib and Sound Blaster (not the pro) is under continous development. The current version, 1. 2 is - as far as I know - not 100% compatible. That is: a lot of programmers (game programmers mostly) have done some 'dirty' programming in their applications to push the SB's performance to the limit. That's the apps which are causing problems with the SBOS. >2.) Say I'm into messing around with .MOD files. Is there a Modplayer > and/or editor which allows the playback of a .MOD in stereo? SBOS works with several .mod players/editor, but not in stereo. There will come a .MOD player/editor soon tailored specifically for the GUS, using it to it's full potential. >3.) What type of support can I expect for the GUS concerning Windows 3.1 > and OS/2 2.0? A Windows 3.1 driver is included, although this isn't very complete. A patch loader for windows is almost finished (as I understand), and a new Windows driver is in the Works. Gravis is also working on an OS/2 driver, AFIK >4.) Lastly, say I want to go out and buy a Gravis RIGHT NOW. Where do > they sell them and how much are they? Would a place like CompUSA > or Egghead carry it? The board is supposedly out to all distributors now, so their retailers should get it pretty soon. This includes all the large mail order companies ( like Telemart, CompuClassics etc.) > >I'm sick of having to deal with a gayish Adlib card. Time to move up to >something fancier. Thanks, Definitively! -=* Bjorn :: bjornhk@sofus.dhhalden.no ACCESS DATA :: TEL: (+47)-9-17 50 48/61-97 791 FAX: 61-97 791 BBS: 61-97 304/97 945 ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 2:57:42 PST From: (Gnit Leirbag) Message-Id: <9211121057.AA19005@fraser.sfu.ca> Subject: Media Player and 256k RAM To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Playing around with a bunch of .mid files, I've noticed a few interesting things about Media Player. I haven't upgraded my card to 1Mb yet, so playmidi gives me quite a few "load patch failed..." messages with a number of .mid files. The funny thing is, with Media Player, the same mid files play almost faultlessly, with ALL the patches seemingly loaded. Question is, does this mean that Media Player uses part of Windows' ram to store the patches along with the ram on the GUS?? Frankly, I was amazed when the bunch of scdemos files I got from archive.cs.ruu.nl managed to play all the instruments when playmidi choked from the shortage of on-board memory. (Except of course for those patches not in the GUS default.cfg) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 22:35:13 GMT From: tld@moon.base.bellcore.com (Terry Davidson) Message-Id: <1992Nov11.223513.21969@walter.bellcore.com> Subject: MODEDIT 3 is great! To: Ultrasound Daily Digest SLOW BURN...... my third post re Modedit 3. FIRST of all: Norm; fantastic job ... Thank you! You'll be getting my *full* registration ($25 if I remember correctly) via snail mail next week. SECOND: Modedit 3 IS NOT crippleware: to wit: Last night, I used it to EXTRACT and SAVE samples from my mod collection; then used the extracted samples to write my first mod using the `Piano Roll' feature, and SAVED the resulting mod. I also played around with the various effects, with the end result that my wife insisted I put on my headphones (GRIN!). THIRD: Ryan Mitchell) writes: >ModEdit 3.1 may very well be an excellent piece of >software but I won't be purchasing it because it DOESN'T follow >the shareware concept--it's crippleware. In its downloadable >state I can't test it for anything but use as a MOD player and >I've seen several better as far as that goes. The real-time >recorder and piano-roll display are both disabled, which are >the two fundamental selling points of the program. Obviously, (FLAME ON!!!!) Ryan DID NOT (1) Read the instructions (2) Follow the instructions FLAME OFF (Grrrrrrrrrr). In no way is Modedit 3 crippleware! The real-time recorder is an extra FEATURE that Norman very nicely makes available, and that is in *NO WAY* required to use Modedit 3. How many of us can type music mapped to the qwerty keyboard *fast enough* to sound *good*? Personally, once I have the registered version, I *might* use the feature to add *highlights*; but I can do that just as easily using the Piano Roll feature - WHICH IS PRESENT AND FUNCTIONAL IN THE NON-REGISTERED VERSION. Plus, when using the Piano Roll feature, one can add *many* *many* effects to the notes! Modedit 3 enables one to load a mod; edit/modify/save it; play it; extract and save samples from it; modify the samples; reload samples; create *new* mods; sequence the mod... I.E. it *IS* fully functional! FOURTH: Norman Lin writes: > People, I hope you do give me a chance and try out ModEdit 3. See > if it's easier to use. I think you'll agree it is. BELIEVE HIM AND TRY IT! It is easier to use! I have tried *other* mod editors/composers (and gave up in sheer frustration). Then I tried Modedit 3... ...and Modedit 3 is the easiest to use by far, and the most logical. The only mod I ever completed was done last night using Modedit 3; and it took me half an hour, and I had a *ball* of fun doing it! Try it! BTW: Norman: Have you considered supporting the PAS16? Stereo? 8) Could you be convinced add PAS16 support? If you get enough support from us comp.music advocates? maybe? -- *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* * # include disclaimer.lib //* All standard disclaimers apply *// * My wife let's me think my opinions are my own. Bellcore doesn't care * either way, and doesn't claim them anyway... *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Terry Davidson - tld@cosmos.bellcore.com / tld@cosmos.bae.bellcore.com * *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 16:31:16 -0500 (EST) From: "Mark W. Fleig" Message-Id: <9211122131.AA29594@orca.es.com> Subject: More EA. More stories. (Less GUS cards.) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Well, my weekly call to EA confirmed that sure enough, they hadn't mailed my card like they said they would. (Familiar tune?) The lady mentioned they had received another order of 96 boards and were going in chornological order. When I informed her I ordered around Aug. 24, she said they must've stopped around the 18th. Now, correct me if I'm sounding conspiratorial or whatever, but were there honestly 200 boards ordered from EA before the middle of August? I mean, when I heard about it, I ordered, expecting a wait. But, I mean...! Well, she said they are expecting (You guessed it) another order in a few days. I think my breath will stay unheld. -mark p.s. That Aug. 18th date was just off the top of her head. She didn't exactly know how far up they got. Seems thay'd have that written down somewhere. Oh well, just a little whine with your evening meal. :) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 7:24:10 EST From: iam@stiatl.salestech.com (Ian Mercado) Message-Id: <9211120724.AA17705@stiatl.salestech.com> Subject: News posting is a good thing To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > Ok, folks, I've heard your cries. Yes, it is important to get > the information from this list out onto news. I agree wholeheartedly. > > HOWEVER: I need suggestions for the best method. There have > been several arguments against posting all the digests to news. In > fact, I've heard a lot of argument about what we *shouldn't* do. Now > I'd like to hear ideas on what we *SHOULD* do. I say go ahead and post the digest to news. All of us who read it here can easily skip past it, and all those people interested in GUS can find out a week's worth of info in one message. Lots of people complain that they don't want to have to read about GUS in two places, but I say the more we spread the word to potential GUS owners, the better off we'll all be in the long run. (Maybe you could append all the comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard messages that include the word 'GUS' or 'Ultrasound' to a separate piece of mail that gets sent daily. I don't know...help me!) Saturday nights sounds good to me. (Your place, or mine? :-) Ian ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 10:20:49 EST From: warrenl@graphics.rent.com (Warren Lieuallen) Message-Id: Subject: Novice GUS Questions (at least I've got one!) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest First off, I ordered my GUS from Disk-Count on 10/23, and it arrived on 11/10 (I'm feeling very lucky!), so for those of you still waiting, it shouldn't be too much longer. However, things haven't been going so well since I opened the box. I've got a 12 MHz '286 (which I'm planning to upgrade just as soon as I find an affordable motherboard). The setup program locks up on my system, so I think I must be having DMA or IRQ conflicts. I pulled out all my cards (except video and hard disk controller); still no luck. Eventually, I just did it manually, using the Gravis defaults. Now, some things work, some don't. Most MIDI files play fine; some lock up at the end. None of the .SND files work with PLAYFILE (haven't tried PLAYDIGI yet). USS8 plays the sample for a few seconds, then locks up. SBOS loads fine, and most of the games I've tried worked fine (Commander Keen 4, Space Quest IV); Wing Commander I was about 20 times slower than normal (yes, TWENTY!), but the music was very nice. It then locked up in the mission briefing, though, and the mouse never worked. Does anyone understand DMAs and IRQs enough to explain them to me? I checked my IRQs with Norton, and only 5 and 13 aren't "spoken for". Using 13 instead of Gravis' suggested 11 caused more problems, though, so I went back to 11. I can't seem to find any information about DMAs anywhere. I'm going to call Gravis for tech. support later today, but doubt there's much they can do over the phone. For those of you with a functioning card, could you let me know what DMAs and IRQs you're using (especially if you've got a '286). Thanks much! ======================The Graphics BBS @ (908)469-0049===================== Dr. Warren G. Lieuallen R.W.Johnson Pharmaceutical Research Institute BitNet: LIEUALLEN@ALLOY Raritan, NJ (908)704-4368 InterNet: warrenl@graphics.rent.com ===="Imagination is more important than knowledge." -- Albert Einstein ==== ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 21:32:09 -0500 From: ylee@norton.uwaterloo.ca Message-Id: <9211130232.AA24253@norton.uwaterloo.ca> Subject: Patches To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, I just figured out that percs.pat ( drum set patch ) has only 13 sounds out of 46 sounds defined in general MIDI spec. It's already 150kB in size and if they put all sounds in one file, it will grow over at least more than 256Kb. Possibly more than 500kB... I'm almost desperate ( with no particular reason..just interest ) to know what GUS' hardware is capable of and what functions are built into the hardware to produce instrument sound. Also, can the size of patches be reduced in size without losing quality? I hope chris yuzik reads this and give us some explanations to some of the questions above... Later, Yuri ylee@sunee.uwaterloo.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 15:04:32 EST From: Khaled Al-Ghoneim Message-Id: <9211122004.AA04038@fourier.ece.cmu.edu> Subject: Posting the digest to the net. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, all: I agree that we need to let others in the net know about the GUS. For this reason, I suggest the following scheme to get the benifits of both worlds. Two addresses for posting to the digest should be established: a private address and a public one. If the sender wishes to post his article to the net, he has to send it to the public address. If the article is something that the sender thinks it will be a waste of the bandwidth of the net, he should send it to the private address. The articles sent to the public address are posted to the net (say every day.) The private articles are combined with the public ones and sent to the subscribers of the list. This is my shot at it. Any suggestion as to the practicality (difficulty) of this is welcome. - Khaled ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 10:17:44 -0800 From: Paul Wang Message-Id: <199211121817.AA10505@headcrash.berkeley.edu> Subject: shipping dates To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I've heard so much complaing about GUS for not shipping boards on time that I thought I would add something. First, I ordered my GUS from EA through the $99 deal they had. The thing was, I waited till the deadline passed before I decided whether to purchase the GUS or not so I talked to one of the EA rep over the phone and she said she'll let me place an order even though the offer expired since the board haven't come in yet. Now, if EA's shipping by date of order, I don't think I would have my GUS yet but the truth is that I got my GUS on the second shipment a long time ago. My suspicion is that EA shipping's all messed up and it's not really Gravis' fault. Paul Wang paulwang@ocf.berkeley.edu PS can somebody tell me the ftp site for gus? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 23:18:59 EST From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Message-Id: <9211130419.AA00756@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA> Subject: Some answers To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > From: mtichy@sfu.ca > Message-Id: <9211120551.AA06259@fraser.sfu.ca> > Subject: answers > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > I also haven't been able to get some mid files to play with > all the instruments when using media player in windows. For > example the awsome drums in yelowros.mid don't play at all. This is because the drums are on channel 10, with no patch associated. The driver should have the possibility to assign a drum kit to channel 10. > > How many people out there is having problems running Windows 3.1 > > after > > loading SBOS? How many people have no problem at all? > > I have had problems. It'll play the opening chimes and then > give tons of crappy static. I also can't exit properly after > that. Why would you want to run sbos before windows? You can deinstall sbos with the -f option. > ------------------------------ > > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 09:24:53 PST > From: paulh@odetics.com (Paul Hodgetts) > Message-Id: <9211111724.AA05449@venus.odetics.com> > Subject: GUS and NT > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > I realize not many people have GUSs yet, but has anyone tried it > under Windows NT (as a SoundBlaster)? If I understand correctly, it > requires a TSR and/or driver to support it under Windows 3.1, but can > this work under NT where there is no underlying DOS support for TSRs? Do windows 3.1 drivers work with windows NT? If not, it will not work. > Games: Wolf-3D worked great. The door sounds were pretty loud, but I sbos -o2 should be all you need. > need to play with SBOS some. > Ken > > ------------------------------ > > Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 18:19 EST > From: MCI102@PSUVM.PSU.EDU > Message-Id: <9211112318.AA09074@orca.es.com> > Subject: quick questions > To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > > Ok..now that I have my ultrasound...I have two quick questions for those > few 'experienced' users. > > 1) I installed my ultrasound with little to no problems using the standard > defaults concerning IRQ and DMA and the such. My first concern deals with > the fact that when I try to play any of my games (with SBOS) I can not > use the mouse at all. (the sound works fine) Would this problem be caused > simply by an IRQ or DMA conflict with the mouse or...I am using a mouse > that comes with the ATI Ultra which has it's own serial port for the mouse > ...could this maybe have something to do with it. What is the IRQ of your mouse? Probably 5. If you use that for the Ultrasound midi (which is also the SB IRQ) you found the problem. > Soundblaster (or soundblaster pro), which is usually the better to choose? > (or roland [others?]) GUS. If you want something else, get the Turtle beach multisound. It ain't cheap at 899$. Ciao, -- Francois Dion ' _ _ _ CISM (_) (_) _) FM Montreal , Canada Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA (_) / . _) 10000 Watts Telephone no: (514) 343-7511 _______________________________________________________________________________ Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-... ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 18:25:32 MST From: ddebry@itchy (Dave DeBry) Message-Id: <9211130125.AA03621@itchy> Subject: The Administrator's Suggestion To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Ok, folks. Here's my suggestion (based on the input I've received so far) on how to deal with the news<->digest interface: Every THURSDAY night I will compile a "best of the last week's digest entries" and post it to news. I will also try to scan news for articles that are replies and forward them back to the mailing list. Advantages: o Thursday nights instead of Saturday nights, so that sites with low disk space will still allow their users a chance to read the posting. o The people NOT on the list won't be the most up-to-date people. (Elitist? Maybe... :) If they want info fast and complete, they can join the digest. o People reading news will still get a good dose of all the nifty stuff happening here. Disadvantages: o More work for me. (I have to stay late on Thursday nights anyway, but this is still going to take time.) I wouldn't even volunteer to do this, except I got a letter from Chris Yuzik saying how much Gravis appreciates the Digest. Thanks, Chris! o With this, I will NOT have time to do a FAQ. If someone else wants to do it, fine. I can't. I won't start until next Thursday, so everyone on the mailing list can have time to argue this one out. If you don't like it, say so, but PLEASE say why you don't like it. Also, suggest a way to solve the thing you don't like. (I hate it when people complain but don't do anything about their gripe.) -- Dave ddebry@ debry@ \ DeBry dsd. peruvian. | "Who do you think you are, Bjorn Nitmo?" es. cs.utah. | - Bjorn Nitmo com edu / ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 09:56:50 PST From: biggles@berlioz.nsc.com (Winston Worrell) Message-Id: <9211121756.AA02900@berlioz.nsc.com> Subject: The Infamous Midi Cable To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, Ok here are my questions. 1:In the midi-connector file from the server it mentions using the SoundBlaster Midi/Joystick cable. I had a SoundBlasterPro and I still have the midi/joystick cable, so what I want to know is can I use it on the Gravis Ultarsound? 2:I asked this before and received nothing in response so I'll keep asking. Can the Ultra sound be used in conjunction with other Midi instruments. ie GUS on ch 1, TX81Z on ch 2, Drum Machine on ch 3 etc 3: A list of games (present and future) that have direct support for the GUS. 4: Will Gravis ever release a document that describes the GUS and how to program it that does not contain proprietary information. I would really like to write code for it (at first for my own use). Anybody have any pointers as to how to start? Gravis? Anyone? Thanks, Winston. ps Is the sample file format proprietary or is there a document that describes it floating around. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 3:03:38 PST From: (Gnit Leirbag) Message-Id: <9211121103.AA19147@fraser.sfu.ca> Subject: Ultrasoun To: Ultrasound Daily Digest :) :) Date: Wed, 11 Nov 92 18:19 EST :) From: MCI102@PSUVM.PSU.EDU :) Message-Id: <9211112318.AA09074@orca.es.com> :) Subject: quick questions :) [munched] :) 2) The only other problem I had with the card after installing it was with :) the game Ultima VII. The music is fine, but in the intro when the face :) comes out of the screen and is to talk to you, it says the first half of :) the word 'avatar' and then quits. (although the music continues) My :) question is then...Is there some switch to SBOS to correct this or maybe :) does my card need the upgrade to 1Meg in order to support the sound and :) speech. (Can you tell I an fairly new at this? :)) I think this has more to do with the IRQ than RAM. The default irq for sbos is irq5, and you have to change U7's settings to this in the install program. :) :) On a sidenote...if one gets the chance to pick either an Adlib card or :) Soundblaster (or soundblaster pro), which is usually the better to choose? :) (or roland [others?]) I'd rather go for the soundblaster (for now, until the SB Pro emulator comes out. ;-) ). If you choose Adlib, you might lose out on some of the digitised sounds in SB mode. :) :) Thanks in advance!!! :) Mike Irvin :) MCI102@psuvm.psu.edu Gabriel Ting gting@sfu.ca ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 12:22:28 CST From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach) Message-Id: <9211121822.AA09428@batman.austin.ibm.com> Subject: Upgrading your GUS RAM! To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Well, I did it. I upgraded the RAM on my GUS to 1 meg. I found a place selling 80 ns DRAMS for 4.50 each. It cost me less than $30. Ex-cellent. Interesting that the docs call for 100ns DRAMS, but my GUS had 70ns DRAMS in it. Of course, that's like tires - you can put high-performance tires on a Yugo and it will still work fine, you just won't use all of the potential the tires have! ;-) I can really tell a difference. Things sound smoother, less choppy. Also, in Wing Commander, I used to get a message along the lines of "Playing limited music" and now it says "Playing full music." And it sounds lovely. The game runs really slow, but it sounds great. Still waiting for some of you to post your SBOS settings for Wing Commander!!! Or email me at ken@austin.ibm.com!!! Thanks, Ken ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 12:13:37 CST From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach) Message-Id: <9211121813.AA09364@batman.austin.ibm.com> Subject: Windows woes... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Well, I got the GUS to play back .WAV's just fine. MIDI, however, is another story. First, let me say I have never ever installed something like this in a machine before. I've never dealt with MIDI other than as a user. I went in and tried to configure the Windows MIDI Mapper. I set about 7 or nine channels to broadcast to the GUS. I loaded a .mid file in the Media Player and it worked! Sort of. There were some odd volume things going on - parts getting louder and softer as the piece palyed. Also, I got no drums (as I think somebody else mentioned here!). So I thought I'd check the keymap for percussion, and it was way way over my head. First, I don't have a listing of what the sounds on the GUS are numerically (to get this stuff set up right). Second, I played around with the MIDI mapper some more and wound up getting *no* sound at all! Crap! What I'm wondering is how can I do this? Or better yet, does anyone have a file for the MIDI Mapper they can email me/upload/post/send here that I can use that has the correct MIDI Mapper and Keymap definitions for the GUS? I'm sure others would also appreciate. I'm sorry if I'm wasting space here, but I'm new to this aspect of computing. email to ken@austin.ibm.com Thanks! Ken ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #18 ******************************