Ultrasound Daily Digest Tue, 1 Dec 92 Volume 1 : Issue 35 Today's Topics: 16-bit DMA channel 16-bit DMA channel (again) GTS gtssam3 & gtssam3_fix GUS & DRAM Question GUS spotted in Electronics Boutique. Mantis Works (sorta!) More GUS - SBOS Games... Problems with v1.21 software ROL -> MID converter needed. Turtle Beach Multisound Specs Upgrading the GUS to 1 meg of RAM? Where's MODEDIT 3.1 ? 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: Mon, 30 Nov 92 9:41:33 MST From: Stuart Yoshida Message-Id: <9211301641.AA05371@elektra.fc.hp.com> Subject: 16-bit DMA channel To: Ultrasound Daily Digest "Jojie R. T." wrote: >Subject: DMA Channel > >Has anybody successfully used a 16-bit DMA (i.e., channel 4-7) in their >configuration? Yes, I have set up the GUS to use DMA channel 7. It works fine for me. Read my review of the GUS in issue 31 of the digest with subject "The Gratuitous GUS Review (I GOT MINE!)" sent out on 26 November for a detailed description of my hardware and software set up. >[...] > >George > -- Stuart Yoshida Internet: yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com Voice: (303) 229-2324 ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 13:35:13 EST From: timkwan@Athena.MIT.EDU Message-Id: <9211301835.AA07298@marinara> Subject: GTS To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I downloaded GTS yesterday and tried loading one of the song files that come with it. It was very crackly and of pretty low quality. Besides, the "GodFather" didn't quite sound like the "GodFather" in terms of speed and relative pitch. Does anyone have a solution to this? I tried sbos -o1 through -o3 but it doesn't help any. Tim ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 20:51:29 -0600 From: captain@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Bran Muffin) Message-Id: <9212010251.AA02703@pooh.cc.utexas.edu> Subject: gtssam3 & gtssam3_fix To: Ultrasound Daily Digest In the submit directory on epas there are two files that look suspisciously alike. What exactly are the differences between gtssam3.zip and gtssam3_fix.zip ? Does the latter simply REPLACE the former, or is there something that needs to be done to combine the two? ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1992 19:49:05 GMT From: orb@alchemy.tn.cornell.edu (Randolph Turner) Message-Id: <1992Nov26.194905.18931@tc.cornell.edu> Subject: GUS & DRAM Question To: Ultrasound Daily Digest In article impster@ais.org (Charles Budensiek) writes: >In article dkennett@fraser.sfu.ca (Daniel Kennett) > writes: >> I will be getting my GUS within the next few weeks and I have a >>question about upgrading from 256K to 1Meg. I know that the GUS takes 44256 >>DRAM chips, but why does it need 6? aren't the 44256 chips 256K? (or are they >>128K?) If they are 256K then why do I need to buy 6 of them? >> Thanks in advance, >> >> -Daniel- >> >>-- >>Daniel Kennett >>dkennett@sfu.ca >>"Life sucks, but Death swallows" >>"Boy meets girl, girl gets cancer, boy hit by meteorite." -Margret Attwood > > >To expand the memory on the GUS to 1Mb you need to fill up 3 banks <2 chips >each bank>. Each bank you fill up with chips increases your memory on the >card by 256K. My guess is the second chip on each bank is used for parity or >some other silly reason . > >============================================================================= >| "Anyone have a coat hanger? My brain itches." | impster@umcc.ais.org >| "If I was a turnip, would I be revered and | Charles Budensiek >| "worshipped like I would deserve to be?" | ph #: Ask if you want it. >============================================================================= > The reason you need 6 44256 DRAMs to finish your GUS out to 1 meg is that the card already has 256k on it. Now, the reason it takes 2 44256 DRAMs per 256k is that 44256 DRAMs are 4 bits wide, and thus you need 2 of them to make 256k of 8-bit memory. It is also for similar reasons there are now 3 chip 1meg SIMMs. They just use 2 4meg by 1bit chips and a 1meg by 1 bit for parity. As long as there is 1meg x 8bits the combination is only limited by the addressing scheme and extra hardware involved. Now, my question to the net is why some people bother to post an "answer" to someone's question and then come right out and tell you they really don't know? Seems a bit wasteful and extremely pointless. Randy ------------------------------ Date: 29 Nov 92 01:01:08 GMT From: daly@ecs.umass.edu (Bryon Daly, ECE dept, UMass, Amherst) Message-Id: <19160.2b181654@ecs.umass.edu> Subject: GUS spotted in Electronics Boutique. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Well, for those of us waiting for the Gravis Ultrasound to show up in retail stores, the waiting has apparently ended.... I spotted an UltraSound at the Electronics Boutique at Willowbrook Mall (NJ) going for $159. Not a bad price, I probably would have bought it if I'd had the cash on hand. So, it shouldn't be too long before it becomes available in the other retail stores and mail order places, if it isn't already... Just thought you might be interested. -Bryon ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1992 08:39:46 -0700 From: chrisr@ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Chris Ringe) Message-Id: Subject: Mantis Works (sorta!) To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I went out and purchased Mantis today, without waiting for a response. To my suprise, it actually works quite well. There seems to be no noticable system 'slow down' from SBOS. Some of the sound effects (.voc's) don't play properly though. The effects will sometimes work, and sometime not. I tried various modes with no real stable results. Apperantly MicroProse is bringing another version out on CD-ROM with 80Megs of data. Does anyone know if they plan on directly supporting the GUS? With a game this hot, one would certainly hope so. / __ ___ /___ \ / Chris Ringe (VE6MCP) \ | / \(__ / ___) | St. Albert, Alberta, CANADA | | \__/___) / (___ F O R E V E R ! | MAIL: chrisr@ersys.edm.ab.ca | \ / / \ PHONE: (403) 460-PLAY/7529 / ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 26 Nov 1992 01:59:23 GMT From: johs@dhhalden.no (JO HAAVAR SLANGSVOLD) Message-Id: Subject: More GUS - SBOS Games... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I've recognised that also other people is getting sound out of their GUS with the well known SBOS. (I'm mayB one of the few which can get asleep at night, and still own a Gus. It seems like this is the case with all complaining around.... Me, myself and I think I've got the best card anyone can get.) It's too many people out there writing PAS16 vs SB16 vs GUS. Can't U folk see that it is a new standard coming up??? (I can....!) No, this wasn't what I really should. I'm giving U my favourite list of games. It's short, but I think these games are the most popular, or will be: Monkey Island II: -Music and soundeffects are as good as they can be. It sounds different from my old SBPro (I've never expected something else) but the soundquality is really great. Fate of Atlantis: -Same as Monkey2. Alone in the dark: -The best result so far with SBOS.... It just can't be far away from the real thing.....(without Sbos...). Incademo(-when can we get the game?): -Really great quality of sounds (also with dig.speech). I hope the rest of it will come ASAP (and as good as the demo). I couldn't see any slowdown(maybe 'cause the 50MHz). Kyrandia : -First of all. The music in this game will be classics. It's the best music I've ever heard in any game. With SBOS the symptoms rules as with LucasArts games. King's Quest VI : -I got the digisounds playing with "-o3" ,and everything is working, but sometimes the volume adjusts a little weird. I have not figured out why this is happening, but I'm through the game so I don't care :-) About Falcon 3.0: -I got the sound working in the intro when I loaded SBOS into highmem. The birds where there, the jet-engine, the explosion also, but it was a sound of "electrical noise" there too, which was not so good for my earphones I think. Therefor I don't load SBOS high before running Falcon anymore. Dynamix-Games like: -WillyBeamish, Hearts of China and Red Baron works very close up to LucasArts, like I said, a little bit different from my old SBPro but not useless at all.... This is enough for now.... If U R 1 of the guys looking for a soundcard, then U can C that U have a lot of hours playing while U R waiting for the Games supporting the REAL THING!!! JC3S ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 21:32:23 -0500 From: John DeGood Message-Id: <9212010232.AA01020@hpavla.avo.hp.com> Subject: Problems with v1.21 software To: Ultrasound Daily Digest More problems with UltraSound v1.21 software: Alphabet Blocks, Sierra On-Line (Windows 3.1): This new Windows educational application was just released. After introductory music the program hangs at the point where digitized speech is first used. The only way to recover is CTRL+ALT+DEL. When I removed the UltraSound driver and substituted the PC speaker "SPEAKR.DRV" driver the application functioned correctly. Gravis technical support was not familiar with this new application or able to suggest a workaround. Trax for Windows, Passport Designs (Windows 3.x): This MIDI recorder/sequencer when used with the UltraSound generates silence unless the necessary MIDI patches are first loaded into the Gravis board using another program. This is the same cache problem reported in earlier digests with other Windows MIDI sequencers when used with the UltraSound. Reader Rabbit 2, The Learning Company (DOS): No sound if SBOS driver loaded with "sbos -p", but sound works OK if driver loaded with "sbos". Other DOS software I tried did work after "sbos -p". An earlier report of applications failing when the driver was loaded with "sbos -p" appeared in digest V1 #5. Avoid the "sbos -p" option! Gravis technical support line (604) 431-1807: Gravis installed a new voice mail system for technical support on Fri 27 Nov and it also has bugs. :-) The new system queues technical support calls, periodically announcing your position in the queue. If you are still in the queue after 5 minutes it switches the call to the Gravis main switchboard where you are told that if you want technical support you must hang up and dial the same number which you dialed 5 minutes earlier! The main switchboard operator was clearly growing weary of technical support calls being redirected to her number. After several cycles of hanging up, redialing, waiting in the queue for 5 minutes, and then reaching the main switchboard again, I finally convinced the operator to manually connect me to product support. John DeGood degood@lf.hp.com Hewlett-Packard Little Falls Site (Wilmington, Delaware) ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1992 00:49:08 GMT From: ylee@knuth.uwaterloo.ca (Yuri Lee) Message-Id: Subject: ROL -> MID converter needed. To: Ultrasound Daily Digest In article markus@clement.info.umoncton.ca (MARC PAULIN) writes: >Hi, > > I read in many messages that you can convert ROL files into the MID >format. My question is: how? What is the program? Where can I find it? >Can anyone send it to me by email (either uuencoded or using the MIME >standard)? Thanks... > By far, 'Winjammer' is the best program for translating ROL files to MID files. It translates tempo change, pitch wheel, volume changes as well as patch mappings. - Yuri ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 27 Nov 1992 06:59:03 GMT From: mccreary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Sean McCreary) Message-Id: <1992Nov27.065903.11311@ucsu.Colorado.EDU> Subject: Turtle Beach Multisound Specs To: Ultrasound Daily Digest The board requires that you have a 386 (25 MHz recommended) with VGA graphics, a fast (and large!) hard disk for direct-to-disk recording, 1.44 Meg floppy drive, 2MB RAM (to run Windows in enhanced mode?) and Windows 3.1 or 3.0 with MME (MME not included!). The manual says you need only have a 40 Meg HD, but that seems ridiculously small if you want to do any CD-quality recording. Also, the card uses a full length 16-bit slot, and 32k of upper RAM for the DSP (default is D000-D800, can use B000-B800). Thankfully, the card will use one of the extended interrupts (default is 10). I have a 20 Mhz 386DX with 10MB RAM, and a Quantum 120 Meg HD. With this configuration I can edit and play sounds without any problems when recording at 44.1 kHz in stereo. The hard disk does need to be defragmented to maintain this performance level, however. The Multisound hardware seems to be of a very high quality. In addition to a Proteus 1/XR on board, the card also has a Motorola 56001 DSP. Electronic Musician (Aug. '92) claims the clock for this chip is 40 MHz, and Turtle Beach confirms this. The A/D is 16 bit, 64x oversampled while the D/A is 18 bit, 64X oversampled, 1 bit sigma/delta. The manual also states that the D/A has an 8x interpolating filter. The audio specifications are given in three places, and have different values in all three. You can read EM and the back of the box yourself, so I will give the stats listed in the manual. Frequency Resp. DC->19 kHz +0/-0.2 dB DC->20 kHz +0/-2 dB S/N -89 dBV (A-weighted) -85 dbV (unweighted) THD < 0.005% (A-weighted) < 0.006% (unweighted) IM Distortion 0.01% Phase Response +/- 0.5 degree Stereo Crosstalk @100 Hz -98 dBV (This is much higher than listed on the back of the box!) @1 kHz -76 dBV @10 kHz -58 dBV Well, all I can say is that whatever the numbers, the output seems most musical. I have done some sampling off CDs, and the results are indistinguishable from the original. In short, the output quality is most musical. The sampling rates are limited to 44.1 kHz, 22.05 kHz and 11.025 kHz. Turtle Beach says the playback rates were fixed to these values to improve playback accuracy. The card has two external audio inputs (one for recording and one to mix an external source with the card's output) and one external output, and an internal audio connector for a CD-ROM drive. There is also a 9-pin D-shell connector for an optional cable with MIDI in, out and thru ($24 extra). This interface is not MPU-401 compatible. The major piece of software included in the package is Wave Lite, a fairly simple program that implements the hard disk recording features of the Multisound. It provides straightforward recording and simple editing functions (cut, copy, paste) that are easier to use than the Sound Recorder applet included with Windows. It is possible to zoom in on the sample and make precise edits, making it possible to cut the waveform near zero crossings to avoid annoying clicks at the beginning and end of a sample. The software also allows changes to be made to the waveform by drawing on the screen with the mouse. This drawing feature is not so easy to use, however, since the mouse cursor does not exactly line up with the point that is being drawn to on the screen. Wave Lite is not an application I would pay much money for, however. As of version 1.01, the program is very buggy, and invariably crashes within ~5 minutes of use. It is still usable for small editing jobs, just not very convenient. I would not attempt a major job with the program in this state, though. Turtle Beach promises free software upgrades for a year, so hopefully this situation will improve. The manual and the program include advertising for the program's big brother Wave for Windows, which is available for $79 + $5 S/H from Turtle Beach (list price is $149). The add promises various DSP manipulation features including 3-D FFT representation of the waveform, 4 band parametric eq., mixing of up to 3 sound files, crossfading, gain adjustment, time reversal, time compression and expansion, sample rate conversion, and support for file formats other than Microsoft's .wav files. The Multisound package also includes a few other applets, all of which seem bug-free, but which don't have much inherent utility. Record Prep is a dual VU-meter simulation that allows the recording levels of the card to be set quite accurately. The meters include peak level readings as well as simulating the dynamics of a real VU meter. The recording levels can also be set from the Mixer applet, which also allows the relative output levels of the various sound sources to be set. Another applet is a facsimilie of the Emu Proteus front panel, which is more cute than useful. For those of you who have seen a Proteus (or own one), imagine trying to do any serious work with it WITHOUT READING THE MANUAL. Thankfully, the Proteus manual is offered as an optional accessory for $11. The one innovation in the applet over the basic Proteus functionality is the addition of a basic librarian function. However, only three banks are allowed, two of which are preset banks shipped with the card. The Proteus 1/XR factory presets are one set, and a General MIDI patch setup is the other. Even if I could program my own patches, this simple librarian would not be very helpful. I plan on using the sys-ex librarian built in to Cakewalk for Windows for managing my patches. Other than the diagnostics utility, the only other applet included is a MIDI patch-bay. This is useful if the external MIDI box is used, and can allow the internal Proteus to respond to the external MIDI data stream like a normal Proteus. However, this disconnects it from the internal Windows data stream. It seems to me that the main advantage to having an internal Proteus in my PC is that the Proteus is given its own data stream of 16 MIDI channels, but there are some situations where this capability might be useful. The Multisound driver supports simultaneous access from multiple Windows programs, which is a very useful feature indeed. For example, it is possible to play a sequence on the Proteus, and simultaneously tweak your patches using the the Proteus front panel applet. On another note, the Multisound driver allows independent access to the Proteus and each of the two external outputs on the card. This gives a total of 48 MIDI channels out (16 to the Proteus, but it can use all 16) and 16 channels in. With my Music Quest PC-MIDI card (my MPU-401 compatible), I now have 32 channels in and 64 channels out. I don't need this much MIDI right now, but I doubt I will need any more in the forseeable future. The included documentation needs a bit of work. The rather slim 37-page manual for the card itself is unclear in places, and incorrect in others. Thankfully, it is not really necessary for the use of the included Windows applets. Over a quarter of the manual is dedicated to an introduction to digital recording, and while moderately useful this is not the most important use for the user's manual. The material included does not allow a novice to become an expert, and is useless to anyone with a basic understanding of sampling already. Specifically lacking is any technical documentation, especially how to program the on-board DSP. No documentation is provided for the Proteus synthesis engine at all, but it is available in the form of the Emu Proteus manual offered for $11 extra. This extra manual is required for all but the most casual use of the on-board synthesizer. Including the manual with the package to begin with would have been much more convenient. I have not heard of any third-party software being developed for the Multisound. The card is fully usable through the MME provisions of Windows, but this leaves DSP applications out in the cold. A developer's kit is offered for the Multisound, but it does not seem to include any support for programming the DSP. Here is the response I got from Roy Smith at Turtle Beach when I asked about the developer's kit: >We have released the MultiSound Developer's Kit, which documents how to use >the card from DOS or other OS, but this kit does not get into the DSP code. >We plan to make a DSP developer's kit for it, but since this requires us to >completely document our proprietary Hurricane architecture, we are unlikely >to make the DSP kit widely available. In past meetings, I've heard that it >will be available to OEM's who plan to purchase significant quantities of >boards. If you like, I can fax you the table of contents of the dev kit so >you can see what topics are discussed. >This is not engraved in stone, and may change, but that's the current plan. Well, it seems this means the DSP is off-limits to independent software hackers, a major disappointment for me. I am very doubtful that the commercial market will produce the kind of synthesis software I am interested in, and so I am stuck. If you want access to the programming interface for the DSP, please mail Turtle Beach! Roy can be reached by email at 75300.1374@compuserve.com, and the street address of Turtle Beach is: Turtle Beach Systems PO Box 5074 York, PA 17404 (717)843-6916 FAX (717)843-8319 Please, if you send mail, be polite. We don't want to antagonize the friendly folks at Turtle Beach! We just want to let them know there are customers (and potential customers) who need more documentation for their hardware than they currently offer. -- Science, like Nature/ Must also be tamed/ With a view towards its preservation Given the same/ State of integrity/ It will surely serve us well -- Neil Peart Sean McCreary University of Colorado at Boulder mccreary@ucsu.colorado.edu ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 92 18:40:52 AST From: John William Spicer Message-Id: <9211302240.AA28307@orca.es.com> Subject: Upgrading the GUS to 1 meg of RAM? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Could those who have upgraded their GUS to 1 meg please post the name and number of where they bought the chips from? I don't know a lot about memory chips, so I would also appreciate it if you could post exactly what you ordered (i.e., chip number, 256x1, 256x4, or whatever ....) Thanks, spicerjw@newton.ccs.tuns.ca 08spice@ac.dal.ca ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Nov 1992 14:47:25 GMT From: ssalter@silver.ucs.indiana.edu (-=[SLS]=-) Message-Id: Subject: Where's MODEDIT 3.1 ? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest hoppie@kub.nl (Jeroen Hoppenbrouwers) exclaims exasperatedly: >After half a day following pointers to various FTP sites and >waiting for ARCHIE searches to complete, I still couldn't >locate MODEDIT 3.1. Where *IS* the d*mnd program? >What's the *exact* filename? And could someone if anything >else fails *mail* it to me? Login to wuarchive...go to 'systems' 'msdos' then check out the mirror sites 'sound' directories. Just cd to simtel or umich or AHHH...I remember now, garbo! I think it is in the garbo mirror under the 'sound' directory. Just ls mod* to look for it there. Should be no problem. Remember, patience is a virtue. :) Steve ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #35 ******************************