Ultrasound Daily Digest Wed, 17 Feb 93 Volume 2 : Issue 45 Today's Topics: **FORSALE: New Gravis Ultrasound** DMP 2.02 released dram sockets GUS Buzzing Gusmod 2.04 -- GTSR 1.02 GUS Trouble GUS Wavetable questions Is there a Patch creater about? Patch problems Ultrasound FTP Sites News - New Directory Structure Using VGA DRAM, Midi Percussion patches, setup & gusmod problems USS8 What was the consensus about the GUS 3D, and surround sound?? Will the Gravis SDK be free like the PAS-16's? Windows problems still... Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found at the end of the Digest. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 09:52:37 -0800 From: hsiaa@ucs.orst.edu (Arthur Hsia) Message-Id: <9302161752.AA17978@ucs> Subject: **FORSALE: New Gravis Ultrasound** To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, I have a completely new Gravis Ultrasound for sale. I would be willing to part with it for $135 plus whatever the shipping is. Art ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 1993 22:54:50 +0200 From: c142092@lehtori.cc.tut.fi (Chrons Otto) Message-Id: <1lovuqINNoqh@cc.tut.fi> Subject: DMP 2.02 released To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, New DMP (Dual Module Player) has been released: Version 2.02 Bugfixes February 15th, 1993 - Bug in the MOD loader caused erranous volumes when instrument changed. - When using a 16-bit soundcard, DMP could cause machine lockp if a 386-program was run in DOS shell. Now it won't. - Help screen showed wrong information about '-u' switch Its available at wuarchive.wustl.edu /pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/sounds ftp.uwp.edu /pub/incoming/dmp (/pub/msdos/modplayers) _ _ (_).(_. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 12:05:50 GMT From: "James Andrews, User Support" Message-Id: <17753.9302161205@uk.ac.uel.sol1> Subject: dram sockets To: Ultrasound Daily Digest >From: d91-sme@nada.kth.se >Message-Id: <9302142306.AA05152@dront.nada.kth.se> >Subject: Memory? >To: Ultrasound Daily Digest > >On my GUS v2.2 I have eight sockets for DRAM. I figure, to get 1MB of on-board >memory, I should have eight 128KB modules. But I've heard much about 256KB >modules? What is true? Can I go out and buy any 1Mbit (128KB) module for my >GUS or should I have something else? > >/Smedis (Niklas Smedberg, d91-sme@nada.kth.se) Nah, the sockets are for 256k x 4 bit dram, not 128k x 8 bit dram. Ask for 44256 chips like a lot of video cards use. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 17:13:22 -0600 (CST) From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" Message-Id: Subject: GUS Buzzing To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I have a problem with my GUS buzzing in two situations: 1) Whenever I exit Windows, it starts buzzing. Typing ULTRINIT stops the buzzing. 2) My halogen lights seem to cause the GUS to buzz? Can anybody explain this or am I nuts? I am using the latest drivers and updates, no not the new patch set though. BTW has anybody seen this yet? Brad Craig said it would be going out Jan. 25, but I've seen no sign of it yet. ------------------------------ Date: 15 Feb 93 22:37:04 MDT From: sl859@cc.usu.edu Message-Id: <1993Feb15.223704.64084@cc.usu.edu> Subject: Gusmod 2.04 -- GTSR 1.02 To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Gusmod 2.04.... geez, I'm tired. All day on this one. If it doesn't work for you, then I don't know how even Gravis's stuff worked for you. I've checked everything. I've compared routines. This stupid thing should work this time. Thanks to everyone for your patience with this. I really HATE bugfixes, but this release it quite nice. I'm going to list the what's new section from version 2.03 below. Version 2.03 - Tried to get even more clicking out. - Extra environment variable commands. - Fixed IRQ stuff. - Two config files, one for Gusmod, one for GTSR. - There were some hard coded 220h's in the code. These aren't hard coded anymore. Sorry, everyone. It should not hang anymore. GTSR 1.02 - GTSR now properly frees itself from memory (I forgot to free the environment block!). Check it out! Type MEM /C out the DOS prompt before and after. Version 2.04 - Finally, everything now works! Stupid DMA In and Out, everything! - The kill-those-darn-playing bugs release. - Looping now works properly. - Loop pops are history! - Hardly any pops (they're all sample now). - Things like the bassdrum in Axel F now play correctly. - Retrig Note works! - Note Cut works! - Note Delay works! - Added a new note table for more accurate frequencies. - The scopes now work correctly! Well, this new one is available on archive.epas.utoronto.ca. I killed the old ones. The only Gusmod left is /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit/gmod204.lzh. If there are bugs, you know where to send them. If you want Gravis to get rid of Gusmod, you know who to contact. Me? I'm off to bed now. I'm very confident over 2.04. I've tried every possible configuration, solution, etc. Heck, I even found an environment variable bug! Joshua Jensen sl859@cc.usu.edu cstrike@gompers.gompers.edu CyberStrike of the USA's BEST! Renaissance!!! ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 17:17:49 -0600 (CST) From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" Message-Id: Subject: GUS Trouble To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Read about your setup problems in the Gus Digest. You say you've had the GUS for a long time, since December. Well, I got mine in Sept. or Oct., so I must be an old-timer! You wouldn't believe the difficulties the card had back then. Compared to then, the current version is almost perfect. BUT... in answer to your question, I have experienced similar troubles. To solve the problem, you should remove all the GUS files you currently have, and re-install using driver set version 1.21 or 1.22. It doesn't matter which set you use - most of the improvements in 1.22 are single programs and updates you probably already have FTP'd. Install the GUS0012.ZIP update for Windows and you should be in business. I think you problem sounds like you may have put the new updates over a version 1.20 or earlier installation. About the "Failure to Load Patch" errors, it is almost certainly because you do not have enough RAM. I found the best deal around (the CDN prairies) to be about $6.00 per chip, however you should be able to get them for perhaps half that in your area. Hope this helps... ------------------------------ Date: 14 Feb 93 15:01:07 GMT From: brown@bannor.ee.rochester.edu (Eric Brown) Message-Id: Subject: GUS Wavetable questions To: Ultrasound Daily Digest What resolution are wavetables (MODS? / patches) stored in the GUS RAM? (Are they 16bit 44k or 8bit 22k, etc...) Are the wavetables (patches) fixed or variable length? (In seconds and bytes) Can one sample their own voice or instrument and ?easily? (or w/ a little work) make their own patch? If so, you only record one pitch and then GUS works its magic to get other pitches? If patches are not fixed length, what is the average length? If patches are fixed lenght, then how long are they? (In seconds and bytes) So in 1MB of memory, how many patches/instruments can you fit at one time? Can you combine instruments on the fly? How much of General MIDI does it support yet? If you have a large piece (lots of instruments not all playing at the same time), does the windows driver take care of uploading and downloading new patches on the fly? For sampling, what is the best input rate? (i.e. 12bit 44K or 8bit 22k) Thanks in advance, Eric. brown@ee.rochester.edu -- _____________________________________________________________________________ | Remember when sex was safe and hang gliding was dangerous? | |-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-| | Eric Brown 940 Mt. Hope Ave | Rochester, NY 14620 | | ARPAnet,Internet: brown@ee.rochester.edu | Phone : (716) 271-7167 | | UUCP: {allegra,seismo}!rochester!ur-valhalla!brown | | +===============================================+=============================+ ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 00:15 GMT From: Stephen Poston Message-Id: Subject: Is there a Patch creater about? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I'm after some software that can take .snd sample from the GUS, cut and paste various bits (USS8ish), add echo, 3D sound??, envelopes etc and anything else that can add effects to samples (panning etc), assign sounds to midi keys and then create a .pat file that can be downloaded to the GUS. Also, I'll be testing one out with some midi equipment at the weekend (MPU401 card, EMU Proteus 1 & 3 + other sound modules, Finale, Cakewalk) so I'll post anything interesting to the ultrasound digest and pc.soundcards. Hope someone can help Steve ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 17:28:25 -0600 (CST) From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" Message-Id: Subject: Patch problems To: Ultrasound Daily Digest >My ultrasound came with te melodic patches for midi, but NO percussion patches >I personally would much rather have the percussion patches ver the melodic ones >. >When I got patch manager 1.02 it showed only melodic instruments, did the >original pathc manager come with the percussion patches, and if not, where >can I find such entities? You may have one of the *very* early driver sets for your GUS. SOme of the early ones had all the percussion patches loaded into big file called DRUMKIT or something like that. To fix the problem you will need to remove your GUS files and reinstall using version 1.21 or 1.22 of the Ultrasound drivers. Then install the Windows update file, GUS00xx. You should be able to use the percussion patches now. Don't bother asking Gravis about it - the tech I talked to had never even heard of the DRUMKIT.PAT files I had on my system! ------------------------------ Date: 16 Feb 1993 06:38:05 GMT From: twong@civil.ubc.ca (Thomas Wong) Message-Id: <1lq24dINN8i2@iskut.ucs.ubc.ca> Subject: Ultrasound FTP Sites News - New Directory Structure To: Ultrasound Daily Digest GRAVIS ULTRASOUND FTP SITES NEWS ========================================================================== Ftp Site: archive.epas.utornto.ca Directory: pub/pc/ultrasound wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/msdos/ultrasound -------------------------------------------------------------------------- First of all.... sorry everyone. But I was preoocupied last week so I didn't get around to getting the new directory survey analysis on the road till this weekend even though I've received all my replies the week before. And for those who don't know what the heck I'm talking about, we had a survey on how we might restructure the current directory structure of our 2 ftp sites, now that our archives have grown A LOT FASTER and BIGGER than we first anticipated. The response by soundcard buyers AND by software developpers for the GUS has been nothing but amazing. Not to mention the volume of files we've received from Gravis themselves. Their response to comsumer feedback was also nothing less than wonderful. But anyways, on with the show... After reviewing all your feedbacks, here is my proposed new directory structure for our 2 ftp archive sites (mentioned above in the header of this messge)... ..../ultrasound --.-- /submit | |-- /digest --.-- /v1 | |-- /v2 | |.. ... | |-- /gravis --.-- /bulletins | |-- /disks | `-- /patches | |-- /sound ---.-- /669 | |-- /gts | |-- /midi | |-- /mod | |-- /patches | `-- /util | |-- /util ----.-- /gus | |-- /sb | `-- /windows | |-- /info | `-- /request I'm in the process of putting the proposal through to the others and if all goes well, it will be implemented this week. With several days warning prior of course. And when all has been said and done, I'll validate the long list of files piling up in the submit directory as well. :) And yes, we are considering making an Index file of some sort. And since annoucements in comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard gets mirrored to the Ultrasound mailing list, as well as the Gravis BBS. I'm only going to post it here, and will check that this message gets across to the other platforms as well. Thomas. P.S. And no, I don't have a .sig. If I list all the things I do in my .sig, it'll get flamed for wasting bandwidth. 8) So stop asking. ;) ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 17 Feb 93 00:14 GMT From: Stephen Poston Message-Id: Subject: Using VGA DRAM, Midi Percussion patches, setup & gusmod problems To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I just received my GUS a week ago (5days actually) and initially experienced several problems that I thought may be of interest. Firstly, Opening the package was great, it had 512K. It seemed that the distributers may have placed the extra 256K on it because they were different to the 1st 2 DRAM chips on it. (Bank 1 - Motorola MCM514256AP70, Bank 2 - NEC D424256C-80) I've now added a further 4 DRAM chips (Intel - P21014-08) from a ET4000 VGA card. They seem to work OK. Secondly, Installing the software was OK. But when it came to using various programs the problems started. 1. setup.exe crashed my machine (i've the opti chipset) Solution: Download the gus0007.exe with a new setup.exe which should provide a solution. (I haven't done this as I got a work around (In Digest 42)- or better still try the following (same as D42)- : SET ULTRASND=220,1,1,11,7 E:\ULTRASND\ULTRINIT SET ULTRADIR=E:\ULTRASND SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T1 You may want to experiment with the INT/DMA levels yourself to suit your system but this is what the setup.exe does if it works. (Look at page 41 in the Ultrasound manual on Autoexec.bat, Manual Configuration) 2. patchmgr & No percussion patches It seems that I got a duff/old set of disks (V1.2 on the 6 disks). It seems that there is no percussion patches or even musicbox.pat on the disks. I was pretty anoyed that I had a GUS with 512K and an OLD set of disks. (A friend who got a 256K GUS atleast got V1.21 disks, which have all the patches, last month [different distributor though]) Solution: Send the reply card back and expect an update (but don't expect anything too soon as Gravis seem to be preparing/updating patches & software for a new set of disks) AND download or obtain from someone the latest set of disk images. (I've got V1.21 now with a few new bits from EPAS) Try:- ftp archive.epas.utoronto.ca (128.100.160.36) cd /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit (Find V1.22 disk images and various other latest bits and bobs) 3. gusmod1.XX & 2.01 don't seem to play some .mod files properly. But GUSDAC does play the ones that have problems. Solution: Probable in the buglist for GUSMOD and someone's working on it. Wait and see what comes out next, but continue to use gusmod 2.XX. Apart from the above, I seems to be a very good card. Steve ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 93 23:01:24 +0200 From: Shmuel Gazit Message-Id: <9302162101.AA22338@ccsg.tau.ac.il> Subject: USS8 To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Hi, could somebody explain why would USS8 record only one minute max ? I see it pours anything straight to the disk, so whats the prob to continue with this stream ? is there anything that WILL do it for how long that I want ? thanks /Shmulik. ------------------------------ Date: 12 Feb 93 17:23:29 GMT From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Message-Id: <1993Feb12.172329.3207@cc.umontreal.ca> Subject: What was the consensus about the GUS 3D, and surround sound?? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest In article csh45059@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (MAVERICK) writes: >Was there a consensus as to whether the ultrasound 3D would >work properly with a stereo reciever with Surround sound? >I checked the FAQ, and digests, but could not really find >a specific answer.... Ah ah! We didn't read the surround.txt file didn't we? It contains a simple surround system (very easily designed) and it does say that you must turn the rear speakers off if you use the 3D sound on the GUS. Check also the file named 3D.txt also on archive.epas.utoronto.ca. >My guess is that it would work, by >disabling surround sound mode... Exactly. (Well of course i suppose your dolby receiver shuts the rear speakers when not in surround). 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: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 07:51:15 -0500 From: mchen@sol4.cs.psu.edu (Michael Chen) Message-Id: <9302161251.AA02306@sol4.cs.psu.edu> Subject: Will the Gravis SDK be free like the PAS-16's? To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Anyone know if Gravis is planning on releasing their SDK free like Media Vision with the PAS-16? If not, anyone game for trying to create one as a freeware project? -- Michael Chen | From the depths of our most lucid horrors | | spring our fond hopes and pure desires... | mchen@cs.psu.edu | except what comes from HELL! :-) 7/23/92 | ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 16 Feb 1993 19:38:41 -0700 (MST) From: michael a finkel Message-Id: Subject: Windows problems still... To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I got several responses to my last post about the message 'Invalid Patch Version' appearing every twice time I start windows and my not being able to get any sounds other than the system ones (i.e. no music through WinMod or WinJammer). They told me to copy the file midimap.cfg (or something like that) from my ultrasound directory to my /windows/system directory. I did this, and it did not make a difference at all. I still get the message twice and can still not get music in windows. I have an Intel 386-40 with 4 megs RAM, 16 bit DMA 1, IRQ 7, Base 220, etc.. all the defaults in the setup. I have installed the GUS0012 drivers quite a long time ago, but that is what seemed to cause the Invalid Patch messages.. but I didn't get ANY sound before that at all. Please respond and hopefully we can solve this problem. Thanks. | | Tell me something I don't know | | MFinkel@Gas.uug.Arizona.edu | Show me something I can use | | =----> Tucson, Arizona | CONNECT THE GOD DAMN DOTS | | | -=Ministry=- | ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #45 ******************************