SuperHack/SuperHack CD.bin/CODING/SOUND/GUS-121.ZIP/GUS-131.TXT

Text File | 1993-01-28 | 32.0 KB | 748 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Thu, 26 Nov 92       Volume 1 : Issue  31

Today's Topics:
                         Accordeon is a first
                   all these problems with the GUS
                      answers to your questions
                          Cakewalk problems
                     Executables != mailing list
                               GOT IT!
                                 GTS
                        gus / windows problems
                          GUS sound quality.
                         MIDI file - JillToo
                              Mixing....
               The Gratuitous GUS Review (I GOT MINE!)
                      Ultrasound SBOS games list
                  Very primitive voc and wav player

Digest Address:           [e-mail]
              To post to tomorrow's digest.

Request Server Address:   [e-mail]
                          To subscribe, unsubscribe, and request files.

Owner Address:            [e-mail]
                          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, 26 Nov 92 0:09:06 EST
From: [e-mail] (Francois Dion)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Accordeon is a first
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Yes my friends, I have done it. I finally made a working patch. At the moment
i'm typing this, i still have a problem with the loop, but i'm pretty
sure that it will sound correct in a short time. Probably that by the
time you read this, the patch will be in the submit directory of our ftp
site (epas.utoronto.ca).

Earlier today, Yuri emailed me about where i was with the format. I was
not really close to anything. And Gravis still has not sent me the
informations on the patch format. So i said fuck it. I will find it
or my name is not Francois. It was long. And i had to transfer between
formats, use playfile, use my HP calculator, use a huge amount of
paper, but finally i got enough info to make a first patch. Now, the
loop is a bit trickier since i can't use wave so i have to check in
hexadecimal (with zap) the sample.

BTW, if it's on epas when you check, it'll be under the name:
accrdeon.arj
It's a monosampled accordian (accordeon in french, hence the name of the
arj archive). Yes i could have made it multisampled, but it sounds
reasonnable for now and i have not completely hacked the format yet and
it already takes 35Kb. Please do not upload anywhere without telling me
first because it is still a beta version of the patch. Once i will
have a satisfactory patch, it'll be allright.

Ciao,
--
Francois Dion
    '  _   _   _
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: [e-mail]
      (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: [phone]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 11:55:15 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: all these problems with the GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I have been reading about all the problems with the GUS and have begun
wondering if perhaps I should buy a PAS16 instead.  It's already got
drivers, has SB/Pro support in hardware, ACTUALLY does 16bit 44.1khz
(while the GUS claims to but none of it's drivers can do it yet...does
it REALLY have this spec?) and has no problems in terms of support.

Don't get me wrong, I'd really like the GUS, but is it really worth it?
Might my money be better spent on a PAS16?

Comments...?

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Al Dhir                                     Technical Consulting Staff
 Internet: [e-mail]         University of Maryland, College Park
 Bitnet:   adhir%cygnus.umd.edu@Interbit      [phone] * [phone]
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 10:59:09 -0500
From: It'[e-mail],
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: answers to your questions
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

> Yes it does work with Maximum Overkill.  Try "SBOS -O3".
> You'll get adlib music.  It sounds horrible but it works.

Ok, I'm gonna be stupid here and volunteer to keep a list of what works
with which SBOS settings. What I request people do, however, is to make
sure you include the following:

    . What OS are you using? MS-DOS,  DR DOS, OS/2, OS/2 DOS box, etc
    . What version of said OS
    . What memory manager are you using
    . Game name (of course)
    . SBOS settings (of course)

> That's it.  WowII and Visual Player are the best.  Visual
> Player can be found on the ftp site wuarchive.wustl.edu in the
> pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS as vp10.zip I believe.

For example, neither of these will produce any sound for me. I suspect it's
DR DOS, but I haven't had a change to boot MS-DOS and find out. I also
REALLY dislike the stupid nag messages from VP...

DDA

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 17:20:51 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <9211252220.AA26538@m11-116-1>
Subject: Cakewalk problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

This was my question earlier:

> I have a question.  I am running the Cakewalk demo from wuarchive.
> It is sorta 'unpredictable' as to when it can and cannot play a .MID file
> (or a .WRK file for that matter).  Sometimes, when I try to play a
> .MID file it would play only one or maybe two of the instruments in the
> song, notably the bass/drums.  I would then quit Cakewalk, run Microsoft's
> Media Player and have it play the same .MID file for a second or two.
> I would then quit the Media Player and rerun Cakewalk.  This time it runs
> properly...that is, it plays the same .MID file when a while ago it couldn't.> This phenomenon happens when I run WinJammer as well.  Why is this?

Two people sent me info that is roughly the following:

> Because the Gravis Ultrasound Windows driver takes advantage of patch
> caching, which neither CakeWalk nor Winjammer use. In fact, I think
> the driver expects the patches to be in cache. Gravis is supposedly
> working on a little program to load the cache for you with all the
> instruments. Media Player DOES load the cache, hence it works after
> you use Media Player...

Well, that is true to a certain extent, but I am seeing more random
behavior in the sense that this procedure does not always generate the
expected results.  For example, I downloaded a file called
simpsons.mid.  When I played it last nite (hmm..I forgot how I loaded
it - either playmidi or Microsoft Media Player) it sounded really
good.  All the instruments seemed to be present.  However, I can't get
it to play it again without losing some of the instruments.  This
time, I did load it in Microsoft Media Player and even there it
doesn't sound complete.  Hence I can't get it to sound right in
Cakewalk.  Seems like this patch loading business is sorta hit and
miss....  Comments?

-Tim

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Nov 92 0:51:00 EST
From: [e-mail] (Francois Dion)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Executables != mailing list
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Please send executables (uuencoded) to [e-mail], not
to the mailing list. David will then put it on the request server.
The thing is that of course, there's the bandwidth question, but also
all the messages that are after the big uuencoded message in the digest
probably wont get read.

You can also ftp them in the /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit directory of
epas.utoronto.ca.
Do verify that the file is not corrupt by getting it after putting it there.
If it is corrupt, you can use delete to remove the file and then reupload
it.

Thanks everybody.
--
Francois Dion
    '  _   _   _
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: [e-mail]
      (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: [phone]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 13:22:32 -0600
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GOT IT!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Well I am just ecstatic I just got my GUS.. (cant use it till next week though..
I am at home and my computer is at college.. that sucks)

But I feel sorry for all of you who missed disk count.. I got it in 1 day..
telemart I waited over a month for and disk count said.. 1 day.. guaranteed

(and it was 20 cents less!!)

Cya
[e-mail]
Scot Kight

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 17:42:33 EST
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <9211252242.AA26646@m11-116-1>
Subject: GTS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

So, where can I find the GTS program?  I asked this a while back.
It's not in saffron.inset.com as suggested by someone else.

-Tim

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 15:31:51 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Bob Wilson)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: gus / windows problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Phat H Tran) writes:

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Mr D Ingles) writes:
>>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phat H Tran) writes:
>>
>>>You probably don't have your ULTRADIR environment variable set correctly
>>>in your autoexec.bat  Try putting
>>>    set ULTRADIR=c:\ultrasnd
>>
>>It's already there.
>>
>>>at the end of your autoexec.  Also, it wouldn't hurt if you added
>>>c:\ultrasnd to your path statement.
>>
>>It already is in my path.
>>
>>Davei

>And you STILL get 'Error 3 loading patch...'?!  Can anybody else help
>Davei out before I start suggesting the obvious (such as checking in
>your ultrasnd/midi directory for *.pat files, etc.)?

>Phat.
The problem isn't that something is missing, but rather that too much
is present! I got the following from Gravis when I asked about it:
They didn't give express permission to copy it here but since it may
save them work I'll go ahead:

->From [e-mail] Wed Nov 18 02:04:10 1992
->Received: from ihb.compuserve.com by schaefer.math.wisc.edu;
          ->id AA22719; 4.1/42; Wed, 18 Nov 92 02:04:07 CST
->Received: by ihb.compuserve.com (5.65/5.910516)
    ->id AA14865; Wed, 18 Nov 92 03:07:05 -0500
->Date: 18 Nov 92 02:59:55 EST
->From: "Alan [GravisTech]" <[e-mail]>
->Subject: Re: Windows not finding patch files
->Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
->Apparently-To: <[e-mail]>
->Status: R
->
->Bob,
->Somehow <g>, a file called UltraWin.cfg has snuck into your
->\Windows or \Windows\System directory. Remove it and all will
->be well. Windows looks for this file to locate the \midi directory
->for the .PAT's. Future iterations of the software have an UltraSnd.INI
->file, which will smooth the Windows install.
->
->Cheers,
->=<Alan>=

In other words, leave ultrawin.cfg back in the direcotry above
the midi directory where the .pat files are. Don't have it somewhere
else that the driver can find it, because then the drive will look
there for the patches!
It worked for me...
Bob Wilson
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: 25 Nov 1992 05:11:36 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Ernest Y. Chuang)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS sound quality.
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (jim connor) writes:
>
>Date Entered: 11-24-92 21:29
>There has been a lot of talk about the GUS's sound quality, someone
>even saying that it is "almost as good as a Roland". This is what I am
>looking for. I have heard the Turtle Beach and Roland sound canvas
>(SCC1) cards, they sound fantastic. I have not found any stores
>demonstrating the GUS. I would like to run Band in a Box for Windows
>and so would like the instruments (especially drums, piano and bass)
>to sound as realistic as possible, without having to spend the cost of
>those more expensive boards.
>
>Can anyone comment on the quality of the instruments of the GUS? Are
>they really comparable to the Roland or Turtle Beach?  Has anyone used
>band in a box with the GUS? (or Cakewalk for windows?)

IMO, the instruments in the GUS are pretty good, but clearly not up
to the level of the SCC-1.  However, people with both the GUS and
MT-32 have said that the GUS' music quality is comparable to that
of the MT-32; so if you've heard the MT-32, this may give you an
idea.  (I haven't heard it, myself, so I can't comment on that.)

I do have both the GUS and Roland SCC-1, and so far I'm happy with
both of them.  While I have no complaints about the GUS sound quality,
the instruments sounds on the SCC-1 are much cleaner and crisper, and
in general, more realistic.  I should note, however, that I don't have
all of the GUS' instrument patches yet (I'm still waiting for Gravis
to send them to me), and I haven't upgraded the memory on my GUS to
1 Mb (which I plan to do soon), so the GUS may start to sound better
after these things happen.

I'm not much of a computer musician, so you may want to take my
recommendation with a grain of salt, but if you plan to mainly use the
sound card for serious music work, then I'd recommend the SCC-1.
Its instrument library is very complete and the sound quality is
superb.  If you're a computer gamer as well, then you may be willing to
give up some sound quality for the GUS's extra versatility -- sound
sampling/playback capability as well as the ability to download new
sounds.

Or if you have no self control (like me), or lots of money (unlike me),
then you can just get both cards ;-).  Then of course, there's the
Turtle Beach Multisound, which I don't know much about, so maybe
someone else can shed some light on it...

Hope this helps,

- Ernest
  [e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Nov 92 02:41:33 -0500
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: MIDI file - JillToo
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Hi, I uploaded another MIDI file ( converted from ROL ) to epas.
Original ROL song is written by some Korean guy. Although it is not
composed for MID or GUS, it sounds reasonably good. Enjoy.

Yuri

ls -CFs

------------------------------

Date: 24 Nov 92 19:24:32 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Marc Washburn)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Mixing....
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (The Incredible Mr.Wong) writes:
>Is there any program out there that will allow you to mix two songs together,
>somewhat like what a DJ does with turntables and a mixer? Is there any way to
>match the speed and beats of two songs?
>
>Mr.Wong

Hmmm,  I seem to have a similar need.  I DJ clubs and house-parties in the New England area and would really like to be able to bring my PC along with my PAS-16 and mix in some digitized sound samples.  I realize that digital mixing seems to be in its infancy, but surely there must be a program out there that can load in several .sam or .wav files etc. and be able to play them at the touch of the keyboard.  Even better, a program that can load in a whole bunch of samples and play them mixed, at diffe





peeds,  with altered attributes such as adding echo, reverb, chorus, reverse echo...etc.

Modedit 3.01 has a basic sample playback capability, but it is clumsy to use because you can only load in 1 sample at a time.  (BTW Norman Lin, my registration check is forthcoming...).

What other MODeditors are there that come closer to this ability?

These are the ones i have heard about so far:

Modedit 3.01 - downloaded it from WUarchive (/mirrors/msdos/music)
GTS          - another modeditor, this one is on Wuarchive (/systems/msdos/simtel20) havent had
               time to try this one yet...
wmp002b2     - I think its Super WinMod (windows mod editor supposedly in full stereo)
winmod       - Another windows modeditor (not sure where to get this one either)
Whack101     - Whacker Tracker, another one i need to find somewhere
Digi Studio  - This is another modeditor i have heard about, i'm not sure this one is                           public domain

Does anybody have more information on any on these modeditors?  Where they can be found, either on the net or on a BBS?

How about Sample editors?

thanks in advance

marc washburn
[e-mail]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 92 16:51:38 MST
From: Stuart Yoshida <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: The Gratuitous GUS Review (I GOT MINE!)
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I FINALLY GOT A GUS!  YAHOOO!  Thanks to Tazzzzz (Kevin Dangoor) who
mentioned that Babbage's had them in stock.  As soon as I read his note
I called up the local outlet, and Lo and Behold, they had one!  (But
only one.)  The store manager claims that the GUS arrived last Friday
(20 November).  It looks like I snagged the only GUS in Fort Collins
:-).

Telemart and Ingram (and perhaps Gravis) get the thumbs down as far as
giving me a delivery date I could believe.  Even though it cost me $158
(tax included) instead of the $132 from Telemart, a bird in the hand is
still worth two in the bush.  So I canceled my order with Telemart this
morning.  If Telemart had given me a firm delivery date I would have
waited.  Any comments from Gravis?

The following article is the gratuitous "I got a GUS so I'm gonna tell
you all about it" review.  It's long, so I apologize in advance.  Enjoy.

My hardware setup:

    * 386SX-16 with Cyrix math coprocessor
    * 8MB RAM
    * 210MB SCSI drive
    * Always Technology 16-bit SCSI card
    * STB ERGO (Tseng 4000-based) 16-bit video card with 1MB RAM and
        Sierra Hi-color DAC running in 640x480x32K mode
    * Advanced Gravis Ultrasound 16-bit soundcard with 1MB RAM (two
        100ns chips plus six additional 80ns chips), game port
        DISabled, address set to 240h

My software setup:

    * MS-Windows 3.1
    * Norton Desktop for Windows 2.0 with Anti-Virus and Smartcan
         enabled
    * QEMM 6.02 running in Stealth mode with programs loaded high
    * Stacker 2.0 with two partitions, both fully stacked
    * Wired for Sound Pro 2.0
    * Hyperdisk 4.21 (I think) disk cache set to 3MB RAM cache
    * Ultrasound parameters set to:
         ULTRASND=240,7,7,7,11
         BLASTER=A240 I11 D1 T1
         Port Address:    240h
         DMA channel:    7
         GF1 IRQ:        7
         MIDI IRQ:        11

SBOS and the mouse driver under DOS seem to conflict with each when I
attempt to play the Star Trek 25th Anniversary game.  I get music out of
the GUS by configuring the game to think I have an Adlib card.  However,
the mouse ceases to respond once SBOS is loaded.  I need to experiment
with the SBOS option parameters, but I'm fairly certain SBOS is the
culprit because I can run the program without SBOS loaded and the mouse
works fine.

I was happy to find that all the included utilities worked as advertised
(with the exception of ultrafli; it just squawks at me and hisses with
staic -- suggestions anyone?)  even though I have QEMM, Hyperdisk,
Stacker, and Norton running.  Whew!  I was amazed that I *didn't* have
major conflicts and undesireable interactions between these programs and
the Ultrasound drivers (and the card itself!), but I may have just been
lucky.

However, the USS8 (Ultrasound Studio 8) is very disappointing.  The
8-bit stereo recording mode at 44.1KHz sampling rate was unstable.
There was lots of choppiness in the playback as if some bits were
dropped, but that could be a function of my (relatively) slow processor.
I know I'm not alone in reporting this problem.  Has anyone successfully
used USS8 to record a stereo sample at 44.1KHz and get a clean sound?

Under Windows 3.1 I was able to simultaneously play a MIDI song and
trigger a Wave event using Wired for Sound Pro 2.0.  The GUS mixed the
two flawlessly.  I was surprised because I was expecting the sounds to
happen serially; in other words I thought the MIDI song would play, and
then the Wave event would trigger.  But instead I heard a voice say
"Activate" in the midst of some gorgeous jazz music.  Way cool, to say
the least!  I also have Captain Jean-Luc Picard saying "Engage" whenever
Windows starts up, and the Terminator saying "I'll be back" when I exit.
Yeah, yeah, and so does everyone else with a GUS, right? :-)

Lessons I learned:

1.  Always perform a HARD BOOT with the GUS installed.  A warm reboot on
    my machine does not reset the GUS, and after a warm reboot I found
    that the mouse IRQ was no longer available.

    I spent *hours* trying to get the mouse running under Windows.  I
    finally noticed that it worked intermittedly after I switched the
    port address around.  I'm not really sure if the change in port
    address had anything to do with the mouse working again, but I
    definitely could get the mouse to freeze up by performing a warm
    reboot.  Using the reset switch or cycling power fixed the problem.

2.  Read all the items that have been published in the Digest!  I'm sure
    I saved myself many hours of setup time by reading about the
    experiences and heeding the advice from dozens of other GUS owners.
    For example, after reading two or three warnings I immediately
    copied the midimap.cfg into the Windows system directory and avoided
    the "screwed up MIDI sounds" problem.

    If you want history to repeat itself, then don't bother reading the
    digest.  But if you want to learn from history, then read the digest
    carefully.

3.  Carefully select your port address, DMA channel, and IRQ numbers and
    NOTE ALL THE COMBINATIONS you used just in case the GUS doesn't work
    the first time.  Some people have been lucky on the first try.  You
    may not be.  You can take your chances, or you can be safe and
    methodical.

5.  Be careful when you hook up the speakers to the GUS.  Even the line
    out can give you quite a blast (as many digest readers have
    testified).  Even though I was careful about setting the volume, I
    was still caught off guard a few times because of the low ambient
    noise level of the output.  "Jeez," I thought to myself, "I'd better
    turn it up just a little so I can hear--YEEEEOOW!!" as I was
    hammered by the opening chords of the MIDI file.

Things I like about this card:

*   THE SOUND!  THE SOUND!  Yes, it was great.  The hardware potential
    of this card is ENORMOUS.  It's all there:  hooks for digital
    recording and mixing, MIDI, wavetable synthesis, super clean output,
    16-bit sound resolution, future expansion via daughter cards, etc.
    I would be very interested in hearing a Turtle Beach Multisound and
    the GUS go head-to-head with an equivalent set of patches.  My guess
    is that the average user wouldn't be able to tell the difference.

*   Windows support.  Yes, even though the Windows driver has a long way
    to go, it was still functional enough for me to see that the GUS and
    Windows were made for each other.  MID files played beautifully.
    WAV files played beautifully.  SND files played beautifully.  MID
    and WAV files played beautifully SIMULTANEOUSLY!  At this price
    range (and with a little software) the GUS easily eclipses the MS
    Sound Card.  In fact, at the price MS charges, it's a joke when you
    compare the two based on hardware.  But the secret's in the
    software, and until Gravis catches up, MS has the potential to
    gobble up the market because of the plethora of software they're
    writing for the MSSC.

*   Product support.  I encourage Gravis to continue to communicate with
    people on CompuServe and Internet.  And start stuffing the BBS with
    goodies for our Christmas stocking :-).  I've been pleased so far
    (in general) with your openness and responsiveness (in particular,
    Alan Alvarez and Chris Yuzik).  Keep it up!  You'll be rewarded with
    repeat customers and huge sales.

Things I think need to be improved:

(These are mostly aimed at Gravis, but 3rd party software vendors might
also want to jump on the bandwagon.)

1.  Include a Windows patch load utility (like Pload) with the software,
    or release a patch cache-aware GUS driver for Windows ASAP!!

2.  Keep improving the SBOS.  It seems that SBOS is still marginal.
    However, because the vast majority of applications and games that I
    care about are Windows-based, this isn't as much of a concern.  But
    it still would be nice to get Star Trek working with the mouse under
    DOS.

3.  Provide a sound file player that doesn't "click" and "pop" so much.
    A digest reader mentioned that this might be due to the extraneous
    header and footer information included in the sound files.  If this
    is the case, it should be a simple matter to filter out this data so
    that the beginning and end of the soundbites aren't so harsh.

4.  Include higher quality patches with the GUS.  In particular, a solid
    set of General MIDI and GS MIDI patches would make make this card
    untouchable at its current price range.  I've played a few MIDI
    files that sound FANTASTIC!!  But some patches (such as the piano)
    are rather lackluster and "static" laden.  Other patches are clean
    and sound wonderful.  (How about some consistency?)

5.  Write a program that seamlessly incorporates MIDI file
    sequencing/playback and simultaneous digital stereo
    recording/editing capabilities.  It's all there in hardware, the GUS
    can do it under Windows, we just need someone to write the code!

6.  Break open the manufacturing bottleneck!  We need more cards!

Keep on GUS'ing!

Peace,

--

  Stuart Yoshida

Internet: [e-mail]
   Voice: [phone]

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 25 Nov 1992 16:12:56 GMT
From: [e-mail] (MARC PAULIN)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ultrasound SBOS games list
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phat H Tran) writes:
>From: [e-mail] (Phat H Tran)
>Subject: Re: Ultrasound SBOS games list
>Date: Tue, 24 Nov 1992 19:08:18 GMT

>In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (BJORN HAAVARD KLEVEN) writes:
>>Here's a little forwarding, Thomas says:
>>
>>I don't have the ability to post so maybe you can ask a couple of questions
>>for me.
>>
>>How does the GUS sound on some of the popular games.  I don't have a sound
>>card yet, so anything better will be a great help.
>>

>These are the games I've tried with SBOS:

>Falcon 3.0
>        The music sounded peculiar, and the sound effects were cartoony.
>        Digitized voices would not play properly unless I set them to
>        play through the Adlib in the system config screen.  That is,
>        the voices were set to Adlib, but they were still being
>        handled by SBOS.  Anyway, even when they work, they sound very
>        scratchy.  There was no slowdown on my 386-33.

>Chuck Yeager's Air Combat
>        Music was excellent, and voices were loud and clear.  No
>        slowdown.

>Battle Chess II
>        I had to set digitized sound to Adlib mode.  The music was
>        excellent, but the digitized sounds were scratchy.  No slowdown
>        while music was played, but the game pauses for the digitized
>        sounds.

>Wrath of the Demon
>        Music and sound effects were excellent.  No slowdown.

>Stunts
>        Music and sound effects were excellent.  Slight slowdown.

>Knights of the Sky
>        Music and sound effects were good.  No slowdown that I can
>        recall.

Leisure Suit Larry V
     Music and sound effects are excellent!!  Sometimes better than the
     SoundBlaster.  No slowdown.

HardBall III
     Music and sound effects are way excellent!!  Much better than the
     original SB.  Real stereo music.  Absolutely no slowdown.

Eye Of The Beholder II: The Legend Of Darkmoon
     Music was okay but the sounds effects were baaaaaddddd.  Since EOB2
         uses the SB's FM channels to produce the sound effects, those
         sounds are the same on the GUS.  No slowdown.

Wing Commander I
     I couldn't pay it on my 286 16MHz.  The game was dead slow, music
         too.  Critical slowdown.

Battle Chess II
     I didn't have to set it for Adlib mode.  SoundBlaster mode works on
         my computer and the digitized sound is loud and clear.  No
         slowdown and no pauses on my computer.

Adventures Of Willy Beamish
       Music is good.  Slowdown is big but the game is still playable.

                                         ____
              _  _  _                  / \   \
            /' )' )' )                |   |   |
              /  /  /                 | (_|__/         \
             /     /  __. .__    ___  |   |  __.  . .   \  .   ___
            /     (__(_/|__) )__/(__   \_/__(_/|__)\_)__/\__)__) <_
                    Markus on QuartzPARADISE and AfterFive
                            [phone] - Canada
+---------------------------------------------+-----------------------------+
|            [e-mail]          | "My son, ask for thyself    |
|     For Talk:  [e-mail]     |  another kingdom.  For that |
|---------------------------------------------+  which I leave is too small |
| When all else fails,  read the instructions |  for thee" - King Philippe  |
+---------------------------------------------+-----------------------------+

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 26 Nov 92 1:02:04 EST
From: [e-mail] (Francois Dion)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Very primitive voc and wav player
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

BTW, playfile has the -o and -t options for offset and length that could
be used so that pl10 could skip the headers. Anybody has the source for
Playbwc? It could call playfile instead of BWC and would add these
functionalites (on top of working with the Ultrasound):
offset, length, loops, volume, on the fly signed ints/bytes conversion and
16 bits intel integer sample playback
to playbwc. Add 50 lines display, timers, a list in the order you prefer
(alphabetical, or chosen) and retards functions and you just got yourself
a playlist type player! (without knowing one bit of information on
programming the GUS!).

So anybody knows the guy who did playbwc or has the source?

Ciao,
--
Francois Dion
    '  _   _   _
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: [e-mail]
      (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: [phone]
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

------------------------------

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V1 #31
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