Experimental BBS Explossion 3/Experimental BBS Explossion III.iso/gus/digestv2.zip/V2N85.TXT

Text File | 1993-03-30 | 43KB | 1,001 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Tue, 30 Mar 93       Volume 2 : Issue  85

Today's Topics:
                            8-bit sampling
                 [GUS]  New owner disappointments...
                 [GUS] SBOS2.04 and Monkey Island II
                    FUTURE GUS RELEASES - NOT!!!!
                      GRAVIS & FORTE NEWS   4/4
                             Guitar midi
                           GUS expectations
                           GUSMod problems
                 GUS patch corruption blues (2 msgs)
                      I GOT MY GUS!! (big deal?)
                        John Smith? - Gravis?
                        Lemmings 2 and GUS...
                    Lost Secret of the Rainforest
                          More GUS questions
                  noise and 8 bit 16 bit soundfiles
                         Simple SBOS question
                             Sound Editor
               Tempo-problem with gusmod2.11 (I think)
                            UK Gus Support
                      Ultima 7 Part II and sbos
                 Ultrabots from Novalogic noworky...
                         UltraSound and SBPro
                    Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #84
                            USS8 questions
                         Zone66 Parity errors

    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.

    *** HEY!!! ***

    Before you ask a question, *** READ THE FAQ ***.  It's
available on the request server and the ftp sites, or check the
newsgroup archives.

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 16:14:36 -0800
From: Eric N. Liao <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: 8-bit sampling
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

About 8-bit sampling noise, I notice that if I sample something through either
the mic-in or line-in there is a significant amount of noise.  There is more
noise with the mic-in, but when I use the line-in, I get the impression that
something is grounded properly.



For exampl,e if I run my CD-player through the line-in, when there is silence
on the CD, I get this high-pitched whine in the background.  However, as the
volume level of the CD gets louder, the whine diminishes proportionally.  I'm
pretty sure this is just the music drowning out the whine, it's probably
always there to a certain degree.

The "cleanest" recording I've ben able to make with my GUS (8-bit of course)
is with the line-in and a hi-fi VHS VCR.  Still, especially in stereo mode,
I can hear the background noise.  My souce material is usually something
copied from laserdisc to VHS, so the sound quality is all there.

I was wondering if any other GUS owners are having similar problems digitizing
through their GUS.  As far as the "high-pitched whine", I had the exact same
problem with my old SB1.5, so I'm not sure it's entirely the GUS's fault
(peraps a hnoisy FCC Class A computer?)  Also of note, the CD players with
1-bit D/As give the most whine, the ones with "normal" 16-bit/18-bit/etc
don't seem to produce as loud a whine.

Of course, if I just listen to the music through my GUS's line-in, everything
sounds perfect (no-noise.)

Also, sorry for not crediting someon with the X-wing fix earlier.  I must not
have been paying attention.

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

Date: 29 Mar 93 15:46:08 CST
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: [GUS]  New owner disappointments...
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Ok, ok, ok....  After all the posts I have made asking for advice on the
GUS, I finally broke down and purchased one with my tax return.  I saw it
being demoed at Best Buy in Minneapolis.  They had a SB-16 and a GUS both
being demoed.  I thought the GUS sounded better, and at $100 less, it
couldn't be beat.  So I bought it.  Here are first impressions:

1.)  The box for this thing was TERRIBLE.  They could have used far, far
less carboard and space.  As an environmentalist, I am shocked and really
really upset at Gravis for wasting so much.  If there's supposed to be more
in there one day, fine.  But make a different box.  Plan a little better.
And if there IS supposed to be more in there one day, it upsets us that
purchase it now, because we see that we are getting far less than we could
be if we just wait a little while.  Oh well....

2.)  The manuals included with it, and the software, is less than
promising.  The manuals seem, to me, to be rather skimpy and not very
informative.  I felt like I got a lot better manual, and a lot MORE (like
freebies, demos, useful programs) with my SB-Pro than with the Gravis.  I
felt like Gravis could have given us a little more when purchasing it.  I
was glad, though, that there was a lot less paper work in the box.  Just


two manuals and a registration card.  Not all sorts of other little slips
and advertisements, etc.

3.)  SBOS 1.21, which came with it, sounded horrible.  None of the games I
played, except Wolf3d, sounded good at all.  X-Wing barely worked at all.
I have since got the updated SBOS v2.04, and the new SETUP program.  The
change is noticeable, but X-Wing is still not working.  No digitized
speech, the Tie fighters don't sound like the Tie Fighters I've HEARD their
supposed to sound like.  And some of the sounds are a lot like mosquitoes
buzzing by my ears and such.  I'm having tons of problems.

I like the card, I really do.  Some things about it are GREAT.  A lot of
things.  But I have had nothing but headaches since getting it.  My install
disks were so old, and I can't GET the new install disks from FTP, because
the files are too BIG to fit on a standard HD disk (not unless there's some
way to pump the size of a HD disk up by 3000 bytes that I don't know
about..)  I think there should be some way that those of us that cannot FTP
easily should be able to get the updated install disks from the company,
free of charge (or a nominal charge.)  Do I NEED these new Install disks if
I have the new version of SBOS (2.04) and the new SETUP program?  Do these
contain the new MIDI patches?

A good card, but it still really needs help on my system before I will be
giving glowing reviews of it like others do...

-_________________________________________________________________________-
[ Christopher Johnson - Buena Vista College, Storm Lake - Cooter Claypool ]
|\o/The Fiery Darts - Boom Key Grip Editor - BEWARE: pOsSiBlE sArCaSm   | |
| | "I found a new friend, underneath my pillow." - Language is a Virus/o\|
|The New Wave of the Post Modern Ultra High Tech Kool Rave Disco Bastards!|
[ Reality is just another perception of the senses - [e-mail] ]
_-------------------------------------------------------------------------_
 "When I step, a weed DIES..." - Pete, King of the Detectives (Big Black)

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

Date: 26 Mar 93 19:31:03 GMT
From: [e-mail] (David Seah)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: [GUS] SBOS2.04 and Monkey Island II
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

The tuning in Monkey Island II is just awful...makes me want to jump
out a window.  Anyone else notice this problem with SBOS2.04?
SBOS2.02 didn't even work...An internal error would occur in the
game.

--
Dave Seah ([e-mail], [e-mail])

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 17:20:14 EST


From: Matthew Spewak <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: FUTURE GUS RELEASES - NOT!!!!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

    I was wondering about some of the games on the list of FUTURE RELEASES
SUPPORTING THE GUS.  So far, the only games I have seen support GUS in native
mode are ZONE66 and STAR CONTROLL 2.  I have yet to see the new Chuck Yeager
(has anyone else?) which has been said to be shipping, and various others.  Of
the games I have seen, Trump Castle Casino 3 does NOT support GUS, and the newly
released LEMMINGS 2 does NOT support GUS!
    I was extremely dissappointed to hear that LEMMINGS 2 does not support our card
in its native mode.  Does anyone know if the company that made LEM2, plan to
send out an update driver?  Or does anyone know where the data in FUTURE GUS
RELEASES came from?  (so far it seems very inaccurate).

Matthew Spewak

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 10:41:14 -0600
From: [e-mail] (Ken Goach IBM)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GRAVIS & FORTE NEWS   4/4
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

>  15) Several people have complained about sbos loading VERY
>     slowly.


O.K. I had this problem and I solved it.

I went into setup for my machine (Ctrl-Alt-s) and enabled Memory
Relocation and Shadow BIOS ROM. SBOS now loads immediately, where
it took anywhere from 50-120 seconds before.

Can anyone explain why?

Ken

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

Date: 29 Mar 1993 15:14:41 -0400
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Guitar midi
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I threw this question out to rec.music-makers.synth or something like that,
and it met with some enthusiasm, but also some doubt.  Still, I think it is
worth pursuing:

I play guitar, and I have an ultrasound.  Right now, the only way I can plug


in to the ultrasound is to pay Big Buxx to retrofit my electric guitar with
a Roland midi pickup.  Anyway, I am pretty sure that, with an ultrasound and
windows, this shouldn't be necessary.  Here is my idea:

What we need is a program which, like a sampler, reads the line in jack
(or mike in).  Only, instead of storing the stuff in memory, it would do
a frequency analysis on this signal, take the dominant frequencies and map
them onto midi notes, i.e. by a best fit, or "snap".  Then this signal could
be sent out the midi out, and from there sent right back to the midi in, by a
little adaptor.  At a later stage, note bending could be added(pitch wheel)
and also velocity (attack), but I wouldn't want to touch these until I had
the basic note-mapper working.

Anyway, I don't know if this is possible on the GUS; it is certainly more
plausible than on some other midi card with no line in.  It might be necessary
to have a second computer do the processing, but I doubt it; that is what
windows is for.

Problem is, I have never programmed in windows (only Turbo Pascal for DOS)
so I am wondering if anyone out there wants to help?  I realise this system
has a limited audience (those who have GUS, or other card, _and_ windows,
_and_ a guitar), but actually, if we got the basic thing working, it would
probably work with other toys, besides guitar.  e.g. non-midi keyboard, and
just about any instrument that you can hook a mike up to (including voice,if
you can sing).

So you can see why I am excited about this.  If it is possible, it would allow
anyone, not just keyboardists, to do MIDI!  If there are any GMOS veterans,
or others who want to help, please do!  (otherwise, I will be buying some
windows programming language soon, and will have to learn it before I can
code my algorithms)  Also if you have any advice, don't hold back!

OK I've taken up two screens worth of your DIGESTion, so I may as well take
off now :)   Tell me what you think
Bruce.       [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 03:08:38 -0600 (CST)
From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS expectations
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

John & Pete at Gravis wrote:

J&P>    5) Being overly critical of a $150 sound card.

That is the truth.

*I* believe that it is only because of the obviously high potential
of the GUS that some people are making criticisms.



After all, how often do you hear a PAS owner saying "Waaah, my
recordings have a little bit of fuzz" or a SB owner saying
"The piano sound in my MIDI emulation has too much vibrato".

The impressive sound has led some people into judging the card on
the same level as Turtle Beach and Sound Canvas.  Keeping things
in perspective, the GUS is just a personal computer accessory.
If it works for you as a professional music device, great!

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

Date: Lun, 29 Mar 93 20:38:43 FRA
From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUSMod problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Date: 29 Mars 1993, 20:31:35 FRA
From: 9269Z    at FRESTP11
To:   [e-mail]

There| I found why GUSMod 2.xx would just play the first few notes on my compu-
ter: it doesn't like "customized" BIOS setup. I had Busclock set to SYSCLOCK/5
and DMA clock set to Busclock. My cache memory was 0WS read and 2WS write.

In order for GUSMod to function I had to set my BIOS to DMA=7.16Mhz, CAS
Memory read=1WS and CAS Memory write=3WS. Now my computer is a bit slowed down
but I can finally run GUSMod :)

The trouble is neither GUSMod 1.1 nor SBStudio need this trick. Could it be a
bug, Renaissance (NB: I don't know how it is programmed, so it is only a
supposition: no flame please).

Greets.
+---------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   Benjamin RYZMAN   |  "...And now, something completly different |"  |
| ESTP, Paris, France |             -Monty Python                       |
|       Email:        |   "640 kb should be sufficient for anyone..."   |
|[e-mail]|        -Bill "goofy" Gates, circa 1981 AC       |
+---------------------+-------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 04:19:05 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Phillip White)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS patch corruption blues
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I having a very annoying problem with my new GUS and I'm posting this
in the hopes that someone can help me.  The problem is this: patches
loaded into the card's memory tend be become "corrupted" during the
playback of a MIDI file.  The patches themselves pick up loud pops,


clicks and static.

I have verified this using the patch manager under Windows.  Patches
load "clean" and initially sound ok but after use for a while some
of them will become distorted and play distorted every single time they
are invoked.  This is regardless of the MIDI player used (Winjammer,
the Windows Media Player or the keyboard on the patch manager).
I think I can hear the same thing happening using Playmidi (but I have
no way to check the individual patches while using it).  The problem
generally seems to occur with large MIDI file (say, 600K of patches or
more).

My GUS has 1Meg:  6x256K 80ns RAM chips and 2x256K 70ns RAM chips (which
the board arrived with).  I'm using all defaults: IRQ 7 MIDI/SB, IRQ 11,
port 220h and DMA 1.  Neither the Gravis test program nor GUSTEST find
problems with any of the memory.  If anyone has encountred
problems (or success) using a similar configuation I'd very much like to
hear about it.  If I can't solve this problem I may have to return the
card (and I _really_ don't want to have to do that!!!)

pdw

Interefere? Of _course_ we're going to interfere! | Phillip White
Always do what you're best at. - the Doctor       | [e-mail]

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

Date: Sat, 27 Mar 1993 20:07:09 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Phat H Tran)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS patch corruption blues
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Phillip White) writes:
[...]
>My GUS has 1Meg:  6x256K 80ns RAM chips and 2x256K 70ns RAM chips (which
>the board arrived with).  I'm using all defaults: IRQ 7 MIDI/SB, IRQ 11,
>port 220h and DMA 1.  Neither the Gravis test program nor GUSTEST find
>problems with any of the memory.  If anyone has encountred
>problems (or success) using a similar configuation I'd very much like to
>hear about it.  If I can't solve this problem I may have to return the
>card (and I _really_ don't want to have to do that!!!)
>

Try using a different make of chips or ones with faster access times.
The GUS seems to be rather finicky about what DRAMs you install on it.
I'm using Kyocera (I think) 70ns chips with nary a problem.

Loaded patches becoming corrupt over time seems to indicate that the
memory isn't being refreshed properly.  If new chips don't solve the
problem, then it may be a problem with the soundcard.

Phat.



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

Date: Tue, 30 Mar 93 14:31:30 EST
From: [e-mail] (Adriano_Ennio RAIOLA)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: I GOT MY GUS!! (big deal?)
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Ok Ok, I know there have been a trillion 'I GOT MY GRAVIS!!!' stories
to come before me, and your all probably quite sick by now of hearing
everyone tell you the minutest detail of every step of installing the best
sound card money can buy, right down to 'I'm getting a slight bit of
noise when i run the setup, I think the screw holding my GUS in place is
off tap... yep, fixed that..'

Phew, anyway, I wont drabble on (much), Ive got one or two questions below, but
first may I make any Australian GUS owners out there weep by mentioning
that instead of paying the $289 which is what Ozziesoft (local distribs)
normally charges, I payed $226 at their clearance sale last sunday, PLUS
an extra %10 off because i was at the checkout at the right time! $200!!!!!!

Anyway, finally got the chance yesterday to try out this marvel, first shock
was the smaller cardboard box i thought would hold the disks, was actually
the card! no, im rambling, anyway.. rundown of my success/failures

- Popped in, turned on, no smoke, memory test clicks, COOL!
- Installed almost no worries on my stackered HD (not enuf space!)
- Setup, I hear 'lets configure..' and thought 'YAY!' .. but it seemed
  a bit quiet. Setup was a breeze
- reboot, ran flidemo, hmmmm.. not bad, not CD quality stuff yet i thought,
  much like a SBlaster with a bit better bass and overall clarity
- Ran Mididemo, heard the applause, hmmm.. OK i spose, a bit flat, but THEN..
  the first three bars of 'tocatta' had played in glorius 16 bit stereo, and
  I was totally hooked, THIS is what I shelled out on this baby for! Who cares
  that SBOS is a bit of a joke (no offense), it'll be worth the wait when we
  hear games supporting GUS like this, either via GMOS or direct mode
- The few Demos, and Zone66 written for the GUS all sound OK to GOOD, but
  still much like a glorified SBlaster, probably because they all still use 8 bit
  samples (I presume), Zone66 is VERY good, but not quite in the mididemo calibre

PROBLEM TIME:
------------

- SBOS (what?! a problem!?) with the game INCA. The adlib is ok, but the
  digitised speech plays only for a few seconds (first 64K?) then stops,
  until a new sample altogether is played, again only for a few seconds,
  does any other game have this prob? Note this happened on EVERY mode on
  both the original SBOS (1.21 i think) and V2.04 which i downloaded.. HELP!

  Incidentally, the adlib music sounds werid with either version, but BETTER
  with the old SBOS, the new one is a bit out of tune some places, i still
  cant understand why they cant sample the old adlib EXACTLY, and play them as


  such, the music on most games is written for THOSE old instruments, not new
  ones which sound better on their own, but not substituted for other instruments

- This isnt a problem, more an inconvenience, I live all the way in Australia,
  and I read that to get the full set of 192 patches for midi i have to send
  in the registration card. NO!!! Living out here I doubt ill ever see them,
  plus it doesnt say if i have to add postage etc.. If i send the card in, Is
  there any other way to get the extra patches? are they on epas or wuarchive?
  Are they in the new updated install disks (that are twice as big!) Is there
  any way i can get them over the net, ill happily provide all regration details,
  serial number of the card etc. if i have to, it just seems a waste i have to
  wait probably 3 months before shipping arrives (if at all!) when i could
  get them in one day over the net. (Sorry also if this sounds like a FAQ, but
  I couldnt find this info in the faq list)

Anyway, to sum up my first day of GUS'ing: VERY impressed with the sound when
at its best, midi, this card kicks but for the price, which are some other
good midi files? and do i have to edit them to take advantage of the 1meg
I already have? (ripped them off my old 286 m'board!)

SBOS is a joke, sorry, not because of the trouble getting it to work, when it
does work the adlib sounds too different to be good, sure its stereo sometimes
and better clarity, but it just dont sound RIGHT. If I can get my old SBlaster
going in the machine along with the GUS, Ill be VERY happy because right now
Im torn between the two cards, I cant bear playing X-Wing with that slowdown
on the digitised voices, and I cant bear the INCA music the way it sounds with
SBOS, but I also cant bear NOT to have those beutiful midi files! And I cant
wait to try Star Control too.

Thats about it, Im glad I have a GUS, ill be even gladder if/when GMOS comes
out and more stuff supports native mode, but good things come to those who
wait

Adrian

P.S. Sorry about the length of this letter, the rambling I hoped I'd avoid
and ALL the questions! (Tho Id still really appreciate answers to any/all)
Anyway I'm sure a lot of you remember how excited/frustrated you felt when
you first came to terms with a GUS

P.P.S Sorry if i was a bit harsh on SBOS, its still quite a feat of programming,
but I tend to feel they COULD have made the thing sound exactly like the old
Adlib card, but in their attempts to make it sound BETTER, it actually is WORSE.

--
| [e-mail] --------| Adrian -aka- Plugger | *  * *  *   *  |  _/_\
| [e-mail] -| What time is love?   | *_*  * *_  *_  | / OZ |
| [e-mail] --| I think its gonna be | * *  *   *   * | \__-_/
| -- I want more accounts! ----| long, long time.     | *  * *  *   *  |     v

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 19:47:27 +0200


From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: John Smith? - Gravis?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Yes, it's me again. After installing the new set of disks a 7th time,
and still not getting SETGUS.EXE, ULTRINIT.EXE or ULTRAMOD.EXE to
work (they still locks up my computer - cold boot is the only remedy)
I am giving up.

I did recieve a couple of messages with tips/help from people on
the mailing list, but unfortunately, nothing did the trick,
though I'm grateful for their kind help and interest.

I re-installed the v1.22 disks, and my GUS works fine.
--------------------------------------------------------------------

Now this calls for a couple of questions:

 1. Did you guys at Gravis change the SETGUS.EXE so completely
    that it won't work (at all) on certain computers or with
    programs like QEMM and STACKER? - What changes were made?

    (I have tried to install the disks by removing QEMM and
     STACKER, but that didn't help.)

    I also read in the readme file, that there should be less
    Hardware snooping than before. I can't but think that this
    is a false statement, when that probably is the problem
    with not being able to run SETGUS, ULTRINIT, ULTRAMOD.


 2. Is it possible to see what SETGUS/ULTRINIT/ULTRAMOD does
    when executing them? I would like to see what really
    makes them hang my system.


 3. Is it possible to use the old ULTRINIT.EXE and SETUP.EXE
    instead of the new ones on the new disks without problems?
    Because that would be the only way I'd be able to use the
    new patches/utilities and SBOS, unless there is a solution
    to these problems.


 4. Will the disks you are about to ship be the same as on EPAS?

 5. How can I check that I am registered with you guys and that
    I will recieve the new disks, updates, etc? (I'm in Sweden).
    I sent my registration card to Switzerland, as it said on
    the card itself.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
I thank you for taking time, to answer these questions


and to possibly help me solving these very troublesome
problems. I like the GUS, a lot, and I don't want to go
back to a SB.

(by the way: anyone had any trouble with SBOS 2.04 with
 ALONE IN THE DARK ? - It soulds like **** on my computer!)

Thanks in advance,
Erik.

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

Date: 29 Mar 93 05:38:01 GMT
From: [e-mail] (DANIEL FALK)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lemmings 2 and GUS...
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Bueeeh! I can't get any samples in Lemmings: The Lost Tribes with my
GUS. Only Adlib sound... and it crashes quite frequent too.
Anyone else tried it yet ?

Lemmings 2 was one of the games on the GUS release list. And Trumph Castle
3 was another... no GUS support... :(

/Daniel

=============================================================================
!!      Daniel Falk          \\  " Don't quote me! No comments! "          !!
!!      ^^^^^^ ^^^^           \\               Ebenezum the Great Wizard   !!
!!      [e-mail]     \\                                          !!
!!      [e-mail]    //  Also known as the mega-famous musician  !!
!!      Jkpg, Sweeeeeden...    \\         Leinad of The Yellow Ones        !!
=============================================================================

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 23:48:53 -0500
From: KWAN  RICHARD SIK YIU <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Lost Secret of the Rainforest
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

    I've recently got this games 'Lost Secret of the Rainforest' by
Sierra which supports windows. It's a nice game, but it didn't know how
to play midi at the background unless I loaded some patches first. Also
the digital sound effects (I think is 'wav') appears sometimes only. I
do not know if the game is designed in the way that part of it has speech
and part of it hasn't.
    Is there any way to know the correct patches I need to load to
let the game play music at background (automatically or manually)?
Thanks in advance!



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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 10:09:45 EST
From: [e-mail] (Phong Co)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: More GUS questions
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Hi all,

I've got more questions about my newly-acquired GUS.  I didn't see them in
the FAQ, but feel free to flame away in any case!

1)  There are several Windows drivers in the control panel; UltraWave,
Ultrasound 512K, Ultrasound 1024K, Ultrasound Midi Output, Ultrasound Midi
Synth (to name a few from memory, actual names may be slightly different).
What are the differences between these? (Of course I know the difference
between 512K and 1024K).

2) Are there any Windows MOD players?  The epas archive lists WOWII as a
Windows player, but it seems to be a DOS program.

That's all for now.  More later, I'm sure!

--
Phong Co ([e-mail])
McGill University, Montreal, CANADA

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 14:10:02 PST
From: jericho![e-mail] (Gord Wait S-MOS Systems Vancouver Design Center)
Message-Id: <9303292210.AA13207@ jericho>
Subject: noise and 8 bit 16 bit soundfiles
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Richard Wyckoff writes:

(much stuff ommitted..)

>    I'm quite concerned about this issue, too.  I have observed two things
>about sample noise: 1) 8-bit samples (.WAV format, mostly) have an enourmous
>amount of noise in them.  I have tested this by generating a 16-bit raw sample
>in the OS/2 beta of Csound which I am testing, and then using Wave for Windows
>to turn it into both an 8-bit and a 16-bit .WAV file.  The 8-bit sample always
>sounds like there is a noisy fan recorded in the background; the 16-bit sample
>is as clean as you could hope.  I wonder if this is another example of just
>plain crappy Microsoft code?  8-bit sound naturally can't reproduce the full
>frequency spectrum of a sample, but it shouldn't induce noise.   This may
>explain the null sample noise problem.


The MAIN difference between an 8 bit sample and a 16 bit sample with


all else the same is ... NOISE!! There is unwanted noise in all digital
audio thats equal in amplitude to roughly one half the voltage of the
smallest step of audio. In an 8 bit sample, this is .5 out of 255
steps. In 16 bit this is .5 out of 65536, which is very quiet. Don't
forget, dynamic range (the usual term used when talking about digital
word sizes) is a measure of the loudest possible sound divided by the
quietest possible sound.

The other misconception here is that

"8-bit sound naturally can't reproduce the full frequency spectrum of a
sample"

Yes it can. It will just be noisy compared to a 16 bit sample. The
number of bits in a sample has little to do with the frequency response
of a digital system. I can run an 8 bit converter at 20 million samples
a second to give me almost 10 million Hz bandwidth. (Many digital video
A/D D/A chips can do this).

Much as it would be fun to blame Microsoft on the noise problem, I'm
afraid that they are off the hook on this problem..

Gord Wait     SMOS Systems Vancouver Design Centre
uunet!jericho!gord
[e-mail]
or even some days
[e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 04:43:11 -0500 (EST)
From: Greg K Chung <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Simple SBOS question
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Does any current version of SBOS allow the line in to remain on at
*all* times?  The version I have available (1.40) with the -L option
leaves the line-in on until something is actually played thru SBOS.

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 20:23:28 EDT
From: "The Punisher" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Sound Editor
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

    I was just wondering if there be anyone who knows of a good Sound
Editor.  The Ultrasound Studio 8 is excellent for recording, but I need
something like Blaster Master to edit with.  Any suggestions?

-Chris Colotti (The Punisher)



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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 12:49:49 GMT
From: [e-mail] (Dick Verweij)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Tempo-problem with gusmod2.11 (I think)
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

sysinfo: I own an amiga 500 and a PC with a gus.

With some mods, the song is still different according to the original
AMIGA-protracker play. Whith mod.Godofhellfire, the techno-beat-loop does not
loop correctly on gusmod (A short period of silence in the loop). My amiga
(with protracker) plays the song correct.
I have a 386sx25 with gus (512K).

Can this be solved? (with mod-edit or something)

--
DICK H.P. VERWEIJ

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
D:-) I:-) C:-) K:-) email : [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 13:46:40 BST
From: Jason Dore <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: UK Gus Support
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

I spoke to Optech last week. (Uk gus distributors)

They are meeting Gravis at some convention this week or next week.
After this meeting they will write to ALL UK registered GUS owners,
whether you registered with Gravis or Optech. This letter will
announce the date and details of the free software coming up. The
software should ship 2-3rd week of April.

I can't wait!

Jase.
--
| My opinions - not necessarily those of Praxis   | Jason Dore          |
| Praxis Warwick Ltd, University of Warwick,      | [e-mail] |
| Coventry, CV4 7HS                                  (Tel) 0203 692324|
| The software engineering company of Touche Ross    (Fax) 0203 692171|

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 9:05:31 EST


From: [e-mail]
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ultima 7 Part II and sbos
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Anyone having luck with Ultima 7 Part II Serpent's Isle and sbos 2.04.
It seams to work ok with sbos version 1.22, but when I run with
version 2.04 Serpent's Isle just exits and leaves the graphics mode
in 40 column format.  The U7 install program says that everything is ok.
Sbos 2.04 works fine with everything else I have.




--
Rick Ulmer                 internet:  [e-mail]
NCR MCPD Columbia              uucp:  ...!uunet!ncrlink!ncrcae!rick.ulmer
3325 Platt Springs Road       voice:  [phone]
West Columbia, SC 29169   VoicePlus:  632-6035

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 1993 10:55:15 [phone] (CST)
From: <[e-mail]> (Ronald S. Woan)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ultrabots from Novalogic noworky...
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Arggggh.... Ultrabots from Novalogic won't detect my GUS (SBOS 2.04)
as a sound blaster so I can't get any digital sound. When I force the
config, the game hangs before the login screen. I have tried "-x and
-x2."

I sent a note to the game author on Prodigy too and will summarize his
response when I receive it.

+------All Views Expressed Are My Own And Not Necessarily Shared By IBM-----+
+ Ronald S. Woan       (IBM VNET)WOAN AT AUSTIN, [e-mail] +
+ outside of IBM                       [e-mail] or [e-mail] +
+ others     [e-mail] Prodigy: XTCR74A Compuserve: 73530,2537 +

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 10:21:35 EST
From: [e-mail] (Peter ng)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: UltraSound and SBPro
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Regardring Pccmoddan's message about using a SBPro and an UltraSound in the same machine, I too have almost the same configuration: SbPro 2.0 with IRQ7, Address 220H and DMA 1 with the UltraSound at Address 260H, IRQ 7, GUSIRQ11, MIDIRQ12. Thing is, it works ok with the SBPro normally. No problem. But with Falcon 3.0, I had to run sbos first and then run ultrinit to initialise it again. Then falcon 3.0 works with the SbPro. Is there any workaround this? Wolfenstein 3D
works only this way too. Also, with the proposed GMOS emulator, is it possible
to run say, X-Wing, with the General Midi and Sound Blaster option? (With the
Ultrasound pumping out the Midi music and the SbPro giving out the digitized sound?



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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 15:26 EST
From: "Matthew E. Bernold" <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #84
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

>Date: 29 Mar 1993 01:17:16 +0800
>From: TC <[e-mail]>
>Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
>Subject: More GMOS
>To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>
>
>
>> Actually it doesn't even require the cooperation of the conpanies.  I am
>> sure there are more than a few hackers out there, who could decipher the
>> GM instructions in games, and make a "patch" for such games to remap the
>> whole game to 1meg worth of patches.
>
>I wonder why no one caught the reference to option (3) which I mentioned
>should allow GMOS to determine the patch changes during a particular
>run. For example, you run 'GMOS -cxwing.cfg' and GMOS will collect any
>MIDI patch change information throughout this particular session and
>save it to a .cfg file. It can then load this file later to load the
>required patches. Of course, this is not fail safe. A program might need
>more than 1MB worth of patches throughout the whole run. Thus, dynamic
>loading will STILL have to be supported.
>
>This way we won't see people posting 'does anyone have a patch map for
>so-and-so game?'. They can do it themselves.

This is a decent approach to it, but I see at least one problem:
What happens if the end scene of the game (when you "win") uses an
instrument not used in the rest of the game?  Then, when you make your *.cfg
file, it will not have that patch in it, so GMOS will not load that patch.

This can happen at any time in the game that you get a new piece of music.
Every time you make it to a new level, your sound could be messed up, with
pieces missing.  I realize this is a fixable problem, but it is something
that we are going to have to take into concideration.  After all, I don't
want to finish a game, and find out that I have to finish it again to
hear the music right... :-)

>
>Date: 28-MAR-1993 13:41:01.41
>From: Richard Wyckoff <[e-mail]>
>Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
>Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #83
>To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>
>
>[A word about Xwing, again...]


>> From: Eric N. Liao <[e-mail]>
>> Subject: GMOS
>
>> Anyway, next time I run X-Wing, I will try the MPU-401 setting.
>> Also, I found that John Smith's solution to game slowdown during digitized  x
>sf
>> works perfectly.
>        I find this a little ironic, considering that I (and others) posted
>this solution long before John got around to it...well, it's "John Smith's
>solution" now, I guess :)  [actually, I got one supportive email when I posted
>it, so I'm not *really* complaining.]
>
If this actually works (haven't had time to check it out, but tonight...)
then all we have to do to implement GMOS is to add digital SB support without
losing GM ability.  This should not be impossible, but it may be difficult.

       Matthew E. Bernold             [e-mail]
         <<APOCALYPSE>>                  [e-mail]

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 23:45:33 MES
From: [e-mail] (Axel Fischer)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: USS8 questions
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

Hi,

first of all I have version 1.01 of USS8. Is there an update available
via ftp or still the latest version?

Ok, here are my questions:
Today I played the first time ever with sampling :-) I have attached my
CD player to Line IN and choose 44Khz, Stereo for most quality.
Than I started recording and everything worked fine. Until I hit the
45 second marker. Than the recording stops. No matter what I do, I can't
record more than 45 seconds. This was 3.9MB on my harddrive. I have plenty
of space left on my drive. Why can I only record such a short time?
The manual says I can record (or sample) up to 1 minute. I can't reach that
no matter what I try.
And if I could reach 1 minute, why can't I sample until I run out of
diskspace?

Is there a better program that replaces USS8 that runs under Windows?
I could use my CD-ROM when I get a Windows prg, with USS8 I have to attach
the CDPlayer from my hifi-tower. With the soundrecorder from windows I
can sample 60 seconds, but this program samples in 22Khz mono.

Could anyone please enligthen me on the proper technique for sampling?

Thanks much and please reply via mail.



-Axel

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

Date: Mon, 29 Mar 93 13:42:39 BST
From: Jason Dore <[e-mail]>
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Subject: Zone66 Parity errors
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <[e-mail]>

To the person who mentioned Zone66 and parity errors...

I too had my first 'off board parity error' when I started playing
zone66. The very first time it happened was when I put an autoexec
onto the dos5 boot disk:

c:
cd games\zone66
zone66

When I booted with this floppy I got the parity error. Strange. Soft
booting, nor reset-button-prodding would not clear the error (with
boot disk now removed). Switch-off-and-on did clear the problem.

I've also had this when I've not rese the machine between using
windows and playing zone66, and vice versa.

It doesn't really bother me as I can always get it to work provided I
remember to reset the machine.

Why does this happen?

Otherwise, I'm very happy with my GUS, sounds great. 8-bit recording
(in windows) seems pretty crap to me though. Does Zone66 fully utilise
the GUS? - it seems distorted in the upper ranges.

Jase

| My opinions - not necessarily those of Praxis   | Jason Dore          |
| Praxis Warwick Ltd, University of Warwick,      | [e-mail] |
| Coventry, CV4 7HS                                  (Tel) 0203 692324|
| The software engineering company of Touche Ross    (Fax) 0203 692171|

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #85
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