Experimental BBS Explossion 3/Experimental BBS Explossion III.iso/gus/digestv3.zip/V3N22.TXT

Text File | 1993-04-26 | 25KB | 634 lines

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Thu, 22 Apr 1993     Volume 3 : Issue  22

Today's Topics:
                    Finale and Cakewalk in Windows
                      Gus & Cakewalk for Windoze
                          GUS Dram Problems
                          joysticks and mice
                          Shareware support
                              subscribe
     Why do my patches sound bad? & 2 noises are better than one
                        windows mouse problems

    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: Wed, 21 Apr 93 11:16:16 EDT
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  21-Apr-1993 1116" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Finale and Cakewalk in Windows
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

[e-mail] (Tony) says:

>For those of you like me who want a good but affordable combination of music
>software and soundcard, Finale version 2.2 now supports Windows multimedia
>extensions. This, of course, means that it will drive the GUS. This means
>you can now obtain sound from Finale without an MPU401 interface.

Also, check out MusicProse by the same company.  It has a bit less functionality
for a lot less money.  The neat thing is that with MusicProse, you get (at least
when I bought it) a coupon worth something like $200 ($250??) toward upgrading
to Finale. But the neat thing is that the coupon is worth more than you will pay
for MusicProse at a reasonable mail order place like PC Connection.  This is in
the US of course; I don't know if it is true elsewhere.  But whatever the case,
most of you won't need the capability of Finale anyway!  MusicProse is more
limited in the total number of parts (but still a lot).  I can't even remember
what else.  Nothing I have run into!

and <[e-mail] (Jacuqe Andre' Bussey) says,

>    Has anyone gotten the GUS to work with CakeWalk For windoze?


>If so please post a detailed description of exactly wht you did and what
>settings you used!

Yep.  I did not have to do anything special except manually load the patches I
need.  When you do the MIDI setup in Cakewalk you get a chance to select the
MIDI device you want.  In fact, I believe you can select several MIDI devices
and then choose which track to send to which device.  Make sure you are using
Ultrasound Synth, and not Ultrasound MIDI Out.  Also note that you can set up
Cakewalk so that instead of patch numbers, it will tell you the instrument
names.  You just set up a map (and GM is supplied).  Sorry, I can't remember
where all of these are exactly, but that is just gilding the lilly.  The real
things you need to remember are:

1) Preload the patches...CWW does not do patch caching

2) Make sure you use Ultrasound Synth, not MIDI

3) Make sure all the tracks you want to play are set to use the Ultraound Synth.

Oh, BTW, a real PITA is that you have to load the patches BEFORE you start
Cakewalk.  I thought that the latest Windows drivers were multi-user, but for
some reason CW takes over the whole thing anyway.

Burns

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

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 10:38:32 BST
From: Chris Boucher <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Gus & Cakewalk for Windoze
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Cakewalk (I used the demo version) doesn't currently support patch
caching, so you need to load the patches directly using the patch
manager. Here's what I did...

    1. Run the patch manager.
    2. Turn OFF midi thru in the patch manager - this stops it from
       stealing the midi in from Cakewalk.
    3. Run Cakewalk.

You should now be able to switch between the patch manager and Cakewalk
without any problems.

Chris.

--
Dr Chris Boucher                            Tel: [phone]
Signal Processing and Control Group         Fax: [phone]
Institute of Sound and Vibration Research   Email: [e-mail]
University of Southampton, Southampton S09 5NH, England

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



Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 9:27:57 CDT
From: Joe Cheng <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS Dram Problems
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

I installed a set of 256x4 70ns drams into my GUS to icrease my memory up to
1 Meg and everything seemed fine until I ftp'ed a dram checker from archive
that showed that I only have 768k of dram with bank 2 being bad.  Problem
is that this error is very erratic, if I boot up my system from cold, and then
run the dram check, it shows that I have 1024k with all banks being good, but
after I run either SBOS 2.04 or windows and then recheck, it shows the error
first described.  Is it that you need to stick with 80ns chips (which the local
stores are currently out of so I got the 70ns), or replace my first bank with
70ns chips also, bad chips, or is my computer (Gateway 2000 486sx-25) frying
the board?  Any help or comments would be appreciated.

Thanks,

-Joe-

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

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 02:16:02 +0700 (MST)
From: Adam Cowen <[e-mail]>
Subject: joysticks and mice
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Problem 1: Joystick.
 When playing some games like lemmings2, I get the wierdest things
happening. If I am using SBOS and a joystick there are problems. It seems
that whenever there is a digitized sound the game will move the cursor up
and to the right as if it had been moved(and it wasn't) Music is cool, but
sounds like squished lemms and all that produce the problem. It has only
happened since I started using the gus's game port. And that ticks me off
since I bought a new com card for just that reason. I also use the
ultrajoy program.

Problem 2: Mouse
 When playing ultrabots or lemmings or whatever, every so often my mouse
driver will get corrupted and it goes all freaky. Again using sbos2.04.
Well the problem may be SBOS, but it is most possibly my cheap Genius
Mouse (it sucks big time). But just wondering if any other netters had any
problems.

FYI my setup is as follows:
386-40, 4M RAM, 1M GUS (latest rev), gus software 2.05, PVGA 512k, dos 6.0
(no dblspace)

Umm about the 2.05 disks, I wouldn't waste my time d/l them, since I think
that the only new thing is that they come with sbos2.04. I am going to do
a comprehensive check on each file and report any differences, but so far
that is all that has changed. I will do a follow-up on that one.



Also if you are having troubles when using memory managers, you should try
increasing the dma buffers. And I think (pretty sure) that if you are
using QEMM you can disable virtual DMA's by using the NOVDMA switch.

Also I had a lot of problems when letting memmaker (c/w dos6) load stuff
high for me. As soon as I went back to doing it myself all problems seemed
to fade. I was having problems like not being able to manually load things
high, hanging when freeing things that were previously lh'd, erratic
functioning of programs, etc. So save yourself a headache and don't use it.

Enough rambling tho, I will stop wasting space. Thanks to all in advance.

ciao,
Adam Cowen
[e-mail]

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

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 08:42:59 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Adam K. Rixey" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Shareware support
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

> BTW:  Anyone heard about any upcoming support from Apogee,
> Epic, or Id for the GUS?  Maybe if we bug them enough... ^_^

   Epic is going to support the GUS; I know for a fact that
Renaissance's game Cyberstrike to be released by Epic will have full GUS
support (i.e. - 8 or 16 track music, last I heard).
   Jay Wilbur at Id has said that Doom will support the GUS; it might
not in it's initial release, but they would create a patch for it if
that was the case.  He's hinted that it might use the Ultrasound 3D, but
I'm not sure on that point.
   I've yet to see a message about it from Apogee.

    - AkR
    - [e-mail]
___
Hey, kids, now there's a free shoggoth in every box of Sugar Coated Cthooloops!

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

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 10:11:11 -0400 (EDT)
From: Kevin Holly <[e-mail]>
Subject: subscribe
Message-ID: <Pine.2.4.9304211049.A28977@mcmail>



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

Date: 21 Apr 1993   02:38:46 PST


From: chrisw <[e-mail]>
Subject: Why do my patches sound bad? & 2 noises are better than one
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

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

Just dusted off the drum kit and microphones to try and record some better
drum patches on the gus (well, not quite ...)

Anyway, the basic problem I seem to have is that files that sound fine as
.wav files sound pretty awful when I convert them to patches using either
Wav2pat or the Ped program. I'm not sure, but the quality of playback just
seems much lower - kind of noisy and lacking in definition: anyone know why?

By the way, I'm using the inbuilt 8-bit recording, but as I said, the .wav
files sound O.K. - you can tell the difference from the originals, but
they sure sound better than the drum patches that came with the GUS. (That
awful snare drum is really getting to me).


On to another issue. Anyone considered the possibility of creating patches
with 2 oscillators rather than one? I've been fooling around with playing
two sounds at once from my keyboard (sending note messages out on two
midi channels) and the results seem quite promising.

For example, get the somewhat boring 'rhodes piano' patch playing on two
channels. Pan one of the channels to the left (using controller 10
mesages) and the other to the right. Then make one channel slightly out of
tune with the other (using a pitch bend message - I set it up from a non-
spring-loaded controller wheel so I can fiddle with it a bit). The result is
a rich, 'chorussy' electric piano sound with good stereo depth. Try
it out with headphones on! The same trick with bass guitars produces a
sort of oily 'flanged bass' sound.

Other tricks to try include a similar thing with different noises on the two
channels. Try ensemble strings 1 and synth strings 2 in different stereo
positions (although better to have them at 1/4 and 3/4 rather than all the way).
Gets a much fuller sound than either one seperately.

Looking forward a bit, once we have a good patch editor running, why not use
a 2 oscillator system as a type of poor man's filter? Get a fairly bright
patch, filter it down and save it as another patch, then play back the two
with the amplitude decaying much faster on the unfiltered patch. A similar
trick could be used for key velocities: have different velocity curves for
the two noises so that harder key presses get more of the brighter noise and
less of the mellower noise. (Can use the same sort of thing with completely
different noises as well eg. a brass and synth combination that gets brassier
as you hit it harder).

Obviously, the main trade off involved is using two oscillators for every
one note, but this is the fun thing about having 32 oscillators. How do you
intend to use them all up otherwise? (and remember, you PAID for all 32!)



What would be needed to do this is some sort of driver to intercept messages
sent from a sequencer or whatever to the GUS and echo them out on more than
one channel. (Just wondered whether Midi Mapper can actually do this. But I
think it goes the other way: maps lots of channels into one). Also some
sort of user interface would be needed to set things up easily.

Just thought I'd raise the issue, anyway. I know that Gusorgan and Spltmidi
are programs looking in this direction, but it would be much more useful if
these sorts of ideas were in a driver rather than in an application
program. (Well, at least one person (me!) would like to use a sequencer at the
same time).

Anyway, once my non-demo version of Cakewalk for Windows arrives (which was
MEANT to be today) I'll try to demonstrate a few of these tricks in some
midi files. By the way, has anyone actually written something from scratch
on a GUS yet (using the dreaded inbuilt noises) or should I consider myself
a pioneer?

Chris.








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Ultrasound Daily Digest     Wed, 21 Apr 1993     Volume 3 : Issue  21

Today's Topics:
            2 new patches for GUS
               [GUS] and Monster Bash!
      [GUS] Programming a simple sampleplayer for large samples
              Alone in the Dark problems
            Dead mouse in windows


             Finale & Windows 3.1
               games & dblspace
              Gus & Cakewalk for Windoze
                GUS in DOS BOX
               Last Attempt (a promise)
               Links 386 w/GUS
             misunderstanding on DOS BOX
               News reader host
       Ok, maybe I am stupid, but COMANCHE IS WORKING!!
                 OS/2 drivers
            Ultrasound Daily Digest V3 #16
             UW I with SBOS 2.04
            WINJAMMER - MIDI files too big

    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: Tue, 20 Apr 93 11:34:02 CDT
From: [e-mail] (Dale Eason)
Subject: Re: 2 new patches for GUS
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

Any one interested in pipe organ voices for the GUS can find two pat files
included in the gusorg.exe file at epas.  They are princ8.pat and bourd4.pat
which are samples of an 8 foot principal and 4 foot bourdon.  The samples
were first made using uss8.  Since that made them 8 bit samples and a little
bit noisy, I then used my own sound analyzer based on Csound's hetro analysis
to resynthasyze them to 16 bits.

Dale Eason

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

Date: 19 Apr 1993 23:11:54 -0400
From: [e-mail] (Neal Ensor)
Subject: [GUS] and Monster Bash!
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard

Anyone else have trouble getting this new Apogee creation to
work properly with the GUS?  I've tried several settings, and
each time I get most of the way through the first level (or any


level..) using Soundblaster effects, it will hit a point that
it starts a sound, then never stops...  This produces a nasty
lockup effect, from which I must reboot.  Anybody having any
luck with it?  I get the soundtrack just fine, but I'd like
those digitized effects (I mean, the PC speaker just isn't the
same! :) )  Is this one of those where an older version of
SBOS is in order?  (Using 2.04).

Any help would be appreciated...   My setup is as follows:

386DX/40MHz, 16 megs RAM, using DOS 6.0 with EMM386 EMS
drivers.  Using SBOS version 2.04.

         Neal Ensor
         [e-mail]

BTW:  Anyone heard about any upcoming support from Apogee,
Epic, or Id for the GUS?  Maybe if we bug them enough... ^_^

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

Date: 21 Apr 93 01:31:50
From: [e-mail] (Aula Janne)
Subject: [GUS] Programming a simple sampleplayer for large samples
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.GUS

I need to be able to play very large (maybe 10 Megs) stereo samples
(sampled at slow frequency, ~10000 Hz) with a Gravis. I have studied
the docs (and the sources) in wuarchive.wustl.edu, and came up with
a few questions about using Gus's memory as a double buffer for the
incoming sample.

But first, is this kind of thing possible to do with
the technical data (and knowledge?) *available* in the net?
I think I must rely 100% on the net.wisdom as the SDK just seems
too hard to get. Can't help to wonder what is the marketing strategy
Gravis is applying..

Anyway,

Double buffering would be an easy one, if there just existed an exact
way to determine when the card has played the buffer till the end.
Polling the byte location every 1/(10000 Hz) seconds feels rude not
mention the trouble of filling the second buffer in a timer interrupt
handler. Is there a way to force GUS to make an IRQ after reaching the end
of a voice sample? That would solve the problem nicely.

IO-based writing into GUS's memory should be more than enough for a
stereo sample at 10000Hz, but does there exists any info on the issue of
DMA transfers into the gus's memory? It should really be rather simple,
all the GUS needs to know is where to put the data DMAC feeds in..



Comments? Hints? Sources? Please do mail. The deadline.. :-)

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

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:38:34 CST
From: Richard Tamura <[e-mail]>
Subject: Re: Alone in the Dark problems
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

I was getting weird sound in Alone in the Dark.  One option is to
choose no DMA as Marcus said... However, this slows down the game
noticeably when there's digitized sound on my DX2-66.  The game works
fine for me when I boot up with QEMM with the stealth feature
disabled.  If you are not using QEMM, then please ignore this! :)

Seeya,

- Richard

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

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 93 10:32:35 EDT
From: [e-mail] (Andy Mix)
Subject: Dead mouse in windows
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

About 1/3 to 1/2 of the time when I start up windows, I have no
mouse; no hourglass cursor and then no arrow.  I have to <ctrl> F
to exit windows and restart again.  Next time it's fine.  This
seemed to coincide with loading the 2.01 disks window driver.
I do not have DOS 6.0 yet, so I can't blame the problem on that.
Someone else had mentioned this problem a while ago, but I never
saw anything more about it.  Anybody else seeing this or have any
clues?

-Andy

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

Date: 21 Apr 1993 10:17:21 +1000
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Finale & Windows 3.1
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

For those of you like me who want a good but affordable combination of music
software and soundcard, Finale version 2.2 now supports Windows multimedia
extensions. This, of course, means that it will drive the GUS. This means
you can now obtain sound from Finale without an MPU401 interface.

Tony

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



Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 04:27:36 -0600 (CST)
From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" <[e-mail]>
Subject: games & dblspace
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

I have seen and heard about a lot of problems with game compatibility
and dblspace.  The strangest thing is that the problems seem
to be erratic.  Some days the game will work on a compressed
volume, some days it won't.  I have seen this and heard about
this with numerous titles.  All the ones that I've personally
seen are games that store their files in a compressed form
to begin with.

This is an emerging problem that has yet to be defined or solved.

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

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 00:19:44 EDT
From: Hard On The Beaver <[e-mail]>
Subject: Gus & Cakewalk for Windoze
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

    Has anyone gotten the GUS to work with CakeWalk For windoze?
If so please post a detailed description of exactly wht you did and what
settings you used!

Thanks,

Jacuqe Andre' Bussey

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

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 04:25:49 -0600 (CST)
From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" <[e-mail]>
Subject: GUS in DOS BOX
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

The problem with SBOS in a Windows DOS Box is well known to the
techs, and John Smith has told me that Forte will have a fix
for the problem in the next SBOS, due end of April.  In the
meantime, just remove SBOS before starting Windows. (SBOS -F)

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

Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 03:08:44 +0200
From: [e-mail]
Subject: Last Attempt (a promise)
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

So, no help for this poor old fella' with his NEW SET OF DISKS INSTALLATION
problems, huh? Not even from Mr. John 'Gravis' Smith? (I gave up after that
7th try, in case anyone wondered). SETUP and ULTRINIT still doesn't work.


Still locks my computer.

Well well well.. not to worry, I use the old v1.22 disks instead, until
I can put my hands on a working SoundBlaster 16 or something. I can always
use the Ensoniq chip for something else.

A few views on the new .MID pack for the GUS 2.01 disks though -

STRIVING:     Everything runs smooth on all channels Except for the 1st one.
          The Piano sounds Really flakey around C7. Like it was another
          sound in fact.

BIKES   :     Terrible! What *are* those sounds? I can't listen to it.
          And I can't believe it's supposed to sound like this!

TECHNO78:     Is the Trumpet really the 'main' instrument in this tune?

A-BRIDGE:     Can someone tell me what sound Channel 09 is supposed to be?

 -------------------------------------------------------------------------
 - Erik

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

Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1993 04:38:37 -0600 (CST)
From: "Neil D. Danylczuk" <[e-mail]>
Subject: Links 386 w/GUS
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>

The following is a message I saw by Scott Hawley regarding
exactly how to run Links 386 with the GUS.
Since he wrote this, Links 1.08 and DOS 6.0 have come
out, though.  Keep that in mind.  The suggestions are
very useful anyway.  Someone might want to add this to
the FAQ?

:::::::::

Links 386 Pro (Access Software)
UltraSound Setup

Version
You must  be using Links 386 Pro version 1.05 or newer.  Version 1.05
fixes some with the sound.  To find out your version #, type LINKS386 /V
from the directory.  Version 1.05 can be found on most bulletin board
systems by calling Access Software Directly (1-800-793-8324).

Memory
Links 386 Pro comes with it's own memory manager.  Access Software
does not using QEMM with Links 386 Pro.  It has been our experience
that Links 386 Pro works best without any expanded memory driver, including
EMM386.EXE.  Conclusion: Don't use EMM386.EXE (or any other expanded memory
driver)!



According to Access Software, you must use the HIMEM.SYS driver that
comes with 5.0 (not the one that comes with Windows 3.1).  If you use the
driver that comes with Windows 3.1, then Links will probably crash.

Links Configuration
Once you have your computer's memory set up as above, and you have
installed Links 386 Pro version 1.05, you are ready to begin.  You must delete
the configuration file in the LINKS386 subdirectory called LINKS386.CFG.

SBOS
Because Links 386 Pro "looks for" a specific version of the Sound
Blaster card, you must run SBOS with the -X2 option.  Example:  SBOS -X2

Running Links
Links must be run with the /S option, which eliminates possible device
conflicts with sound cards.  Example:  LINKS386 /S or GOLF /S.

You should then go to the "Options" menu and select "Sound Options."
Choose the Sound Blaster option.  At this point, Links should set up
(by itself) for DMA channel 1, and interrupt 7.  You should change
this to whatever is listed for the "I" option in your SET BLASTER=
line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, usually 5.

Try "pressing" the TEST SOUND button on the screen.  Yo
Try "pressing" the TEST SOUND button on the screen.  Yo