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" Subject: Re: Finale and Cakewalk in Windows Message-ID: <9304211516.AA28057@us2rmc.bb.dec.com> PHTH1@cc.newcastle.edu.au (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 <0096B563.1FE835E0.1162@ualr.edu (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 Subject: Re: Gus & Cakewalk for Windoze Message-ID: <141.9304210938@mail.soton.ac.uk> 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: (+44 703) 592300 Signal Processing and Control Group Fax: (+44 703) 593033 Institute of Sound and Vibration Research Email: ccb@soton.ac.uk University of Southampton, Southampton S09 5NH, England ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Apr 93 9:27:57 CDT From: Joe Cheng Subject: GUS Dram Problems Message-ID: <9304211427.AA16227@post.its.mcw.edu> 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 Subject: joysticks and mice Message-ID: 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 cowen@ee.ualberta.ca ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 08:42:59 -0400 (EDT) From: "Adam K. Rixey" Subject: Re: Shareware support Message-ID: <4fpI5HO00WB842nW0s@andrew.cmu.edu> > 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 - ar2w@andrew.cmu.edu ___ 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 Subject: subscribe Message-ID: ------------------------------ Date: 21 Apr 1993 02:38:46 PST From: chrisw Subject: Why do my patches sound bad? & 2 noises are better than one Message-ID: <9304210939.AA20445@leland.Stanford.EDU> ------------ 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. ------------ Forwarded Message Received: from dsd.ES.COM ([130.187.85.113]) by orca.es.com (4.1/SMI-4.1) id AA03505; Wed, 21 Apr 93 00:30:11 MDT Errors-To: ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com Received: from itchy (itchy.dsd.ES.COM) by dsd.ES.COM (4.1/SMI-4.1/e&s_server-2.1/dsd) id AA07362; Wed, 21 Apr 93 00:30:18 MDT Errors-To: ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com Received: by itchy (5.61/1.34) id AA18492; Wed, 21 Apr 93 00:29:43 -0600 Message-Id: <9304210629.AA18492@itchy> Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1993 00:07:09 -0500 (CDT) Errors-To: Ultrasound Digest Owner From: Ultrasound Daily Digest Request Reply-To: Ultrasound Daily Digest Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V3 #21 Apparently-To: chrisw@leland.stanford.edu 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: eason@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dale Eason) Subject: Re: 2 new patches for GUS Message-ID: <9304201634.AA15505@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM> 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: ensor@cs.utk.edu (Neal Ensor) Subject: [GUS] and Monster Bash! Message-ID: <1qvplqINN213@duncan.cs.utk.edu> 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 ensor@cs.utk.edu 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: jao@cc.tut.fi (Aula Janne) Subject: [GUS] Programming a simple sampleplayer for large samples Message-ID: 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 Subject: Re: Alone in the Dark problems Message-ID: <9304201038.A11015@okway.okstate.edu> 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: amix@gvls2.VFL.Paramax.COM (Andy Mix) Subject: Dead mouse in windows Message-ID: <9304201432.AA06323@gvls2.VFL.Paramax.COM> 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 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: PHTH1@cc.newcastle.edu.au Subject: Finale & Windows 3.1 Message-ID: <01GX9PJGNQIQ8WYC49@cc.newcastle.edu.au> 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" Subject: games & dblspace Message-ID: 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 Subject: Gus & Cakewalk for Windoze Message-ID: <0096B563.1FE835E0.1162@ualr.edu> 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" Subject: GUS in DOS BOX Message-ID: 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: chief@lysator.liu.se Subject: Last Attempt (a promise) Message-ID: <9304210108.AA01775@ruben.lysator.liu.se> 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" Subject: Links 386 w/GUS Message-ID: 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