Ultrasound Daily Digest     Wed, 10 Feb 93       Volume 2 : Issue  38 

Today's Topics:
						A most Excellent Card!
					   DSP: What does it mean?
								 GUS
							  GUS stuff
						 GUS technical specs
					  GUS vs. PAS for music/MIDI
					   Help: GUS MIDI problems
					 MidiSoft and our New Patches
				   Problem with ultrasound archive?
		  The version of GUS that is currently shipping...?
					Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #37
						   USS8 under OS/2
							 Wav -> Pat ?
						 X-Wing Demo and GUS

	Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as
mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found
at the end of the Digest.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 16:17:38 +0800 (WST)
From: ruffus@tartarus.uwa.edu.au (Roderick Nasir DAVID)
Message-Id: <199302090817.AA29197@tartarus.uwa.edu.au>
Subject: A most Excellent Card!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

	Hi guys,
	
		I am most impressed with the Gravis Ultrasound.
	It is a WICKED card! I just got my (Filthy,grubby....) hands
	on DUNE 2.With the 1.22 ver of SBOS it sounds GREAT! I had 
	the chance to listen to it (the game) on the SoundBlaster Pro
	and there is no sound difference between them.On the Gravis,
	all the samples played well as well as the music.This was
	using SBOS with no switches.
		I used to have a SBPRO with midi and all that Jazz.
	I ditched it and got the Gravis instead because when you 
	actually USE the SBPRO you will quickly find that it is
	not 'The Sound Standard' as quoted by many of the ads and
	even the Magazines(Especially The ones here in Oz).Ok,
	there are some incompats' with the OLD games for the SB
	but all the new stuff comming out is fine.
		The ave price here in Australia is $270 (thats
		Australian!) whereas the SBRO is $360.Pretty good deal.
		Good on ya Gravis.You lot have made a good card on
	new technology and besides, you've chucked the 2 fingers up
	valiantly in the air at Creative Labs.EFFORT!


					Later

				Nasir David
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
	Remember..
		  Why Buy A book when you can Join a Library?
-------------------------------------------------------------Nasir--------

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 12:40:03 MST
From: Stuart Yoshida <yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com>
Message-Id: <9302091940.AA07482@elektra.fc.hp.com>
Subject: DSP: What does it mean?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I recently corrsponded with Bjorn (bjornhk@sofus.dhhalden.no) about what
we understood DSP to mean, and I thought it would be worthwhile to share
with the net the things we discussed.

An area of possible confusion is the acronym "DSP."  Most people
probably agree on what DSP stands for:  Digital Signal
Processing/Processor.  But beyond that there is room for interpretation.

To most muscians and home studio hobbyist, DSP is a generic term that is
associated with an outboard effects box.  At home, my "black box"
(actually I have two black boxes:  an ART SGE Mach II and a Digitech
128+) has a DSP chip that performs algorithms on the signal to do pitch
shifting, delay, flanging, chorusing, reverb, EQ, etc.  Therefore I
would guess that the majority of muscians and music hobbyist would
assume that a card with a DSP would perform some type of EFFECTS
PROCESSING.

However, a DSP can do more than just effects processing.  A DSP can also
do digital recording, mixing, and editing.  BUT if you tell an audience
of muscians and music hobbyist that a card has a DSP, my guess is that
they will automatically assume that it has effects processor
capabilities.

For example, when people talk about the Turtle Beach Multisound card,
they say that it can do 16-bit recording *AND* has a DSP.  Well, that's
somewhat redundant.  If you can do 16-bit recording, then OF COURSE it
has a DSP!  How else can you digitally sample and process sound without
a DSP?  But that's not what people are talking about when they say that
the Multisound comes with a DSP.  They mean that the Multisound comes
with a built-in effects processor that can add reverb, chorusing, and
delay to the signal.

So, if you ask me the question:  "What do you expect of a DSP?"  My
answer would be:  "I expect it to perform effects processing."  And I
say this even though I know a DSP can do more than just effects
processing.  I make this assumption because I'm a muscian.

When Chris Yuzik said that the 16-bit digital recording card will NOT
have a DSP, he was correct because I'm a muscian, and so is he.
Therefore we were on the same wavelength and we both knew what we were
talking about:  the 16-bit card will NOT have effects processing
capabilities.  However, strictly speaking the 16-bit card *WILL* have a
DSP to handle tasks such as recording, mixing, splicing, and editing.

Now...  whether Gravis will come out with a separate DSP card (read:
effects processor) is another question ;-) :-) :-)

--

  Stuart Yoshida

Internet: yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com
   Voice: (303) 229-2324

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

Date: 7 Feb 93 19:42:00 GMT
From: scott.hryniuk@outlan.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca (Scott Hryniuk)
Message-Id: <8005.22.uupcb@outlan.ersys.edmonton.ab.ca>
Subject: GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hi there.. I have a few questions about the GUS..

1.   Is it 16 bit or 8 bit

2.  Will it play MODS at 44.1 Khz Stereo

3.  What is the compatibility.. (SBPRO,SB??)

4.  Which would be better.. PAS+ or GUS

5.  How is the software included.. players for vocs,waves,win drivers??

6.  What kind of CD-ROM device does it have

7.  What does the RAM do for the card?

8.  What are the ports on the back?

9.  Does it have an amp.. (the PAS has a 4 watt / channel amp)

10.  What chip does it use for MIDI, Digital Sound..

11.  What other features does it have in the way of mods, wavs, and
other sound formats

12. How do you control the volume.. (on the PAS it is Ctrl-Alt D,U,M..)

13. Other general features..

I know this may be a long list of questions, but I can get a GUS with a
trade in of my PAS+, I want to know if I should.. I usually use the card
for MODS, WAVS, VOCS, and other games + windows.. Which is a better card
and should I get the GUS or stay with the PAS+.. Thanx
									  

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 14:47:24 MST
From: george@ll.mit.edu (George Valaitis)
Message-Id: <9302092147.AA02310@dsd.ES.COM>
Subject: GUS stuff
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have been thinking of purchasing a GUS card.  I want to record to disk
at the full 16 bit sampling rate for minutes at a time.

Will the GUS be able to do this?  OR will the 8-bit ISA interface slow
it down too much?

I am running a 33MHz 486DX2 (66 MHz internal).

Thanks,
George

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 1993 13:02:01 +0200
From: Jari Kivel{ <jkivela@utu.fi>
Message-Id: <93Feb9.130207eet.10496-2@utu.fi>
Subject: GUS technical specs
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I would like to know some technical specs about GUS.
They include for example singnal to noise ratio,
frequency response, distortion etc. In fact any tech
specs are welcome.

Thank you!
Jari Kivela     jkivela@polaris.cc.utu.fi

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 09:47:42 CST
From: ken@batman.austin.ibm.com (Ken Goach)
Message-Id: <9302091547.AA28733@batman.austin.ibm.com>
Subject: GUS vs. PAS for music/MIDI
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

#>from 2 knowledgible persons (?)  Is the PAS 16 a better buy
#>at the moment than the GUS if 16 bit digitization and playback
#>plus editing and sequencing software are important in my 
#>application?  The local price of the Gus is $170 Canadian and
#
#Well, if I understand your needs right, the GUS would be a better deal. 
#Although it only can do 8-bit samples yet, you still have the freedom to use 
#*any* waveform sample as an instrument. On the PAS, you're limited to the 
#low-quality sounds the FM-synthesizer can produce. You can actually get the 
#16-bit daughterboard and the GUS for about the same price as the PAS (in 
#your situation).

Exactly. The PAS may record at 16 bit, but until there's a waveform
player added, it's still just a slight improvement over a SB. That
improvement is 16-bit recording.

Don't forget that people are working on new patches (like Francois),
and others are importing sounds from other devices via sysex (and
trying to get a stable, repeatable process). There's also a WAV
to PAT converter, and it works pretty well. Ideally, Gravis will
someday release software to make PAT's (and multisample PAT's).

For me, the GUS was the obvious choice. I play some games, but I
didn't demand that it work flawlessly right out of the box with
every game on the market. Cause I'm not gonna buy every game on
the market. I bought it for musical applications as well. I've
had great success using it in my home "studio" as a sound module
for MIDI work. I've done some really nice orchestral things, and
lately I'm using it via MIDI as a souped-up drum machine. Run 
through my ART effects processor with some reverb, it sounds
fantastic. I'll be using it on all the guitar music I record.
I'll also be getting more and more into MIDI, I'm sure (it's
like a black hole - you can't escape its pull!).

So, in short, I'm having great success. i couldn't have gotten
the same results with an FM card.


#Unless you can find a program that play waveforms when 
#triggered from the MIDI-port, that is.

Cakewalk Pro for Windows will trigger WAV files from MIDI
sequences, but this is no way to write music. Keyboard
magazine recently did a big article about Windows and MIDI,
and they touched on this feature. They found that there are
*major* timing problems with this. For example, they inserted
a WAV event, and they played the sequence like 8 times. Each
time, the WAV played in a different place! I don't think it
*ever* happened on the beat where it was supposed to. Now
imagine an entire song written with WAV's - it would *never*
be timed correctly. Every part would be out of synch. Plus
there may be a limit on how many WAV's Cakewalk can play
at once.

Another unkown that would make PAS 16-bit WAV's unusable
for music is the sampling rate/pitch correlation. You are
not going to get neat mutlisamples from a PAS. If you play
back the original WAV an octave lower, it will sound funny,
be longer, etc. That's *if* there's a sequencer that will
vary the playback rate of a WAV!

For the price, the GUS is the way to go. Someday PAS may follow
SB and release a Waveblaster-type add-on, but even then it's
not cost-effective. I was willing to sacrifice a little on the
games side to get something kick ass I could use in music, and
I got it. I have no regrets about getting a GUS at all.

Ken
ken@austin.ibm.com


=============================================================
THIS POSTING DOES NOT REPRESENT THE OPINIONS OF MY EMPLOYERS.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Brought to you by the planet Xylon:
	"Change your ways or we will come there and destroy you!"
=============================================================

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 00:07:52 -0500 (EST)
From: Bertrand Lee <chameleon+@cmu.edu>
Message-Id: <8fS8qcy00WBKI_P0YN@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: Help: GUS MIDI problems
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I just installed my Ultrasound today, and have already come up with some
problems. When I ran mididemo.exe, some of the files work and others
don't. The ones that don't work have a lot of static and sound as if
they are playing the wrong patches. I don't think my files are corrupted
because I installed with the given installation disks and with fresh
ones downloaded from Epas, both times getting the same results.

Pieces in mididemo.exe:
Introduction            spoilt (static)
Tocatta                 OK
Hidnseek                some sounds are OK but a lot of weird sounds too.
Yelowros                OK
Bagpipes                OK
Entertnr                OK
Latindnc                OK
Pnoheaven               OK
Maplerag                spoilt 
Bach                    OK
Jesujoy                 Mostly works, but one middle part is totally gone
Minuetg                 One voice is wrong, the rest are OK
Abighand                spoilt (static)
Telephone               OK
Engstart                spoilt

I suspect that the problem has something to do with the patches because
other MIDI files I downloaded sounded totally wrong too. (In axel-f.mid
the echo is replaced by something totally different). However, the .mod,
.snd and .wav files work fine. I used the default settings (I tried
others to no avail) and the computer has a Symphony chipset.

Has anyone had similar problems? If so, PLEASE help me out! 

Thanks in advance!



-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Bertrand Lee        chameleon+@cmu.edu         Carnegie Mellon University
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

										
"It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favour of vegetarianism
while wolves remain of a different opinion" -- William Ralph Inge

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 05:00:09 EST
From: phong@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Klark Kent)
Message-Id: <9302091000.AA24056@eniac.seas.upenn.edu>
Subject: MidiSoft and our New Patches
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hey, does anyone out there have a CLUE as to when our patches our due...? out?
and what about our MidiSoft, are we left aloft? 
Should we merely guess the purpose of our GUS?
How can we live in this blissless agony..
Like a bird without a bee...
or a Q without a U.
Please respond

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 9:54:55 MST
From: kdorff@NMSU.Edu
Message-Id: <9302091654.AA05660@NMSU.Edu>
Subject: Problem with ultrasound archive?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have not been able to connect to the ultrasound ftp archive lately
(klingon or archive.epas.utoronto.ca). Anyone else having problems or
are my problems local?

Kevin

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 14:57:27 EST
From: James R Lendino <jrl8@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu>
Message-Id: <CMM.0.90.4.729287847.jrl8@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu>
Subject: The version of GUS that is currently shipping...?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I'm seriously interested in ordering the GUS from Telemart.  I was
wondering if anyone who ordered and received a card recently got the
version with the complete set of general MIDI patches.

If not, is it possible that I order the card now, and then get the MIDI
patches, MIDI studio, and Power chords software later for a small fee
or for free?  I don't want to order a card now and find out that I
*just* missed getting all this cool stuff, and now I can't get it.

One other question.  I have a Centrix computer with a G486P mother
board (16 MHz bus).  It has an Opti 486WB chipset.  Am I one of
the unfortunate ones who can't get the card to work?  If so, can
I do something about it?

-JRL

P.S.  Lately, I've been FTPing all sorts of demos from
wasp.eng.ufl.edu, which by the way is a really fast mirror of
cs.uwp.edu.  Anyone who owns a sound card and a 486 pc owes it to
themselves to get UNREAL, PANIC, C_DREAM, and MONSTRA - they'll
blow your mind!  I know I've been off the pace, since UNREAL has
been around for quite some time, so I just want to make sure no
one else misses this.  They're incredible!  Kudos to Future Crew,
Ultraforce, and all these incredible programers who wrote these.



		 James R. Lendino     |     
		 Computer Science     |     Phone: (212)-853-7783
		 Columbia S.E.A.S.    |     Internet: jrl8@cunixa.cc.columbia.edu

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

Date: Tue,  9 Feb 93 00:07:02 MST
From: Ultrasound Digest Owner <ultrasound-owner@dsd.es.com>
Message-Id: <9302090801.AA23084@itchy>
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #37
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Ultrasound Daily Digest     Tue,  9 Feb 93       Volume 2 : Issue  37 

Today's Topics:
					BOESENDO.MOD converted to .MID
							   Comanche
					 Comanche with GUS working!!
							 DSP for GUS?
				Encyclopedia Grollier Sound thru GUS?
						  FC's Panic and GUS
			  Gravis BBS - New Bulletin - Local Nodes!!
				  GUS, win31 and memory parity error
							GUS Questions
						  Links386Pro & SBOS
		med135 mod editor, reusing trident RAM, developers kit
							New GUS Owner
			   One completely off the wall GUS question
				   Problems with Trax from Passport
				  Real time MIDI with GUS or PAS-16?
	   Sierra King's Quest V (CDrom) and Gravis Ultrasound = ?
					Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #36

	Information about the UltraSound Daily Digest (such as
mail addresses, request servers, ftp sites, etc., etc.) can be found
at the end of the Digest.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 07 Feb 1993 07:46:37 GMT
From: knepley@CS.ColoState.EDU (Ranseus (Jim Knepley))
Message-Id: <Feb07.074637.72058@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
Subject: BOESENDO.MOD converted to .MID
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

In article <C22Czr.8w3@watserv2.uwaterloo.ca> ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca (Phat H Tran) writes:
>I heard boesendo.mod recently and I thought that the piano was really
>lousy and unrefined compared to the acpiano1 patch for the GUS.

I think that this hits the root of a fundamental technique developers are
ignoring with the GUS (yes, I know that the .MOD wasn't written for the GUS,
just hear me out).
We've all got the patches on our drives somewhere (I've heard of nobody that's
deleted them, anyway) and with the new General Midi patches on the way, it
would be even more enticing.
Game designers should use those patches!  If you need a special sound effect,
then include it, but the GUS patches are good and redundantly storing
instrument patches of your own is wasteful.  Case in point, the MIDI version
of Beosendo is 16,037 bytes, while the .MOD version is 216,890 bytes -- I
think the Midi version is better, BTW.
Espescially folks like Sierra, whose sound is mostly music with a little
digital thrown in.

Just a thought,
  Jim
-- 
----- knepley@cs.colostate.edu ----------------------------------------------
 Jim "Ranseus" Knepley |  Avoid rectal-cranial inversion. 
 Programmer, magician, |  "Gun's don't kill, it's those bullet things"   
 computer geek.        |  

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

Date: Mon, 8 Feb 1993 10:56:59 -0600
From: John Dillenburg <dillenbu@bert.eecs.uic.edu>
Message-Id: <199302081656.AA07054@bert.eecs.uic.edu>
Subject: Comanche
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

>Hi.
>
>I've been noticing that people have been having problems with
>getting the digitized sound to work.
>
>I've got a 256K GUS, with a 386-40, and SBOS 1.23, and it has
>always worked flawlessly.  I think it worked fine with 1.22 also.
>
>Install the patch, reconfigure the sound by running comanche's

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

Date: Tue, 09 Feb 93 16:30:47 -0500
From: adhir@cygnus.umd.edu
Message-Id: <9302092130.AA04294@cygnus.umd.edu>
Subject: USS8 under OS/2
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Hey all, I thought you'd be interested in knowing that I have successfully
gotten USS8 to work reliably under OS/2 (2.1 beta although I suspect it
will work under GA+SP also).  You must boot a REAL version of DOS by
creating a bootable DOS disk and using VMDISK to create an image of it
(make sure you include device=fsfilter.sys (found in os2/mdos) if any
partitions are HPFS).  I also included himem.sys and emm386.sys (also
found in os2/mdos...they are specially for real dos booted under OS/2).
Then change the DOS_STARTUP_DRIVE of a 'DOS from drive A:' icon under DOS
settings to point to the image file you created (all this stuff is explained
in the online docs...look up VMDISK in the command ref.).  Anyway, USS8
seems to work from here as long as GUS is set to an 8-bit DMA...along
with p669, GUSMOD, PLAYMIDI and a few others...the last few actually work
in a normal OS/2 DOS box also.

Anyhow, happy gussing...

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
 Al Dhir                                   Technical Consulting Staff
 Internet: adhir@cygnus.umd.edu      University of Maryland, College Park
 Bitnet:   adhir%cygnus.umd.edu@Interbit      (301) 405-1500 * (301) 405-3014
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 15:23:48 -0500
From: cs012043@cs.brown.edu (Brendan Miller)
Message-Id: <9302092023.AA10948@cslab3a.cs.brown.edu>
Subject: Wav -> Pat ?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Did I read correctly? Is there a utility somewhere that can convert wav (or some other type of digitized sound) to a patch for the GUS? I checked the archive sites and didn't see anything that looked like that, but I may have missed it. Can
anyone tell me where I can find it if it exists? Thanks.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Feb 1993 01:15:54 -0500 (EST)
From: Kevin Wengcheong Cheng <kc3b+@andrew.cmu.edu>
Message-Id: <cfS9qOm00iV04=D4ZV@andrew.cmu.edu>
Subject: X-Wing Demo and GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Just found the X-Wing demo on wuarchive under /pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS as
xwingdmo.zip... Unfortunately, although the graphics are pretty cool (
much more detailed than Wing Commander IMHO though there weren't any
in-cockpit views... more like movie shots on TV ) - I couldn't get any
sound out of the Soundblaster mode. I tried SBOS with all the individual
-o and -x options ( was too lazy to try all the combinations of -o and
-x ) but none of them produced so much as a click of sound from the
card... The Adlib mode worked, but as usual some of the instruments
sound weird and the sound effects don't really exist.

So my question is - Has anyone tried the demo and gotten the SB mode to
work under SBOS? I'm using SBOS 1.23, GUS IRQ 5, MIDI IRQ 7, 1 MB ram,
QEMM.

Thanx!
/<evin

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

Date: Tue, 9 Feb 93 3:44:49 EST
From: UUCP administrator <generic!uucp>
Message-Id: <9302090344.aa00778@generic.UUCP>
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

remote execution    [uucp job genericA2f62 (2/9-3:44:47)]
	rmail andrew 
exited with status 99


	===== stderr was =====
rmail: Initialization failure 'only root, mmdf and daemons may name source host'


	===== stdin was =====

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #38
******************************
