Ultrasound Daily Digest     Wed, 27 Jan 93       Volume 2 : Issue  24 

Today's Topics:
					Forwarded from usenet (2 msgs)
								 GTS
					 GUS: End to OPTi DMA blues?
				   GUS: Various patch info wanted.
							 hiss: me too
					   How can I load patches?
				  media player into pocket recorder
					New WinJammer uploaded to epas
					OPTIFIX doesn't work (for me)
							 SBOS & MIDI
						Ultrasound ftp INDEX!
						  Ultrasound returns

	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, 26 Jan 93 11:18:10 -0500
From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Message-Id: <9301261618.AA21210@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Subject: Forwarded from usenet 
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> The only other possible source of clicking would be if the program uses for
> example 32 channels, so by the time the DOC II goes back to channel 1, 1
> zero sample got thru oscillator (corresponding to a lower error rate than
> your typical CD player anyway but nastier, since it is a zero). This is
> purely speculation on my part, and is based on the swap mode problem of the
> DOC I. I do not have the information about that relatively to the DOC II, so
> it may (and was supposed to) be corrected.
> [STOP PRESS: I just got email stating that this problem is not on the DOC II
> chip! so only the first problem can be the source]

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 11:55:47 EST
From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion)
Message-Id: <9301261655.AA07536@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA>
Subject: Forwarded from usenet
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Beyond the ultraworld of It's your hand, Buckaroo:
> 
> From what Gravis has told me, the GF1 chip, while using the DOC II firmware
> (licensed from Ensoniq), isn't a DOC II. Forte did the hardware and Gravis
> wrote the software (and whatever new firmware was needed, I'd guess).
> Supposedly, it has more features than the DOC II, including patches over
> 32K, 32 independently pannable voices, etc.

Patches over 32K is a fact of life of the DOC II. The DOC II can also support
more than 1 Megabyte ram. The DOC II has also 32 independently pannable
voices. I guess They are again referring to the DOC from the Apple II gs.
Geez, anybody at Gravis PR can actually give accurate info?

Ciao,
-- 
Francois Dion
	'  _   _   _ 
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA
	  (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: (514) 343-7511
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 13:53:31 PST
From: biggles@berlioz.nsc.com (Winston Worrell)
Message-Id: <9301262153.AA15811@berlioz.nsc.com>
Subject: GTS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Has anybody gotten GTS to work on their GUS. I can't, it just hangs my system.
What do you have to do to get it to work and is it worth it?


Could somebody post the Gravis order forms here or to epas. 
Thanks,
-B

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 13:03:13 GMT
From: gting@fraser.sfu.ca (Gabriel Ting)
Message-Id: <gting.728053393@sfu.ca>
Subject: GUS: End to OPTi DMA blues?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Seems that Gravis has heard the pleas of many a user who can't get the
16 bit DMA channel to work with the GUS. Especially those with the dreaded
faulty OPTi chipsets...

Here's an excerpt from the Gravis BBS, reprinted without permission:

TITLE:      Advanced Gravis Tech Note #7
AREA:       16 BIT DMA
DATE:       January 20, 1993
KEY WORDS:  OPTI CHIPSET 16 BIT DMA CRASH
 
SUBJECT: Faulty DMA controllers
 
There is a known problem accessing 16 bit DMA channels on certain brands
of chipsets, including SOME models of OPTI.
 
The way to tell if you have this problem is by setting the GUS DMA channel
to one of the 16 bit DMAs, 5, 6 or 7.  Try playing some digital audio
samples.  You may have to run them 5-10 times to make sure there are
no problems.  If you get a PARITY error set the DMA channel to an 8
bit DMA such as 1 or 3.  Play some more digital audio samples.  If you do
not get another parity error then you probably have a faulty DMA controller.
 
The are a few ways to fix this problem.  First, you can replace your
motherboard.  Remember a motherboard without CPU should only be a few
hundred dollars.  It is the CPU that cost so much, not the motherboard.
If this is not an alternative and you can not live with an 8 bit DMA channel,
you may try running the program OPTIFIX that may be found in GUS0013.ZIP
on the Gravis BBS (604)431-5927.
 
What follows is a detailed description of the problem.
 
In the past 4 months or so, we have seen a rash of systems with 386 and 486
motherboards that crash whenever audio playback is attempted through any
audio card that uses DMA.  We have traced the problem to the 82C206 chip
on the motherboard, most often (but not always) manufactured by OPTi.
This is the device that houses the interrupt and DMA controllers, the
counter/timers, and the real time clock.  Note that this isn't a global
problem with these devices; there remains a larger number of systems
operating perfectly that use the 82C206.  This may be related to a
particlar lot of the 82C206, but we don't have enough information to know
how widespread it may be.
 
Technically, the problem results from the /DMAMEMR pin of the 82C206 (pin 61,
which is active low).  This pin drives the MEMORY READ line on the
motherboard during DMA transfers from memory to I/O, which is the transfer
mode used during audio playback.  This pin goes to a tri-state condition
after the DMA cycle.  Apparently, on systems that exhibit this problem,
the line remains at an active level too long when switching to the tri-state
condition, which can cause a memory parity error to occur.
 
In theory, the simplest solution to the problem is to add a resistor to the
motherboard to pull pin 61 hard to the off state (a resistor between 1K
and 2K placed from pin 61 to +5V).  We have verified that this solves
the problem, but it is far from practical in most situations.  This is
not a recommended and Gravis will not be responsible for any damages.  Try
it at your own risk.
 
There is one other solution that we have found to solve the problem.  We
have discovered that re-configuring the DMA controller to temporarily disable
the cascade channel during playback seems to eliminate the problem.  It must
be noted that disabling cascade mode will also disable anything that uses DMA
channels 0 through 3, which will usually include the floppy drives.  In
most cases, this shouldn't be a problem, since audio playback from a floppy
drive isn't practical.  It would, however, be a problem if there are
background tasks that involve floppy access during playback.
 
In order to implement this fix, the following needs to be done:
To disable cascade mode (prior to playback), send data 0 to address D6(hex).
 
   outportb(0xD6,0);
 
To re-enable cascade mode (after playback), send data C0(hex) to address
D6(hex).  Using the toolkit definitions, this is:
 
   outportb(0xD6,0xC0);
 
You will find a program on the Gravis BBS (604) 431-5927 called OPTIFIX
in the file GUS0013.ZIP which does do this.
 

--End included post---

I have uploaded the GUS0013 file on epas, so those with the DMA problems
can d/l it from there. I haven't tried it myself since the GUS works fine
on my system, even with the OPTi chipset...

-- 
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%
////////////////// This is a sig. This is only a sig. \\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\ What the heck did you think it was anyway? ////////////////
%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% elm: gting@sfu.ca

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

Date: 26 Jan 93 03:40:53 GMT
From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion)
Message-Id: <1993Jan26.034053.23924@cc.umontreal.ca>
Subject: GUS: Various patch info wanted.
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

In article <93022.170742MEB117@psuvm.psu.edu> Matthew E. Bernold <MEB117@psuvm.psu.edu> writes:
>On a broader note, does anyone know where I can get my hands on a list of
>instruments in the General Midi spec?  I want to know what instrument SHOULD
>be assigned to each patch, and then be able to substitute as I see fit.

I put that on the GUS archive long ago:
On archive.epas.utoronto.ca, directory /pub/pc/ultrasound/info
  5006 Dec  4 01:30 genmidi.arj  Information on general midi

>Also, any other midi mappings such as the Roland midi synths and others
>would also be appreciated.  Making .CFG files for the GUS would be SO much
>easier if I knew what the different instruments were SUPPOSED to sound
>like in the first place... :-)

Check out in /pub/pc/ultrasound/midi-files
  2781 Dec  6 18:41 mt32pat.cfg  Configuration for MT32 patch assignment

Ciao,
--
Francois Dion
	'  _   _   _ 
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA
	  (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: (514) 343-7511
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 11:13:34 PST
From: Sherman Leung <shermanl@mothra.rose.hp.com>
Message-Id: <9301261913.AA07704@mothra.rose.hp.com>
Subject: hiss: me too
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

In  yesterday's digest:


------------------------------
From: I/We are Gaia <gaia@u.washington.edu>
Subject: Noise in recording and other problems..

A while back I saw people had been having problems with hiss, and other
extraneous noises in the background while recording.  I have had my GUS
for a while, but haven't got the proper hookups until now.  Now I find at
any sampling rate, I have ALOT of hiss in the background, yet it doesn't
show up when I am monitoring in USS8 or with playfile/digi.  The Windows
sound recorder isn't any better especially since it is stuck in 8bit

Gaia@carson.u.washington.edu

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


  I have the same exact hiss!  44khz,22khz.  The source is clear as a
  bell when I listen to it when it plays thru during the recording,
  but the sample is VERY noisy with hiss.  (Continuous, not intermittent)

  I've tried everything.  Remove all drivers.  Install all drivers
  (Stacker 2.0, Qemm 6.0, Smartdrive).

  I've tried disconnecting all cables exiting from the GUS except the
  source.  I've used several different cables.  I've used several different
  sources. (2 CD players, and audio out from the VCR).  

  Please help, if you have any solutions.  


  Sherman Leung
  shermanl@mothra.rose.hp.com
  shermanl@hpcss01.cup.hp.com

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 10:07:17 CST
From: John Riedl <riedl@cs.umn.edu>
Message-Id: <9301261607.AA14940@hannibal.cs.umn.edu>
Subject: How can I load patches?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

 > I'm still waiting for an answer to this question. What is the mechanism
 > to load patches? Winjammer does it and MediaPlayer does it. How?

I modified Petzold's old keyboard program (the one with source on
epas) to load patches.  All you do is issue midiOutPatchCache (or
something close: the manual is at home) calls to the driver.  The
arguments to the calls are explained in the SDK, but basically it's
just a bitmap with one entry for each of the 128 general MIDI patches.
Each entry has one bit per channel to tell whether that channel should
try to cache that patch.  Based on my limited understanding of the
GUS, I just put hex 'ff' in for each patch I wanted cached, and 0's
elsewhere.

If you want the modified code, send email.  I only had to add about a
dozen lines.

A couple of things I don't know:

1) The midiOutPatchCache call returns whether all the patches fit.
However, I don't know how to use this information to keep accurate
track of the memory available on the GUS.  Petzold's program only uses
one instrument at a time, so they always fit.

2) Someone asked for an MCI command string to cache patches.  I can't
find any information about how to do this in the SDK.  Is there a
reason to suspect it's possible?

John

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 17:19:23 -0600
From: captain@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (Bran Muffin)
Message-Id: <9301262319.AA09671@tigger.cc.utexas.edu>
Subject: media player into pocket recorder
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have encountered a strange phenomenon.  If I start pocket recorder 
recording, and then to to media player I am able to record a song into
a .wav file, but if I start media player, and then try to record with
pocket recorder I get an error message (could not open the wave recording
device.)  Does anyone else have this happen?  Does anyone know why the
order would matter?

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 00:15:46 PST
From: bs@mda.ca (Bruce Sharpe)
Message-Id: <9301260815.AA13203@ mda.ca>
Subject: New WinJammer uploaded to epas
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have uploaded the latest version of WinJammer (v2.24) to 
  klingon.epas.utoronto.ca (128.100.160.36)
  /pub/pc/ultrasound/submit/wjmr224.zip
This version fixes a few problems that were v2.23 (the first version to
support the GUS). Shareware.

Here's the author's description:
  WinJammer version 2.24.  The latest version of a full featured MIDI
  sequencer for Windows 3.1.  This release adds support for embedded system
  exclusive events, text events in tracks, multiple MIDI devices and improved
  usability.  Now supports the Gravis UltraSound card.
  
  WinJammer includes: 64 tracks per song, converts ROL files into MIDI, uses
  standard MIDI files, allows up to 16 MIDI devices to be used, full online
  help.  Includes a player program.

Bruce Sharpe

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 21:24:41 -0800
From: Andrew Krenz <uznerk@mcl.mcl.ucsb.edu>
Message-Id: <9301270525.AA28649@hub.ucsb.edu>
Subject: OPTIFIX doesn't work (for me)
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

The subject says it all.  The supposed fix for the 82C206 bummed DMA control
chip doesn't do crap on my computer.  In fact, it actually makes it worse.
SBOS won't even load, just flat out crashes.  If I load SBOS first, THEN load
optifix, its as if I didn't load optifix at all.  I'm running the GUS on 
DMA channel 5 so it shouldn't make a difference with teh optifix problem.
Looks like the only solution at this point is a new motherboard.  Oh well!

-Andrew Krenz
uznerk@mcl.ucsb.edu

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 16:58:50 -0700
From: LEE_YURI/HP2000_80@idacom.hp.com
Message-Id: <9301262358.AA03547@spiff.idacom.hp.com>
Subject: SBOS & MIDI
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

>Yes, I too have the same problem. I designed my own midi
interface
>(although it looks about the same as the various versions
floating
>around the net).

> I have a switch to select from one of four midi inputs. If I
leave a
>midi input connected (My DX7 keyboard or my RX5 drum
machine), while
>sbos is installed, then the machine crashes. Doesn't matter
which
>order you run things in. My workaround is to select a midi in
with
>no midi device plugged in. Your workaround may be to unplug
the midi
> in cable.

>I do not beleive you have done anything wrong in your midi
hardware.
> I beleive that the problem is a bug in SBOS. I reported this
to Alan
>Alvarez at Gravis about a month ago. Here is my theory:
(unconfirmed)

Ever noticed that MIDI IRQ and SBOS DAC IRQ are always the
same ?
Original SB has similar setup, and I think that's why you
could not play
wave files in Windows while wokring on SB MIDI port on a SB. I
guess
it makes sense that MIDI port has conflict with SBOS, but it
could
be a problem if it causes PC to crash. BTW, will the MIDI
cable supplied
with SB pro work with GUS ? I have one, yet I haven't had
chance to
try it since I never had a MIDI keyboard.

- Yuri

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

Date: 26 Jan 93 05:22:14 GMT
From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion)
Message-Id: <1993Jan26.052214.25600@cc.umontreal.ca>
Subject: Ultrasound ftp INDEX!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

If you are wondering what each file is on the Gravis Ultrasound archive site
(archive.epas.utoronto.ca, mirrored to wuarchive.wustl.edu), get the
file Index.all presently in the submit directory
(/pub/pc/ultrasound/submit)

If there are corrections to be done, you can email me.

Ciao,
--
Francois Dion
	'  _   _   _ 
 CISM (_) (_)  _) FM       Montreal , Canada       Email: CISM@ERE.UMontreal.CA
	  (_)  / . _)             10000 Watts          Telephone no: (514) 343-7511
_______________________________________________________________________________
Audio-C-DJ-Fractals-Future-Label-Multimedia-Music-Radio-Rave-Video-VR-Volvo-...

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

Date: Tue, 26 Jan 93 11:37:54 EST
From: amix@gvlf6.VFL.Paramax.COM
Message-Id: <9301261638.AA04903@gvlf6>
Subject: Ultrasound returns
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> I work at Babbage's in Brookfield, WI.  We have been carrying the Ultrasound
> for a few months now.  To my knowledge, we have sold at least seven, four of
> which have come back within a day or two. 
etc.

I bought my GUS at Electronics Boutique at the local Mall.  The sales guy
said the board was a piece of junk.  Everybody that had bought one had 
returned it (I think 3 or 4).  He said none of the software that came
packaged with the board even worked!  I made sure that it wasn't the same
broken board being recycled every time, and I would be able to return it.
I said I had access to new drivers and fixes etc, so I was more confident.
But most people who buy at the Mall just want to plug it in and work. 
Another salesman  at the store took one home for a weekend , and
he had to write his own driver to get it to work.  (Humm, Gravis works for
months, years to write their drivers, and this guy does it in a weekend
with no SDK?)  That's the board I bought, and it worked just fine; not
perfect, as we know, but just fine.  The midi demo, the .snd player
worked perfectly; I never got the background player working, but only
tried 5 minutes, and didn't read the manual.  The only other thing I
noticed the first day was the I didn't head "Let's configure your
Ultrasound" during the initial setup.  After that it did talk to me.
Then into windows - media player worked like a charm, and my Christmas
windows software played in the background (after that annoying error
message that the files may not play correctly).  Back to Dos, to try SBOS.
About the only thing I had for Sound Blaster was "The night before Xmas"
talking book.  It wasn't the greatest sounding, but it worked...
I don't see how 3 or 4 people could get NOTHING to work.  Maybe they all
have OPTI chips, or use Cakewalk and don't know to load the patches.
I guess this is why Gravis is waiting to really start marketing it.
Hopefully the high return rates won't kill the GUS before it really
has a chance.

-Andy
amix@vfl.paramax.com

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #24
******************************
