Ultrasound Daily Digest     Thu, 14 Jan 93       Volume 2 : Issue  11 

Today's Topics:
		  Curiosity about what low-level things GUS can do 
					 GUS and MIDI Sequencers ????
							GUS and OS2/2
					GUS PatchMan help please!!!!!
					  GUS test in Dutch magazine
						   Interesting....
				 MCI Command required to load patches
			MPU401 and GUS at the same time under Windows
					   QSound/3D demos for 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.
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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 10:32:19 -0500
From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Message-Id: <9301131532.AA26239@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Subject: Curiosity about what low-level things GUS can do 
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> The full name is "Ensoniq 5503 Digital Osciallator Chip" (DOC for short).

It is my understanding (from talks with Gravis) that they licensed the
firmware of the DOC chip from Ensoniq, but the GF1 chip can do more than
the E5503. Given that the GUS can handle 1meg of memory and that the
samples can be larger that 32K, I'd believe it...

DDA

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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 19:27:53 GMT
From: fisher@decwin.enet.dec.com ()
Message-Id: <1993Jan13.192753.8393@nntpd.lkg.dec.com>
Subject: GUS and MIDI Sequencers ????
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

In article <SSURHODE.93Jan13172429@sssscsc1.susssys1.rdg.ac.uk>,
ssurhode@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk (Paul Rhodes) writes:
|>Path:
|
nntpd.lkg.dec.com!news.crl.dec.com!deccrl!caen!uunet!pipex!bnr.co.uk!uknet!rea
ading!mercury!ssurhode
|>From: ssurhode@susssys1.rdg.ac.uk (Paul Rhodes)
|>Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard
|>Subject: GUS and MIDI Sequencers ????
|>Message-ID: <SSURHODE.93Jan13172429@sssscsc1.susssys1.rdg.ac.uk>
|>Date: 13 Jan 93 17:24:29 GMT
|>Sender: news@csug.cs.reading.ac.uk
|>Distribution: comp
|>Organization: Reading University, England
|>Lines: 9
|>Nntp-Posting-Host: sssscsc1
|>
|>Okay. I'm not very knowledgeable about the music side of PC's, so
|>don't flame me. Is it possible to use the GUS as a MIDI device for
|>sequencers such as Cakewalk or Cubase. Specifically what I'm thinking
|>about is getting a GUS and a slave keyboard and getting the GUS to
|>play all the sounds back. If this is possible, is there anything wrong
|>with this approach ????
|>
|>
|>thanks in advance.
|>

That makes perfect sense and is doable and should work.  Just two things:

1)  Cakewalk does not yet make the MCI calls to load GUS patches, so you need
to load them manually with Patch Manager or some such.  Hopefully this will
change soon.  You could also use WinJammer which does this correctly.

2)  The MIDI connector for the GUS is not available yet.  However, several
notes in this conference have told how to build your own and/or how to use
a Sound Blaster MIDImate and a soldering iron to make one.

Burns

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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 11:35:16 GMT
From: stewarta@netcom.com (Alex Stewart)
Message-Id: <1993Jan13.113516.5320@netcom.com>
Subject: GUS and OS2/2
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Ralph Arnold Graham (graham@cs.utexas.edu) wrote:
: I cannot use my GUS under OS/2 to play games.  It must be the SBOS (SB
: emulation).  Perhaps games offering native GUS support will work in a DOS
: box under OS/2.  The SoundBlaster works in a DOS box under OS/2 with the
: standard DOS drivers...

SBOS will not (can not) work under OS/2 in a DOS box.  SBOS uses the protected
mode of the 386/486 to automatically "catch" all attempts to write to or read
from the SoundBlaster's ports and convert them into GUS requests.
Unfortunately, OS/2 uses protected mode to make sure that different
applications can't screw each other up.  OS/2 won't let just any old DOS
program have access to protected mode (and rightfully so), so SBOS won't run if
OS/2 is already there.

The answer?  A SBOS designed as an OS/2 device driver (thus part of OS/2, thus
able to use protected mode features).  Everybody out there, harrass Gravis
until they finish it.

: At the moment, OS/2 does not have the multimedia support.  It's version of
: Windows is 3.0, which also doesn;t have the support.  However, the new beta
: version (ver 2.1) of OS/2 *does* offer multimedia support.  It is rumored to
: be released in the next couple of months.

Last I heard, OS/2 2.1 will _NOT_ come with multimedia support.  It _will_ come
with Win-OS/2 3.1 which will allow _Windows_ programs to use these sound cards.
Multimedia support for OS/2 apps is still an additional (expensive) package.

I believe, though I don't have it myself, that MMPM/2 (the multimedia
Presentation Manager package) is provided (in beta?) with the _beta_ OS/2 2.1
currently available on CD-ROM, but that it won't be bundled with the released
OS/2 2.1.  I could always be wrong (hope, hope!)

-- A wannabe GUS user, but an OS/2 freak.
-- 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Alex Stewart:         Sysop of YBBS (510) 689-8952 |   This space for rent.
stewarta@netcom.com   .----------------------------'-------------------------
stewarta@carleton.edu | Somebody, somewhere, is offended by what I am saying.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Date: 13 Jan 93 03:42:57 GMT
From: bs@mdavcr.mda.ca (Bruce Sharpe)
Message-Id: <3946@mdavcr.mda.ca>
Subject: GUS PatchMan help please!!!!!
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

My reply to this is a candidate for the FAQ list:

Q: I'm not getting any sound when I play MIDI files under Windows.  The
   Patch Manager shows empty boxes.

A: There is a file in the distribution set called ULTRASND.INI.  It must be
   placed in the directory pointed to by the environment variable ULTRADIR
   (usually C:\ULTRASND).  It does *not* go into the WINDOWS or WINDOWS\SYSTEM
   directory.

   If you have ULTRASND.INI in your ULTRADIR directory, look at it.  It 
   should have many lines in it saying things like "0=acpiano1".  If it is
   only a few lines long, get another copy out of the distribution and copy 
   it to the ULTRADIR directory.  Reboot Windows and you will soon be hearing 
   beautiful music!

   (The purpose of the ULTRASND.INI file is to let the Windows driver know
   what patch file goes with what patch number.  If the driver doesn't find
   the .INI file in the ULTRADIR directory it creates a truncated version 
   with no patch names in it.)

Bruce Sharpe

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

Date: 13 Jan 93 15:39:57 GMT
From: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl (Jerry van Waardenberg)
Message-Id: <1993Jan13.163957@cs.utwente.nl>
Subject: GUS test in Dutch magazine
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Yes! Finally! A (short) test of the GUS. In a DUTCH magazine (Computer Info from
Sala Communications). Together with some other 'exotic' cards like the Microsoft
Sound System and the Sound Galaxy NX.

Their impression was positive: Very good MIDI sound (with playmidi) and even with
SBOS they were impressed with the sound quality of the GUS. The problems reported
by the testers are the same problems that are discussed in this group: Usually
software related, such as "the computer locks up when playing game XYZ".

Their conclusion is that the GUS is one of the most promising card for the future
and has superb sound quality compared to the other (FM-based) cards.

Greetz,

Jerry

*------------------------------------------------------------------------------*
 Jerry van Waardenberg                             _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/
 Tele Informatics and Open Systems                  _/     _/   _/  _/ _/
 Department of Computer Science                    _/     _/   _/  _/   _/
 University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands  _/     _/   _/  _/     _/
 E-mail: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl                  _/   _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/

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

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 01:16:20 PST
From: brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu (Brian Huddleston)
Message-Id: <9301130916.AA09074@ ccnext.ucsf.edu >
Subject: Interesting....
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I tried posting this once, Im not sure if it got through. ( I recieved a 
Mail Daemon error) So here we go again:

Greetings everybody,
		I just wanted to mention a funny thing that's happening to my GUS.
Right now I have my GUS spouting out music through the Amplified Out, a mic 
plugged in, and a Walkman plugged into the Audio line in. The funny thing is,
that when I boot up my computer, the GUS is in Sample mode, So even if I'm not
using my mic or walkman to make samples, I still can get perfect music through 
my speakers.  For example, right now I'm just using this term program but   
listening to 105.3 fm through my GUS.  It doesn't drain my walkman because the
speakers are in the Amplified out.  Oh when I say it is in Sample mode, I dont 
mean It is recordeing, it is just routeing it through.  No software, etc....
Hope somebody finds this useful....May all your GUS'es live long and prosper.

brian@ccnext.ucsf.edu  

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Date: Wed, 13 Jan 93 05:49:03 PST
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS DECwindows  13-Jan-1993 0847" <fisher@decwin.enet.dec.com>
Message-Id: <9301131349.AA03877@enet-gw.pa.dec.com>
Subject: MCI Command required to load patches
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Anyone out there have the MicroSoft MCI spec?  Can you tell me exactly what the command is
that must be given to load patches on the GUS, and what the parameters are?

The reason I ask is in a Cakewalk/Windows song (.WRK) file, you can include MCI commands.
What they want, though, is a text string.  The example they give is

<MCI command opcode>  PLAY MUMBLE.WAV

So apparently there is an MCI command named "PLAY" which takes a filename as an argument.
My thinking is that if we knew the MCI command that loaded patches, we could make Cakewalk
load patches to the GUS "manually".

Thanks!

Burns

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

Date: Mer, 13 Jan 93 14:48:42 FRA
From: 9269Z%FRESTP11.BITNET@pucc.Princeton.EDU
Message-Id: <9301131349.AA00526@orca.es.com>
Subject: MPU401 and GUS at the same time under Windows
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Date: 13 Janvier 1993, 14:45:25 FRA
From: 9269Z    at FRESTP11
To:   ultrasound@dsd.es.com

Does any GUS owner knows whether it is possible to use an Roland MPU401
compatible card to drive the GUS under Windows ?

friendly yours,

+---------------------+-------------------------------------------------+
|   Benjamin RYZMAN   | "...And now something completly different |"    |
|      ESTP Paris     |             -Monty Pithon                       |
| EMAIL:              | "640 kb should be sufficient for anyone"        |
|9269Z@FRESTP11.BITNET|             -Bill Gates, 1981                   |
+---------------------+-------------------------------------------------+

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

Date: Wed, 13 Jan 1993 00:23:00 GMT
From: Andrew McCallum <andrewm@zooid.guild.org>
Message-Id: <1993Jan13.015833.2889@zooid.guild.org>
Subject: QSound/3D demos for GUS
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

	(Excuse me if I sound ill-informed, because I am)


	From what I've gathered about this new 3D sound thingy for the GUS, is
that it already has been showed off at a conference somewhere and it is
working on the existing GUS's.

	Can anyone (HUH GRAVIS?  HUH, HUH?) upload a demo of some kind that
shows off this new 3D sound thingy to an FTP site?

---
	.sig's are neat,                   | Andrew McCallum
	.sig's are fun,                     \ andrewm@zooid.guild.org
	.sig's tell where to flame someone.  |andrewm@terranet.cts.com

			SUPRESS THE POOR, SAVE THE RICH, KILL THE STRANGE

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End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #11
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