Ultrasound Daily Digest     Fri Jun 18 00:38     Volume 4: Issue  18  

Today's Topics:
				  DISK IN ITALY!!! some questions...
						   General Stuph..
				   Got 2.06/How to install quickly
						 Gusmod vs. Ultramod
							 GUS Rev 2.4
						MOD files in Windoze..
				Modus (Windows Mod player for the Gus)
					   MotherBoard Canada Post
						 Noise while sampling
					Patch format and Patch editors
							Populous II...
						Request for a file...
						The Power Chords Blues
					Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #15
					Ultrasound w/ xwing and others
						 X-Wing (not again!)
				Yes X-wing does work 99% of the time!

Standard Info:
	- Meta-info about the GUS can be found at the end of the Digest.
	- Before you ask a question, please READ THE FAQ.

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 10:52:42 METDST
From: matteo ugolini <ugolim@dsi.unimi.it>
Subject: DISK IN ITALY!!! some questions...
Message-ID: <9306170852.AA03960@pippo.sm.dsi.unimi.it>

Hi to all to you!

Diskes have been arrived in Italy!!!

I've installed them the same morning they come in (Mon 14).

I'ven't had any problems with installation (all worked good) and i was
surprise of the nice GUI of the Midisoft Recording session, but (yes!
there is a BUT - and is not alone), but when i load the MIDI song STYX.MID
(very nice song), the CHOIR PAD don't work (no sound come from it).
The only way I've found to make it correct is to load the patches with the 
Patch Manager, or play it first with the Media Player and then with RS.
I've tryed to make some edit starting from a blank sheet (new option used)
but (YES! it is here too), but the editing is not quite intuitive (if i put
a 1/4 note, I'll be very happy to have a 1/4 note, not a 1/8, and so on).
Perhaps I mustuse some options i've not seen (is quite difficult understanding
the meaning of all menu voices, becouse I don't know a good English - as
you can see). Nothing else tryed, so nothing else to report about this
program.

AND NOW it's POWER CHORD turn.

I like it (I've composed some very strange rythms and i liked them: it's
funny), but I'm not able to have a sound from the bass part, the melody part
and the guitar board when I test them (neither in the songs, except for the
bass part). 
I think that it should be nice to have a working prewiev (mean a prehear).

A little note about the icon that are inverted: the tutorial icon is the demo
program and viceversa.

The new patches are nice (some are very GOOD - I like FX goblin and FX Rain and
others sound effects), but not all the classical intruments are good:


   flute:  bad
   clarinet: GOOD
   piano: GOOD
   sax: so & so
   timpani: GOOD
   trumpet: so & so
   oboe: bad / so & so
   Church organ: not bad but it is not good yet
   other organs: bad / so&so
   synthstring: quite good (perhaps the former version were better)
   stringensamble: read up 
   hapsicord: so&so
   panflute: ORRIBLE!!!!
   ...
   ...
   ...
P.S. guitars: very interesting - read: GOOD

Of course, this is a MY opinion (so is not an absolute thing), but (<- see it
again) perhaps GRAVIS is preparing some new patches.

I've read the little booklet with the GRAVIS offers for the registred GUS users.
I' dont understand what mean "2 256k for 15$".

  1st impression: 2 chips of 128kb each (total 256kb) for a total of
		  15$ (no shipping included).

  2nd impression: 2 chips of 256Kb each (total 512kb) for a total of
		  15$ (idem).

But the sockets carry 128kb chips (my 256kb board has only 2 chips), so...
Can anybody tell my how much should I pay for upgrade my GUS from 256kb to
1Mb? (shipping not included).

The general impression, however, of the new disks is quite good.
I've not made an extensive check of the new sbos with my games, but with
Civilization it works fine with -o2 options (but when i exit to dos, the
computer is out: I must make an HW reset).

Greetings to all to you and have a good day.

Un speciale saluto a tutti quanti parlano italiano.
(translate: a special greeting to all people how is able to speak Italian).

CIAO CIAO CIAO CIAO CIAO CIAO CIAO CIAO ......

============================================================================
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Matteo Ugolini, CS student in MILANO
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Internet adrress: ugolim@ghost.dsi.unimi.it
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
{{{{ NOTE: fell free to e-mail me for greetings and so on }}}}
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
============================================================================

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 10:52:50 -0400
From: <cs922187@ariel.yorku.ca>
Subject: General Stuph..
Message-ID: <9306171452.AA21727@iris.Ariel.YorkU.CA>

 
1.. I'm another Canuck who hasn't got his disks.. oh well, we're always being
forgotten anyways... (Canadian Syndrome) Hmm plus in combo with our friendly
post master.. I may see the disks when I buy the Pentium.. (which may be never)
.  I guess if we ever need to lose toxic waste.. just send it thru Canada
Post.. they'll lose it some how..
 
2.. Can't get Digi stuff from X-wing for the GUS.. no matter.. can't figure out
how to play the damn thing anyways..
 
3.. During the music and animation scenes in Flashback, it the sound seems to
crackle.. Slightly anoying.. but since I just finished the darn thing I guess
I got thru it alright.  Any fixes?
 
4.. Anyone know of a good MIDI editor?  Something like a whackertracker? Using
just a computer keyboard?
 
4(a) Is there a GUS Mod editor? I've been using the patch for Whacker Tracker 1
1.00.. but the quality is not the utmost desirable.. so I'm picky!
 
-Tony
 
replies to wc8550@writer.yorku.ca

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 09:05:07 EDT
From: rjw@genrad.com (Rod J. Wittmier)
Subject: Got 2.06/How to install quickly
Message-ID: <9306171305.AA12369@animal.genrad.com>

  I live in Central Massachusetts and got my update on Monday (6/14).
I'm very pleased with the support from Gravis and would like to give
them a big ATTABOY.  The free software is very nice.

Problems I had:

  Even though I put ProgMan back as my MS Window shell the Install
program refused to setup windows for me.  It didn't even start
windows.  Some message flew by the screen and it was right back to
install suggesting I install it again.
  From Windows the \ultrasnd\winsetup utility starts but gives me
an error about not being able to change directories (doesn't say
what directory) and exits.  Somehow the SYSTEM.INI file got updated
though.  Not knowing it had, I tried running winsetup again and it added
more to my SYSTEM.INI.   Windows then failed to start because of the
duplicate driver loads.  Once I cleaned up my SYSTEM.INI I then added
the appropriate ProgMan Items for the GUS and free software and
everything runs fine.

How To Install 2.06 disk quickly

  Many people are not taking advantage of disk caching software
on their floppy drives.   I highly recommend before you install any
software package with more then one floppy that you enable your
cache on that floppy before starting the installation program.  
Doing so will greatly decrease the time it takes to get the software
installed.   Clearly you can see that reading from RAM (the cache)
will be much faster then reading from a slow floppy drive for any
reads past the first read.  2.06 took only 10 minutes running SmartDrv.
  Since most have SMARTDRV.EXE buried in their DOS or WINDOWS 
directories why not give it a try.  For those running some other
cache find its command line switch to enable read cache for floppies.
If your running DOS 5 or Windows 3.1 then SMARTDRV goes in your 
autoexec.bat or can be run manually.  Older versions of DOS wanted
smartdrv in your config.sys.   The switches below still apply to the
older versions as well.
  Let's say you haven't got smartdrv installed or you just want to
add a floppy to its list of drives cached.  We'll also assmume you
want to start it from the DOS prompt just for the installation of the
2.06 disks.   We'll also say that you have SMARTDRV.EXE in C:\DOS and
your 3.5 inch floppy drive is drive B:  

	C:\DOS\SMARTDRV B+  <- turn on smartdrv or add drive B:
	B:INSTALL               <- run your typical install program

	C:\DOS\SMARTDRV B-  <- shut off cache on drive B: if you like

	C:\DOS\SMARTDRV /?      <- see what other switches it offers

  You should be very pleased with the improvement in time waiting
to read files from the floppy.

			Rod Wittmier

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 16:55:23 +0930 (CST)
From: SCARMAN@hfrd.dsto.gov.au (Gavin)
Subject: Gusmod vs. Ultramod
Message-ID: <930617165523.4c70@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>

I finally got Gusmod to work as someone in USD#16(?) also worked out, although 
mine must have created the cfg file after trying a number of times (but I still 
don't know what I did to fix it).

Comparing the sounds from each player ie. gusmod and ultramod, (listening to 
Spa.mod that comes with 2.06L) and there is definately a difference in the way 
the instruments sound. Anyone know why?

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 01:56:53 GMT
From: mccarty@netcom.com (Michael K McCarty)
Subject: GUS Rev 2.4
Message-ID: <mccartyC8qtEt.6Mq@netcom.com>

ReprintFrom: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard

I just got the 2.4 revision of the GUS card and just wanted to pass on that
it works witht the Opti Chipset, where as my 2.2 rev did not.

Mike 
-- 
<=-----------------------------------------------------------------------=>
  Michael K McCarty                Internet:  mccarty@netcom.com
  Strategic Visions, Inc.          AOL:       svision@aol.com
								   Compuserve:72123,2107
			   -=> GO KINGS! <=-
"...close the hatch. Careful not to lock it on the way out."
	-Buzz Aldrin :: Apollo XI

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

Date: 18 Jun 93 13:40:10 U
From: "zz Paul Murgatroyd" <zz_paul_murgatroyd@macmail.bond.edu.au>
Subject: MOD files in Windoze..
Message-ID: <9306180331.AA00929@kirk.Bond.edu.au>

>Date: Wed, 16 Jun 93 0:54:21 PDT
>From: Aaron Ryan <aaronr@ucs.usc.edu>
>Subject: Wow!!

>When I use Winmod in MS-Windows, it sounds just like the old card (sound
>blaster) in mono and digitized (yuk)....will there ever be a mod
>player that can play Music to the full Ultrasound capacity
>(as demonstarted in the demos) underwindows..or is 
>that prohibited by the way windows uses sound cards?

There already is...WinMod Pro. It is a bit flakey with some mods, but this is
not a problem with the GUS, it is a problem with the implementation of the
ProTracker bit.Sometimes a MOD will cause the program to have an application
error. It won't happen very often, but when it does, the MOD is probably the
cause of the problem. Make sure you choose "Stereo" from the menu, otherwise it
will sound like a normal SoundBLaster.

Love my GUS.....
Aaron "Lone Star" Ryan
aaronr@skat.usc.edu

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 06:26:54 -0700
From: freejack@shell.portal.com (Michael J Sutter)
Subject: Modus (Windows Mod player for the Gus)
Message-ID: <9306171326.AA04697@jobe.shell.portal.com>

For every one looking for a Mod player for window, check out modus.zip on Epas.
It should be there ny the time you read this.
Modus is still in the beta stage, but it does show alot of promise. 
Included in the modus archive is a Turbo Pascal for Window DLL with docs.
Hope you enjoy it.
BTW I'll be uploading english docs to Ultra-Tracker over the next few days to epas.

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 08:28:42 EDT
From: eths1306@ele.etsmtl.ca
Subject: MotherBoard Canada Post
Message-ID: <9306171228.AA04257@ele.etsmtl.ca>

Hi,
	To the one who said he had a poor motherboard. Me too I have an
ultrasound board that look awful. Alot of solders are not shiny (so
I'm happy not to have problem with bad contact until now) and some
solder would need more tin since you can see the the hole in the board.

	And on the mother board, I have a capacitor wich seems to be
broken, but as I said every thing seem working properly until now. But
it doesn't give a beautiful image to gravis, a lot of friend told me that
they were worried about the board life?

	As for the disk, I didn't got mine either? And I live in Quebec.
If you talk to a worker of Canada Post, they will tell you that they
are the best of the world! The proof isn't there with GUS disk! Someone
said;
	"The proof of the pudding is in the eating"

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 11:52:01 CDT
From: eason@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM (Dale Eason)
Subject: Re: Noise while sampling
Message-ID: <9306171652.AA11756@ncrnd3.StPaul.NCR.COM>

Here a two possible causes of fizzling noises that people are hearing when
sampling.  Quantization noise is caused by the 8 bit resolution of the DAC.  It
sound like a soft air rushing noise.  Something like when you put a sea shell to
your hear.  It is constant in volume and pitch.  It will be most noticable during
the soft passages.  This noize has a parallel in the video domain.  It is similar
to when a diagonal line is displayed on a low resolution monitor or printer.  You
see jaggies instead of a smooth line.  As the resolution of the display increase
the jaggies dissapear.   A 16 bit sampler will help with this noise. 

If the noise is bursty then it is caused by another source.  Most likely caused
by something being picked up from the computer.  The most likely causes are
disk accesses and video screen updates.  You usually can hear these even when
the card is not playing any sound.  Turn up your amplifier.  Make sure our
GUS line out or audio out is turned on.  Then run various programs on our
machine.  You will hear many interesing noises that the GUS may pick up.

If these noises are like what you hear when recording then the noise you are
hearing during recording are not caused by the 8 resolution and will not be
helped by the 16 bit dac when it is available.

I don't know of any spec for mother boards that will help you determine if they
will improve the noise problem.  I think most of this noise is induced by the
hard disk and video adapters.   Sometimes it helps to move the GUS to another
slot away from the offending card. 

Someone could write a program to send data to/from the GUS without playing 
anything.  If this caused noise then we would know it was caused by the DMA
transfer.  Someone with the SDK want to try it?


Dale 

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 10:28:51 +0000
From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
Subject: Patch format and Patch editors
Message-ID: <0096E282.A8F2D14B.10486@lsl.co.uk>

I just downloaded the software developers kit (GKSDK201), not particularly
intending to program (I don't have a compiler for DOS anyway, only Windows,
and I can program for that using the standard interface to the driver),
but hoping to be able to 'mess about' with patches.

All there is in the kit is the C header file describing the patch format,
but very little explanation. There is also the patch editor PATCH.EXE.
I can understand most of the fields, but what are baffling me are the
six envelope 'rate' fields. Of the three programs I have for editing
and examining patches, PATINFO indeed just gives the numbers from the
file, while PED2 (Windows) and PATCH (with GUSSDK) interpret them
somehow (but differently). So what exactly are they? Also, is there
any better documentation of PATCH.EXE (it is very easy to destroy the
patch with random mouse clicks while trying to experiment!!!).

I think I'll try downloading ULTRADOX and UDOX-20, but I'm not too
optimistic of them helping me.

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

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 93 0:11:47 CDT
From: ddebry@itchy (Dave DeBry)
Subject: Populous II...
Message-ID: <9306180611.AA06585@itchy>

	Every possible combination of sbos2.0b9 with emm386 and my
packard bell's memory layout has now been tried, and none of them
worked with Populous II.

	I'll try sbos1.20 and let you all know what happens.

	In the meantime, does anyone else have this game?  Have you
gotten it to work?

-- 
Dave  ddebry@ debry@   \ 
DeBry dsd.    peruvian. | "Try a banana in your shoe and you'll know
	  es.     cs.utah.  |  what a day is."
	  com     edu      /  

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

Date: Fri, 18 Jun 1993 00:42:56 -0300 (ADT)
From: Shadow Of Fear <markus@Info.UMoncton.ca>
Subject: Request for a file...
Message-ID: <Pine.3.02.9306180056.A11940-a100000@clement>

Hello,

	The only Gravis node for Nova-Scotia died recently.  The Max
Mega-byte is dead and I want to take over and bring a Gravis node in
New-Brunswick.  But I need the GRAV-APP.ZIP file.  Can anyone upload it on
epas?  I can't have it from The Max anymore and I don't want to call in
Vancouver (a terrible long distance call).
	Please, someone, put GRAV-APP.ZIP on epas.  The file is small. 
Thanks in advance.
							Marc Y. Paulin
	 /-----------------------------------------------------------------\
	 |  Fidonet: 1:255/32.0   Internet: markus@info.umoncton.ca        |
	 |           1:255/33.0       Talk: markus@clemen.info.umoncton.ca |
	 \--------------+------------------------------+-------------------/
					| Gravis Ultrasound forever!!! |
					+------------------------------+

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 18:23:15 EDT
From: David Ball <dball@hp8c.nrl.navy.mil>
Subject: Re: The Power Chords Blues
Message-ID: <9306172223.AA01942@orca.es.com>

> Date: Tue, 15 Jun 93 18:36:50 EDT
> From: jeffreytm@aol.com
> Subject: The Power Chords Blues
> Message-ID: <9306151836.tn42897@aol.com>
> 
> ....
>      I took the skimpy manual to work and gave it good looking over.
> Then I went home and started to compose.  Decompose actually.  It
> took some time but I finally realized that Power Chord allows you
> only 1 melody, 1 bass, 1 Chord Rhythm, and a drum track for each
> measure.  If you count the drums as one instrument, you soon discover you can
> have only 4 instruments going on at one time.
> That is what I always wanted.  A 16-bit Mod Composer!
>      I gave Howling Dog the benefit of the doubt.  What do you expect
> for free anyway?  I called Howling Dog to place that $20 dollar order
> for the real Power Chords 1.1.  Being a curious customer I asked,
> "How many melodies can I have in one bar?".  "Just one" was the
> reply.  I then informed that Power Chords 1.1 allows me to make
> my own custom instrument with up to 12 strings and 24 frets.  I always wanted
> to play a martian simitar doesn't everybody.  The Pro
> version for $75 that allows 16 melodies (real midi) is not ready yet!
> Does this sound familiar to anyone with a GUS.
>      Does anybody know what you can do with the little guitar you
> can play with your mouse?  I can strum it, pick it, and bend notes
> with it.  Is it just a chord tester or can you actually use it in the
> wonderful 4 instrument songs you make with Power Chords.
>                                   -Jeff Meyer-
>      (just one man, one computer and a shidi sequencer)

Well, maybe there's a workaround here.  If you set up the bass, chords,
and drums, and then add a melody track, and then save the file, and then
change the melody and save to a different file, couldn't you then merge
these together (in rec. session for example), get rid of the extra
tracks and have 5 instruments.  And more could be added.  It does seem
like a pain, and I haven't tried it myself, but it seems like it could
work.

  -- Dave

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 06:42:01 GMT
From: mike@batpad.org (Mike Batchelor)
Subject: Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #15
Message-ID: <znr740299321k@batpad>

> From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
> Subject: nasty Harpsichord patch
>
> Does anyone else think that the Harpsichord patch is horrible? The
> sound is accompanied by a metallic buzzing or something.

Rea; harpsichords buzz like that too!  It's a feature!

> I think
> that it was better in the very early releases. Can someone come up
> with a better one, more suitable for use as a solo instrument?
>

The harpsichord was never suitable for a solo intrument, and 
neither was the bagpipe.  

				   ///////////////////////////////
					//// Mike Batchelor ///////////
					 //// mike@batpad.org //////////
					  //// Mar Vista, California ////
					   ///////////////////////////////

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 13:51:14 EDT
From: "Christopher Kellmeyer" <cfk@cutter.cis.ufl.edu>
Subject: Ultrasound w/ xwing and others
Message-ID: <9306171751.AA28421@cutter.cis.ufl.edu>

In reply to many concerns about X-Wing,
	I was running X-wing fine with an older version of sbos (cannot
remember the exact version--whatever came w/ disks 2.05), then I got the
version in the gus0032 file from epas.  It now runs reaaly good, the music is
okay and there are noticably more digital speech.  I have not seen X-wing run
on systems with SB, so I can't say mine is 100%.  Yet, the speed is greatly
decreased with every sound option you choose.

****    BUT!!!!   *****
	After I installed the new sbos version, Jordan in Flight stopped
working.  It really never worked 100% in the first place (echoed voices and
sound effects), but now all sound effects stop working when the game starts.
Is there any sbos options I should be setting? Has any played J. in F. with
the ultrasound?

				Just thought I would put my 2 cents in...

					Chris Kellmeyer
					cfk@beach.cis.ufl.edu

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 93 8:58:31 MDT
From: Stuart Yoshida <yoshida@elektra.fc.hp.com>
Subject: X-Wing (not again!)
Message-ID: <9306171458.AA17895@elektra.fc.hp.com>

  Yes, fellow GUS'ers, I am another gameplayer who is being perplexed by
  X-Wing.  Here's my problem in a nutshell:

  * X-Wing only works in Adlib mode (that sucks!).

  * I'd like to get X-Wing working in Soundblaster mode to get the music
	*AND* digitized sounds.

  * Here are my settings: MIDI IRQ    7
			  GF1 IRQ    11
			  DMA In      1
			  DMA Out     1

  * Here's a partial list of TSR's I have running:
	   - QEMM 6.01
	   - Stacker 3.0
	   - Hyperdisk 4.32
	   - Ultrainit
	   - SBOS 2.09B

  * I'm running a 386SX-16 with 8MB RAM

  Does anyone have suggestions as to how I can get X-Wing to work in
  Soundblaster mode?  I've tried various versions of SBOS, but to no
  avail.

  adTHANXvance,

--

  Stuart Yoshida

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

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

Date: Thu, 17 Jun 1993 13:15:03 +0501 (EDT)
From: Gunnar Swanson <gunnar@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>
Subject: Yes X-wing does work 99% of the time!
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9306171303.A5454-a100000@gibbs.oit.unc.edu>

Dear pilots of the Rebel Allaince,

	I have been using the GUS with SBOS 2.04 for some time now and it
works fine.  I have QEMM 6.02 with SBOS loaded high and SB selected as the
sound board.  I have had no real problems with this setup all the
other stuff is default GUS set ups.  The only time I have trouble is when
there is a Film sequence sometimes I can't hear Darth breath at me or Akbar
order the X-Wings to attack.  The only other thing I need is a faster
mother board and I would be very happy. 

	The game does work and I have had no real problems.  So the ansewer to
your question is an emphatic YES!

	Happy GUSing my fellow Rebels and may the Force be with you.


		Gunnar Swanson

gunnar@gibbs.oit.unc.edu

end.
  

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V4 #18
*************************************
