Ultrasound Daily Digest     Tue Aug 17 00:45     Volume 5: Issue  16  

Today's Topics:
						 Another wacky idea!
							  Bio menace
					   Dune2 and AIL and OS/2 
							 File Request
							  GUS SYSEX
			 making better mids with Pchords and Rsession
				  Mega-Em sometimes worse than SBOS?
					 Megem & out-of-tune patches
						   MSC Stereo & GUS
					   No Stereo-In in WINDOWS
				 Power Chords - use 8 bits with 256K
						   SBOS under OS/2?
			   Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #15 (2 msgs)

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: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 17:46:25 -0400 (EDT)
From: "Mr. Cheese Grater Head" <ericm@titan.ucs.umass.edu>
Subject: Another wacky idea!
Message-ID: <9308162146.AA14582@titan.ucs.umass.edu>

	Here's somethig that's really been irking me for a long time:
I think that one of the coolest things about the GUS patches is that
one can set the AM and FM rate, level, and delay in the patches. But
it seems silly not to have a utility to change this info without
having to edit the patch. After all, it's only a few bytes, right? Same with
the root note, and all the other parameters. 
	Once again, my not being a decent programmer ruins my day. It
seems logical though, that with a few peeks and pokes, one would be able
to change this information IN THE CARDS MEMORY, or at least reload the
patch, overriding the defaults. That way we could have a reverby/echo bass
sound, then easily switch to a crisp sound (this is actually the envelopes
territory, but it's just a few bytes too).


	DAMN YOU, YOU POPS AND CLICKS... get thee OUT of my GUS.

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

Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 10:25:07 +0930 (CST)
From: Gavin <SCARMAN@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>
Subject: Re: Bio menace
Message-ID: <930817102507.222e@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>

> Has anyone been able to get this game to work - with  what switches etc?
Works fine with SBOS 2.08 and no switches on my 386-40.

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 14:47:38 -0400
From: "Momentary language, sexual situations" <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
Subject: Re: Dune2 and AIL and OS/2 
Message-ID: <9308161847.AA23886@magick.tay2.dec.com>

> I have been running Dune2 in a full screen DOS session under OS/2 using
> the Miles drivers.  I have only encountered one problem, and that is with
> the music.  It takes forever to load and either doesn't play or plays at
> most for 10 or 15 seconds, usually cutting out at the next sound.  It takes
> forever to load in DOS, but plays ok.

Are you using ULTRAMID -c? If so, it will indeed take forever to load
because it's loading (in my case) 1MB of patches into the GUS. I also use
OS/2 to play Ultima Underworld with the AIL drivers and I notice that the
sound/music cuts out at times and gets chopped up quite a bit. While I like
the sound, the choppiness almost makes me want to go back to DOS and the SB
(no way do I have an extra 56K lying around for ULTRAMID to gobble up).
PLEASE GRAVIS, use EMS or XMS or SOMETHING to get your TSRs to be a
reasonablely small size!

DDA

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 18:01 PDT
From: Jason Lin -aKa- ~Captain Goodnight~  <IZZYVU9@MVS.OAC.UCLA.EDU>
Subject: File Request
Message-ID: <9308170106.AA21954@orca.es.com>

Can someone send me Ultima 7 GM rearranged songs to me via email?
Thanks in advance..
-Jason Lin-

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 09:30:05 EDT
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  16-Aug-1993 0928" <fisher@skylab.enet.dec.com>
Subject: GUS SYSEX
Message-ID: <9308161330.AA19584@us2rmc.bb.dec.com>

>Date: Sat, 14 Aug 93 2:29:16 PDT
>From: Christopher Jon Wilkins <chrisw@leland.Stanford.EDU>
>
>The idea is this: implement midi sysex commands in the 
>Ultrasound driver to allow a dump request / bulk dump of
>the 128 patch names. Also modify patch manager so that you can double click
>on any patch number and it gives you a full list of possible patches in your
>patch directory which you can use to replace the existing patch reference. 
>
>Sound sensible? Suggestions/modifications? If we can get an absolutely
>clear idea of what it is we're after I'd say we've got a fair chance
>of convincing Gravis to do it.

I completely agree that lots of sysex commands would be helpful for the GUS 
windows drivers.  While dump request and upload would be nice (and I just found 
out that there is a standard of sorts for this), other things would be very 
useful also.  For example:

1)  Bank switch.  This would allow you to have several directories of patches, 
and select which directory you would use.  (Another possibility would be an 
individual patch switch so that you could say "For patch 0, instead of using 
ACPiano, use \midi\custom\kazoo".

2)  Patch load.  Useful for cases where you have access to the midi commands 
that a program is sending, but not to the software itself, so you can't add the 
patch load windows command.

3)  Switch sample rate or max voices.  Lets you trade off more voices for sample 
rate in your midi file without having to manually go in and change the driver 
parameter.

4)  Mixer parameters.  Turn on and off mike in and CD in via a MIDI file 
(marginally useful, I guess, but you might be able to use it and MCI commands to 
mix GUS-generated music with CD input)

Gravis folks!  Please consider adding these!  BTW, I don't know how proprietary 
you consider your drivers, but if you would consider making public some of the 
sources, you would see a lot of improvements made!  (You might consider 
distributing just the objects of the parts you want to keep secret and the 
sources to stuff that is less unique more more useful to us, like the MIDI 
parser.

Burns

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 12:56:42 +0100
From: zccaj19@ucl.ac.uk (Mr Stefan Magdalinski)
Subject: making better mids with Pchords and Rsession
Message-ID: <9308161156.AA96355@link-1.ts.bcc.ac.uk>

A friend and I sat up all night on saturday, getting drunk and
using PowerChords and Recording Session to make some
mids. We recorded bass parts, melodies, chord rhythms, etc,
etc and then found we wanted to put more than one melody line
on top of eachother.  After much brain-wracking and red wine
we came up with this work-around.
1. Record the first parts, save as a mid.
2. Change the melody to create a new part. Delete all the other
song elements when you're happy with it.
3. save this as a different mid.
4. exit powerchords
5. Load up two instances of Winjammer (from EPAS). Load one
mid into each. Use standard Edit/Copy Edit/Paste to add the
new melody to the original mid, as a new track.(Rec Session
doesn't seem to allow this)
6. Save. Use Recording Session for the mixing.
Voila! Now you can use PowerChords to create *much* more
sophisticated mids.
Sorry to Eric, if this annoys. I do think its an excellent program,
but a little limited in the freebie form. 

*QUESTION*
*QUESTION*
Does anyone know of a U.K. supplier with the Midi Box yet?
Also, Somewhere where I can buy Recording Studio or other
midi software.

pipes of peas,
Stefan
zccaj19@ucl.ac.uk

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 13:13:24 -0400 (EDT)
From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
Subject: Mega-Em sometimes worse than SBOS?
Message-ID: <Pine.3.05.9308161320.C11104-b100000@sciborg>

> Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1993 14:51:06 -0500
> From: John Riedl <riedl@cs.umn.edu>
> Subject: Mega-Em sometimes worse than SBOS?
> Message-ID: <199308151951.AA05259@xerxes.cs.umn.edu>
> 
> >I agree with Adrian, Megem (13b) offers far more superior sound than
> >SBOS.
> 
> Hmm.  I've tried Megaem 13b with The Incredible Machine, and the sound
> is quite a bit *worse* than with SBOS.  The music sounds out-of-tune,
> and the notes sound odd, almost as if two melodies are playing at the
> same time.  Am I missing an option or something, or is Mega-em like
> SBOS: works with some, doesn't work with others?
>

Mega-Em is best used as a GM driver instead of an MT-32 emulator, since
games that use the MT-32 frequently customize the MT-32 sounds via 
SysEx messages.  Mega-Em does not handle the SysEx messages very well,
so custom sound effects and instruments will not play correctly.
If the game supports the SCC-1 or a General MIDI device, use it instead
of the MT-32 (and run emuset with the /sc option) since music and sound
effects on the SCC-1 or a GM synth do not make use of SysEx customization.

Phat.

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

Date: 16-AUG-1993 10:33:20.99
From: Richard Wyckoff <RWYCKOFF@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU>
Subject: Megem & out-of-tune patches
Message-ID: <01H1T6NFR0008Y5OV9@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU>

  As someone posted yesterday, sometimes the music output from Mega-Em will
sound *really bad*.  This seems to be the fault of a few particularly crappy
patches, and not the fault of the emulator.  Using Mega-Em with the Fate
of Atlantis CD-ROM in SCC mode gives a rendition of the Indy theme which
makes you want to grind your teeth until they bleed, whereas in MT-32 mode,
it sounds fine, because the MT-32 mode uses different patches.
  Some of the worst offenders are the saxophone voices, (as tested by listening
in Patch Manager) but there are other 'patch families' that seem susceptible to
this.  I'm using the patches from the disk release just before the 2.06 disks 
(not 1.20, but the full GM release).
  What we need is to know whether the 2.06 patches are finally in tune, or
whether someone with a better ear and more time than me has the time to go
through and tune all the bad patches.
--                                             
RWYCKOFF                      /Richard Wyckoff\                      CATULLUS
@EAGLE.WESLEYAN.EDU          /   aka Catullus  \    @PELICAN.CON.WESLEYAN.EDU
			 "Sage of the Labyrinth, Knight of the High Odiamor"
						   /- Robert Anton Wilson\

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 16:54:03 +1000 (EST)
From: Andrew See <asee@st.nepean.uws.edu.au>
Subject: MSC Stereo & GUS
Message-ID: <199308160654.AA22319@arthur.st.nepean.uws.edu.au>

I have been using the MCS Stereo program in Windows to play
Wav's, Mids, and CD Audio. Everything works fine, except
that the MCS Mixer program will not run.
Does anyone know if there is some incompatibility with the
GUS win31 driver?

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 12:17:00 +0000
From: FINK_MARTIN/HP2000_13@idacom.hp.com
Subject: No Stereo-In in WINDOWS
Message-ID: <"dc7Nz3?0000xzDqm*"@MHS>

Well I hope the folks at Gravis are listening to this
one.

I just bought a microphone at Radio Shack.  I made sure
it was the stereo one ( it's actualy got two mic heads
on it).  I used the sound recorder in WINDOWS to record
my daughter, to find out only the left side of the mic
was working.  At first I thought I had a defective mic
and then a deffective GUS.  I tried using the DOS based
'playfile' that came with 2.06 disks, and it worked fine.

OK, now I'm confused.  Maybe the sound recorder in WINDOWS
does not support stereo in, so I decide to write some
code to write my own sound recorder.  In the process I
used the GetMidiInDevCaps() API call, and I found that the
GUS WINDOWS driver reports no stereo-in capabilities.  This
means that if I want a stereo recorder in WINDOWS, I'd
have to bypass the driver and go directly to the GUS.

Can anybody tell me if I've been smoking some wierd stuff
here, or do we know if Gravis plans to update the WINDOWS
driver to support stereo-in?

Martin
EMail: mfink@canada.hp.com

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

Date: 16 Aug 93 08:00:46 EDT
From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Power Chords - use 8 bits with 256K
Message-ID: <930816120045_71333.2166_DHQ42-1@CompuServe.COM>

> From: STU_JABIRCHE@VAX1.ACS.JMU.EDU
> Subject: Update Disks

> Got my disks yesterday. Odd. Thank you Gravis. :)
> I really like Power Chords. Some odd things, though. When I go to write
> a bass
> line sometimes, if i hit play in the Rhythm editor sometimes, it won't sound,
> but when I hit play in the song window, then hit play in the Rhythm editor
> it plays. Also, sometimes when I play a file from power chords in Midisoft
> Rec.

>> Switch to 8 bit patches from the default setting of 16 under Windows.
>> See page 19 in the Power Chords section of the manual.
>> Petition Gravis to change the default thus ending the frustration by
>> countless Power Chords users who have trouble at first.
>> Midisoft doesn't handle patch caching as well as Power Chords (changes in
>> the middle of a track don't get loaded). But 8 bit patches might help
>> your situation with MR as well.

>> Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 17:50 GMT
From: EXT0012@VAX2.QUEENS-BELFAST.AC.UK
Subject: SBOS under OS/2?
Message-ID: <9308161652.AA12970@orca.es.com>

Hi all...

  Has anyone ANY idea how I could get SBOS to work under OS/2? I know it's a
bit optimistic, but I would like to run the odd game or 3 with sound.

  Ta tafor now...


Jonathan Clark.

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 93 09:44:46 EDT
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  16-Aug-1993 0943" <fisher@skylab.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #15
Message-ID: <9308161344.AA20063@us2rmc.bb.dec.com>

Phat H Tran says:

>Managing custom banks/patches can be quite complicated.  If we get to
>define multiple banks in ultrasnd.ini, how will we choose among them
>in a .mid?  We can use controller 0, but then we would have to modify
>Media Player and other sequencers to look for it to keep track of 
>which program calls occurred in which banks so that the correct patches
>can be cached.  Thus, we will need to ask Twelve Tone, Howling Dog,
>MidiSoft, Microsoft, etc., to revise their software to accomodate bank 
>switching on the GUS.  (I'm assuming that current sequencers ignore
>controller 0 when scanning for patches to be cached.)

I think Phat and I have a different vision of how this works.  Mine is that the 
driver always defaults to using the GM patches.  However, you can change that 
behavior with a SYSEX command defined for the purpose (not CC 0).  After the
SYSEX command, any patch change command switches to the patch represented by 
that number IN THE NEW BANK.  Software that is patch cache aware should not have 
a problem.  They simply don't send the SYSEX command (as now) and they get the 
normal GM patches that they expect.  If someone uses another program to switch 
banks and then runs PowerChords or something, they get the new patches.  That is 
the user's problem.  Just like any other synth.

Jim Blakely writes:

>Midi Mapper is an intrinsic part of Multimedia Windows. It is not the
>place for implementing patch caching - patch caching is, according to
>the Multimedia specs, supposed to be handled by the application
>program, in most of our cases, that means the game or sequencer. The

No argument here.  My suggestion of writing a program to splice between an 
application and the GUS drivers (like Midi Mapper does) is an expedient to help 
with software that does not understand patch caching.

>
>If you obtain a .MID file that does not play any sound, it is an
>error on the part of the composer of that file, which is a form of
>the old programmer's error - forgetting to initialize. According to
>specs, the patch present on a MIDI channel is *undetermined* when a
>sequence begins. Some MIDI devices provide a default - others don't.
>
>The solution is to load the .MID file into a sequencer, such as
>Recording Session, and select a starting patch for each of the
>tracks.

Not necessarily true.  While some MIDI files don't have patch change commands, 
the most common problem is that the program playing the MIDI stuff is not doing 
caching.  This is also, of course, a programmer error, but one which a composer 
can't rectify since s/he has no access to the sources.  Ideally, I think, the 
driver should deal with this.  If it sees a patch change to a patch that is not 
cached, it should load it, and live with the slight delay.  My suggested cacher 
is a temporary way to allow any software to have its patches cached without 
waiting for either Gravis to add this feature to the driver or the rest of the 
world to read the multimedia spec and use caching.

Burns

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 12:19:23 -0600 (CST)
From: LARSEN@Meena.CC.URegina.CA
Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #15
Message-ID: <01H1T9XU6J42AJNZP3@Meena.CC.URegina.CA>

re: bio menace & sbos.
 bio menace does not work with dos 6 and SBOS, at least not for me.  It
does work with dos 5, though.  Don't worry about it.  After 30 seconds you
will turn the music off anyway.  (It's that bad.)

Bryan

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

Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 17:57:17 +0930 (CST)
From: Gavin <SCARMAN@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>
Message-ID: <930816175717.1d69@hfrd.dsto.gov.au>

I have a few requests:
Does anyone know where I can get any sequences/mods of any Electric Light 
Orchestra stuff? Or any other sequences of war of the worlds apart from the eve 
of the war.

What's the address of the mailing list for GUS software development (SDK?) ?

Has anyone got the Space Hulk demo to work with the GUS, and what setup does it 
require of both MSDOS eg mem,etc. and the GUS.

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

End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #16
*************************************
