Ultrasound Daily Digest     Sun, 21 Feb 93       Volume 2 : Issue  49 

Today's Topics:
						3D sound - the theory?
					Answers to misc. questions...
							   KBdrum?
							 MIDI inputs
					  New delpat.cal CAL program
				SOX sound file converter v. 7 for DOS?
					 Unix Drivers for Ultrasound

	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.

	*** HEY!!! *** 

	Before you ask a question, *** READ THE FAQ ***.  It's
available on the request server and the ftp sites, or check the
newsgroup archives.

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Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 14:10:34 +0100
From: d91-sme@nada.kth.se
Message-Id: <9302201310.AA12988@dront.nada.kth.se>
Subject: 3D sound - the theory?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> sbm@pt.com writes:

> So I suppose you could work out some FFT algorithim to give you this effect
> but all you really need is careful control of the volume and be able to
> delay the sound slightly in one channel. You could probably forgo the low-pass
> filter on the far ear. This explains why 3D is a software upgrade to the
> GUS anything more complicated (like real-time FFTs) would require new hardware.

But as a said in my previous letter, this FFT algorithm could be implemented
without using the CPU at all. This could in turn explain why 3D is a software
upgrade to the GUS (and not to any other soundcard!), and doesn't require
new hardware.

But I can't see how you can get 3D sound by only changing the volumes for
the left and right channel, even though you include a slight delay between
them. With only that information, how can you hear whether the sound is
located in front of you or comes from behind? In these cases the relative
volume and delay should be the same..?

> All this is lost when you use speakers, you must use headphones for
> playing back binaural sound. And you must have somthing roughly the size
> of a human head with the microphones position where the ears are to
> record it. I have found that a mannequins head and with two regular old
> microphones mounted in the ears works great (also it is quite the
> conversation piece).

I am too very sceptical to Gravis' statement that the 3D sound will work
satisfactory with speakers. But what I do believe in is their show in Las Vegas
in january. They showed that the location of a 3D sound could be changed in
_real time_ (I think this sound fantastic)!

Now, how do you that with a pre-recorded sound, as is the case with "your"
type of binaural sound? The only thing a can think of is that Gravis has
found a way of emulating the changes a sound goes thru when listened to from
different locations. And this would include a FFT of some kind...?

> When you listen to a binaural recording of a party, where many conversations
> are taking place at once you can use the position queues to listen to
> one convesation one time and another the next. This is almost impossible
> with stereo recording.
 
How do you mean?

> Stereo sound can only approximate the effect. But with good binaural (3D)
> sound you could probably play Wolfenstein with your eyes closed.

I agree! :-)
And think of the _music_ you could make! What a dream!

/Smedis (Niklas Smedberg, d91-sme@nada.kth.se)

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

Date: 20 Feb 93 18:15:39 +0100
From: Bjorn Havard Kleven <BJORNHK@dhhalden.no>
Message-Id: <MAILQUEUE-101.930220181539.256@sofus.dhhalden.no>
Subject: Answers to misc. questions...
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

>
>     About a month or so ago the GUS 3D was announced.  I was about to
> buy a standard GUS, but decided to wait for the 3D.  How much longer
> will I have to wait?  Has GUS given an official release date?  I had
> heard "sometime in February/March."

The GUS 3D is, if I remember correctly, announced for April 1st. I
might also mention that GUS'es with the full GM patch set will start
to ship about March 1st

> cards sold? That might be a good thing to point out -
> "XXX people have bought GUS cards, and they want support
> for these cards. That's a sizable market, and since they

As far as I know those numbers are pretty much secret, but about
20.000 registration cards has been returned, and that number is
probably much smaller than the actual amount of units sold. See also
my comment below!


> I keep forgetting to send in my registration for the Gus. From the sound of it,
> it doesn;t much matter, does it?

Oh yes it does! By sending it in, you will recieve the 192 General
MIDI patches and (probably) MidiSoft Recording Session and
PowerChords for free! These pieces of software are almost finnished
now, and it shouldn't take to long time before you get them! Besides,
how is Gravis supposed to be able to give you product upgrade info if
they don't know your address?


	 -=* Bjorn :: bjornhk@dhhalden.no
   ACCESS DATA :: TEL: (+47)-9-17 50 48/61-97 311 FAX: 61-97 312
				  BBS: 61-97 945 300-14400 bps, 24 hrs

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Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 16:55:47 PST
From: nestlero@chekov.usc.edu (Mikeeee)
Message-Id: <9302210055.AA03185@chekov.usc.edu>
Subject: KBdrum?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

Thanks to those that responded to my request for a drum machine-type program
for the GUS. I received several suggestions for "KBdrum", but haven't been
able to fing it on the archive at epas. I did, however, find a program called
"mididrum" that does do some things , but it only allows two measures of 
programming and has no musical notation. I'm looking for something that would
allow me to program extended rhythms so that I could actually have a complete
musical score.
So the question is, has anyone seen or heard about KBdrum, and where is it?
And, are there any other programs out there that do what I'm looking for?

Thanks one and all for any guidance!
				Mikeeeeee
				nestlero@spock.usc.edu

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

Date: 20 Feb 1993 03:49:46 -0600
From: neudo417@skdad.usask.ca
Message-Id: <9302200949.AA23188@pasqua.USask.ca>
Subject: MIDI inputs
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have built the MIDI I/O port, as per the FAQ in this group.

MidiVue shows that note on/off commands, voice change, pitch bend, etc 
are actually coming in from my music keyboard (an ancient Korg poly-800),
and I am able to use playmidi to play songs (in one voice) out through the
Korg, but there is one more thing I would really like to do.

I want to play the Ultrasound with my MIDI keyboard.

How do I do this? If it's software, let me know an archive site, please.

Thanks.

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

Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 19:07:32 CST
From: cowles@hydra.convex.com (John Cowles)
Message-Id: <9302210107.AA11271@hydra.convex.com>
Subject: New delpat.cal CAL program
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

I have uploaded delpat.cal, a program to split instruments to
multiple tracks in Cakewalk, to
archive.epas.utoronto.ca:/pub/pc/ultrasound/submit

Here is the text file that accompanies it:

-------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a .cal file to use with Cakewalk.

This .cal program will delete all events associated with a particular
patch from a track. If you want to use it to separate instruments
in one track to different tracks, use as follows:

1. Make as many clones of the track as you have instruments in the track.
   (Hint: Use the track/clone procedure)

2. Mark the first track of interest from start to end.
   (Note! this will not work particularly well if you have more than one track
	selected at once.)

3. Go to the "cal" window (or if you are using Cakewalk Pro for DOS, to the
	CAL submenu) and load delpat.cal (this file).

4. Run it, following the interactive instructions that you will see.

5. If you have several instruments to delete, continue to rerun until there
	is just one instrument left.

6. Go to the next track that you have cloned and repeat, keeping a
	different instrument until you have finished.

LIMITATIONS:

This program assumes that all events on a given track are assigned to the
same midi channel. If you are working with a type 0 midi file (which has
multiple channels on a single track), use the edit/cut-paste(to one track)
commands (with an event filter) to separate the different channels to
different tracks.

This program assumes that there is an Initial Patch (that a patch number
or name is written in the trackview window).

CAL programs know NOTHING about tracks - so if you have selected more
than one track, the program will probably not work as you expect.

CAL programs do not know about the 'Initial Patch' (at least in Wincake),
so the program asks you for that patch number. In addition, if the initial
patch is the same as the patch data you wish to delete, the program
asks for a patch that IS NOT ON THE TRACK (rather unelegant, I think!).

POSSIBLE ENHANCEMENTS:

The program could save the current marked area, mark the whole track,
and restore the marks as they were.

The program could work on type 0 midi files by being channel based, rather
than track based.

If you find bugs, I'll try to fix them - but one of the beauties of a CAL
program is that YOU HAVE THE SOURCE! (But please let me know!)

Thanks to Yuri Lee of Montreal for suggesting this program to me. Have fun!

	 John Cowles        cowles@hydra.convex.com
						Convex Computer Corp.  214 497 4375
						3000 Waterview Pkwy
						Richardson, Tx. 75080

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

Date: 20 Feb 93 10:41:41 GMT
From: s106275@ee.tut.fi (Anssi Saari)
Message-Id: <s106275.730204901@ee.tut.fi>
Subject: SOX sound file converter v. 7 for DOS?
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

In <C2pAA7.Irx@hermes.hrz.uni-bielefeld.de> ittschir@techfak.uni-bielefeld.de (Tim Tschirner) writes:

>In article <pm860605.94.729825437@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu>, pm860605@longs.LANCE.ColoState.Edu (Peter J. McKinney) writes:
>|> Has anyone compiled version 7 of SOX, the "universal" sound file converter 
>|> under DOS yet?  The c source code was recently posted to alt.sources and I 
>|> don't have a c compiler....
>|> 
>|> - Pete
>If you get an answer, could you please post it here?

At least a few minutes ago, it was at wuarchive.wustl.edu
as /pub/MSDOS_UPLOADS/sounds/sox7dos.zip.-

Anssi
-- 
Anssi Saari s106275@ee.tut.fi                
Tampere University of Technology 
Finland, Europe                  

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Date: Sat, 20 Feb 1993 13:12:53 -0500
From: Mike McNally <mcnally@eecs.umich.edu>
Message-Id: <199302201812.AA07263@quip.eecs.umich.edu>
Subject: Unix Drivers for Ultrasound
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

	> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 17:05:19 EST
	> From: jeff@endeavor.ColumbiaSC.NCR.COM
	> Message-Id: <9302182202.AA22953@orca.es.com>
	> Subject: Unix Drivers for Ultrasound
	> To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>
	> 
	> I am currently scoping the effort for development of a Unix driver
	> for the GUS, but the lack of technical information is slowing my
	> efforts.  As more technical specifications are posted to this list I
	> may decide to undertake this task.
	> 
	> Anyone out there want to collaborate on this?

I'd be very interested in any programming information you can manage to
find on the GUS, especially pointers on how addressing and programming
it differs from programming the SoundBlaster (I imagine the differences
are considerable.)  I'm quite interested in getting a driver working for
my 386BSD system and I'd like to start off with the SoundBlaster driver
that's been ported to 386BSD from Mach.  I'd think that I can salvage
much of the skeleton code (though I haven't looked at it to see if it's
really worth saving..) but so far the project has been mostly wishful
thinking because I can't get Gravis to even consider providing me with
programming docs (which I consider a really bad sign -- any company this
stingy with information is pretty likely to shrivel up and die from
lack of support..)

[medium-size rant follows..]

With an estimated 30,000 386BSD systems currently running and probably
many more running Linux you'd think that the home Unix market would be
big enough that they'd want to get a piece of it (especially with many
of the users in this particular niche buying new hardware to build their
dream system) but the impression I got from the rather surly tech-support
person I spoke to was that unless you're a game company they don't want
to talk to you.  Though not his exact words, the explanation he offered
was "we're already selling the cards as fast as we can make them, why
should we care about your little niche market?"  Maybe because it's
not little?  Maybe because there are many many talented programmers
currently messing with the stuff who could turn out to be a very rich
source of GUS developers?  Maybe just because I bought the thing and
am one of their customers and would like to know how it works?
Ahh well..  It's hardly the end of the world if I don't find out how
to program it but if it turns out that the tech-support droid I talked
to was typical and their corportate attitude is really that arrogant
and programmer-hostile it'll be a long, long time before I ever purchase
another Gravis product.  Guess I'll give it a little time and let things
get going smoothly for them and see if I can talk to someone else there
who might be more programmer-sympathetic (and just less rude..) and
hope they'll eventually become a little less paranoid about letting
information fall into the wrong hands.  In the meantime, though, I'll
probably be wishing I'd bought an inferior but better documented card..

															  -mcnally.

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Date: Sat, 20 Feb 93 22:18:03 -0500
From: jagati1@SERVER.uwindsor.ca (JAGATIC JASON            )
Message-Id: <9302210318.AA10925@SERVER.uwindsor.ca>
To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>

> Date: Thu, 18 Feb 93 18:37:17 -0500
> From: "It's your hand, Buckaroo" <dantonio@magick.tay2.dec.com>
> Message-Id: <9302182337.AA07298@magick.tay2.dec.com>
> Subject: Ultramod
> To: Ultrasound Daily Digest <ultrasound@dsd.es.com>
> 
> Has anyone had any success with the Ultramod program (proported to be a MOD
> player written by Advanced Gravis)? All it does on my system is clear the
> screen, write out Ultramod by Advanced Gravis in double-height letters and
> exit. I wasn't very impressed to say the least...
>


This might sound stupid and quite obvious but did you make 
sure that you put the .MOD extension at the end of the 
filename?  Without it, the program won't play the mod!

										Jay.
								  
								jagati1@server.uwindsor.ca    

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End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V2 #49
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