Ultrasound Daily Digest Wed Aug 18 00:45 Volume 5: Issue 17 Today's Topics: &th Guest 3d text corrected Does anybody listen to this from Gravis? easiest, reasonablly cheap solution to sbos midimon - the original No sound with GoldPlay! Power Chords Pro - 16 melodies SBOS under OS/2? ULTRASOUND DAILY DIGEST V (2 msgs) Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #16 (3 msgs) Wanted To BETA Test NT Drivers Win Mod Pro -- no stereo? 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: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 21:50:28 +1000 (EST) From: Andrew See Subject: &th Guest Message-ID: <199308171150.AA18914@arthur.st.nepean.uws.edu.au> I am trying to get the 7th Guest to run wiwth miles drivers. I have a coexisting SB card in the machine. What do I do? I am just loading ultramid -c, and I configured T7G to use an MT32 for midi, and SB for sound. It's not working guys... ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 19:51:16 -0400 (EDT) From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Subject: 3d text corrected Message-ID: <9308172351.AA00608@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA> [ This text is a revision (August 17th 1993) of the article i posted: Date: Mon, 25 Jan 93 1:03:24 EST From: dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) Message-Id: <9301250603.AA26790@brise.ERE.UMontreal.CA> Subject: Franky in 3D To: Ultrasound Daily Digest I changed it to reflect the new informations i got. Archer did send me this time a nice informational package. ] Well, i think it's time i put my grain of salt on the 3d mania. First of all, even if it is a bit long, i suggest to read it all. And if you dont want to wait for a 3D driver for the GUS, dont forget to read one of my other post in this digest with the subject: Franky in surround. Also found under the filename surround.txt. Now, on with the show: There are several systems that are in use to get 3D sounds on recordings and some have been around since the 50s. Now i wont go into the "how it works" of the more recent ones, but i think this will clear up some confusion. The first part is a "hands-on" experiment, the second is informations, including the address and phone of the owner of the technology that is used with the Gravis Ultrasound. Let's get back to the early days of stereo. One record company (i cant seem to remember) was pushing it, while another (again, blank. anyone?) competed. Interestingly enough, technological development was put on stereo, and not on the first 3D system which was called "binaural recording" and it simply consisted of two microphones placed like the ears. You can try it this way: Go to a hat store and buy an extruded foam mannequin head. You'll then need two microphones. Condenser will do, but you will need to power them if you want to use them with the GUS, since it take a dynamic microphone because it does not supply phantom power like some mixer with XLR plugs. I will post a circuit later for Radio-shack condenser mike unit (a small element that cost about 2$) if there is some interest. (this circuit can be found in the file micro.arj on archive.epas.utoronto.ca. If you dont want to mess with that, go with a cardiod dynamic element. Note that sensitive enough cardiod will cost you a lot, so think about that. You cut holes in the ears of the head, to insert the microphone units (dont forget to make the wires of the elements go inside the head and out the rear (or wherever). Use glue to fill the crack around the mic. Also, the more the ears look like real ears, the better it will work. If you trim the foam, dont forget to use an hairdryer to soften it (it will be more uniform). That's it. Try recording sounds, and you'll be surprised. I was! I did the experiment with a polystyrene head on which i incrusted two PZM microphones. Now that you understand how 3D recording is nothing like stereo recording, we'll see what is accesible presently. First, the gadget we just built in the previous section exist commercially, and is called "Mikey" and is made by Spherical Sound. It's the only system commercialised where the microphones are placed in a head. Another system is made by Virtual Audio and claims to enhance stereo depth, but is not labeled 3D audio. I dont have much more info on it, but from the description it looks like the same thing as the "mikey". Two other systems use less restraining microphones situation and can also be used on any signal because a DSP simulate a 3D signal from parameters entered on the machine. QSound (no hyphen) was developped in Alberta, and the inventor sold the concept to another company (Archer Communications). It will not work at all with headphones, or if you are not positionned correctly while listening to it thru speakers and you are not in the soft spot. As for spacial representation, it cannot recreate a sound behind the listener, but can enhance the virtual representation between the listener and the speakers. And for trivia: Madonna, Sting, Wilson Phillips, Julian Lennon and Paula Abdul to name a few have used the QSound on their latest recordings. You cant buy a Qsound system presently but you can rent one and it is now midi controllable. The Qsound system has been licensed to Creative Labs for inclusion on their SB16asp cards and has also been licensed to Capcom and Analog Devices. Strangeley enough, CDROM titles for Sega home entertainment platform will be released with Qsound, while on this same system you will be able to get a VR helmet *with headphones* (remember, Qsound doesn't support that...). The other variant with a DSP is Roland RSS (Roland Sound Space). It is better (depending on how it is used) than QSound with headphones, but suffers the same faith as QSound when you are listening with speakers. Just move a bit from the soft spot, and suddenly what was in front left is now back left. RSS was used on Suzanne Cianni _Hotel Luna_ album. RSS cost around 40K$ and is midi controllable. I have not seen much things done with it yet, so Qsound and Focal Point seems to be more viable solutions (considering cost!). Another system on which i have zero information is called Audio Cybernetics. I also found out that a company called Sixgraph, from Montreal, QC will release a soundcard for PCs at Comdex in october 93 and from what i was told, they use their own technology for reproducing 3D audio. The last technology is called Focal Point 3D Audio. It was developped by Bo Gehring and first used on the Macintosh computers with a modified Audiomedia (Digidesign). It cost around 1400$ in this configuration. Gravis saw that (Focal Point is from Seattle) and it is the system that is now available on the GUS. At a much better price. The system produce the sounds with these parameters: direction, elevation and distance. RSS and Qsound cant accurately represent virtual sound behind the listener, but FP can, which makes it a better choice for virtual reality. However, in the midi implementation Gravis will have to develop a SYSEX command set. We already need it badly, but with 3D, i will shoot myself if i cant control it thru sysex. A more complete description of focal point ca be found in the Gravis Ultrasound FAQ. Apparently DOOM will be the first game to support 3D sound on the Gravis (and probably on PCs). Focal Point(tm) 3D audio 1402 Pine av., #127 Niagara Falls, NY 14301 Voice/fax: 1-416-963-9188 I have found most other addresses and once i have a bunch more info, i will post a totally new article, and hopefully i will have tried all the 3D systems other than Focal point on computers and Qsound and RSS on CDs (plus of course binaural recording). In particular, i am curious about the sixgraph card... Ciao, Francois Dion cism@ere.umontreal.ca dionf@ere.umontreal.ca dionf@nyongwa.cam.org Fido: Francois Dion 1:167/228 ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 08:34:33 EDT From: High-IQ male seeks multiplicative inverse Subject: Does anybody listen to this from Gravis? Message-ID: <9308171229.AA09751@easynet.crl.dec.com> It seems that there are so many people asking about SBOS and OS/2.... 1) Why doesn't it work? 2) Why can't it be made to work? Since the really well-written DOS apps have no trouble running in OS/2, doesn't this point a finger at SBOS? Is there any way to get a driver written so we can at least get digital audio and let a different driver handle the music? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 8:52:53 CDT From: Michael J Stumpf Subject: easiest, reasonablly cheap solution to sbos Message-ID: <9308171352.AA22231@tamsun.tamu.edu> Thought you guys should know that I went out and bought a sound blaster 1.5 for $40. It was the best thing I could have done. Coexisting with my GUS, demos work flawlessly and no neeed for sbos the memory hog. Roland or SCC & sb sounds AWESOME. Particularly, xwing. It sounds on general midi like it should. You've already put a good amount into buying a gravis.. I'm just telling you it is worth your while to save all those headaches and get a sb from some clown that's upgrading to a sb16 or something equally ridiculous. They go for $40 fairly reliably.. I just posted a message in one of the comp.forsale groups, and got 4 notes. My $0.02. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 07:19:07 -0700 From: peter@netcom.com (Peter Davies) Subject: midimon - the original Message-ID: <9308171419.AA15982@netcom4.netcom.com> My enquiry regarding the non-functionality of midimon as provided at the archive site produced one (1) response so I took the hint from the accompanying doc file and took a look at the original code as provided with MSoft's SDK 3.1 It doesn't work either - well not as published. If anyone is interested in getting the SDK version of midimon to work put in the following fixes: 1) file callback.def CODE FIXED DATA FIXED SINGLE 2) file callback.h and callback.c add "__export" to the declarations of PutEvent and inputHandler My original query still stands? ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 09:31:29 -0600 (PDT) From: Abdu Bukres Subject: No sound with GoldPlay! Message-ID: The demos that use GoldPlay do not produce output with I choose Sound Blaster from the output menu. However, the speaker does. Anyone knows what could be the problem? Abdu Bukres abdu@agora.rain.com ------------------------------ Date: 17 Aug 93 08:20:34 EDT From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM> Subject: Power Chords Pro - 16 melodies Message-ID: <930817122033_71333.2166_DHQ33-2@CompuServe.COM> 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 >> Howling Dog Systems does not recommend drinking and sequencing. >> Please rock responsibly. Sequences performed on a closed test track by >> professionals. > 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 each other. >> The new Pro version of Power Chords allows up to 16 melodies at a time. > Save. Use Recording Session for the mixing. >> That's why we have MIDI file export. But eventually mixing will be added to >> Pro - it'll be one-stop sequence shopping. >> Glad you are having a good time with the program. How bout sending some >> .POW files for our forum on CIS, and our song disk? >> Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 8:17:26 CDT From: wiegand@void.rtsg.mot.com (Robert Wiegand) Subject: Re: SBOS under OS/2? Message-ID: <9308171317@midnight1> > 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. > Sorry but SBOS just doesn't work under OS/2. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 19:55:24 From: jason.lin@support.com Subject: ULTRASOUND DAILY DIGEST V Message-ID: <9308171955.A8417wk@support.com> Richard Ryckoff posted yesterday that he thinks there're still a few out-of-tune patches included in the version 2.06. However, I don't think that is true. First of all, I have listened to every single patch and they all sounded correct. Secondly, both Mega-EM and SBOS produce out-of-tune music in a few games such as Fire Hawk(Thexder II). Therefore, I assume out of tune music is simply caused by the glitch in Mega-EM. Hopefully the next version(non-beta) will correct this problem. --- Jason Lin | Internet: jason.lin@support.com | Fidonet: 1:102/837 | jlin@batpad.org | Captain Goodnight | izzyvu9@mvs.oac.ucla.edu | ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 19:55:25 From: jason.lin@support.com Subject: ULTRASOUND DAILY DIGEST V Message-ID: <9308171955.A8418wk@support.com> AS>Date: Mon, 16 Aug 1993 16:54:03 +1000 (EST) >From: Andrew See >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? I have had the same problem before and got rid of it by reinstall Windows 3.1 and Ultrasound software.. :) --- Jason Lin | Internet: jason.lin@support.com | Fidonet: 1:102/837 | jlin@batpad.org | Captain Goodnight | izzyvu9@mvs.oac.ucla.edu | ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 9:25:17 BST From: James Andrews Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #16 Message-ID: <1827.9308170825@euclid.vortex1.exeter.ac.uk> > 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. I think you're getting a little excited and confused here. Are we talking here about midi patches or gus patches? Get Linux I think the controllers under its gus midi package are being picked off one by one- Im waiting for portamento to get done by someone else before I install linux. Hmm. There isnt an vibrato/tremelo on my out of data midi controller list. > Once again, my not being a decent programmer ruins my day. Ah yes but if you could program then you wouldnt have enough time to do all the neat stuff. -- James Andrews, Computer Development Officer, Exeter University Maths Dept ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 22:03:37 +1000 (EST) From: Michael Daniel Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #16 Message-ID: I got my disks!!! All the way down here in Australia, unfortunately I have not been able to use my GUS for about 3 weeks since my hard disk had a rather severe head crash :-( (I pulled it apart and one of the heads fell into my lap....) So as soon as I get my new HD I'll be able to use the new software properly. I had a quick look at Powerchords and Recording Session on my notebook (no sound obviously) and Recording session looks really good, especially since I don't have a MIDI keyboard and I can enter tunes myself now, and get rid of that stupid ringing at the start of AD.MID (Another Day in paradise/Phil Collins). Thanks Gravis!! See ya later -------------------------------------------------------------------------- |Michael Daniel| mdani@wilbur.mbark.swin.oz.au |Maths and Computer Science| | Swinburne University, Eastern Campus, Lilydale, Victoria, Australia. | -------------------------------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 1993 16:29:27 -0300 (ADT) From: Gravis Ultrasound Lover Subject: Re: Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #16 Message-ID: > 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. > I almost have the same problem here. I'm driving the output of my CD-ROM into the stereo line-in of my GUS. The music comes out of the Gravis fine, but it's in mono. Am I doing something wrong? Marc Y. Paulin /-----------------------------------------------------------------\ | Fidonet: 1:255/200 Internet: markus@info.umoncton.ca | | Talk: markus@clement.info.umoncton.ca | \--------------+------------------------------+-------------------/ | Gravis Ultrasound forever!!! | +------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 17 Aug 93 07:54:17 -0400 From: jap@mbunix.mitre.org (Joseph A. Paulin) Subject: Wanted To BETA Test NT Drivers Message-ID: <9308171154.AA18914@mbunix.mitre.org> Months back, I saw a message from John Smith that said some people had notified Gravis that they would be working on NT drivers for the Ultrasound. I am interested in being a beta tester for anyone working on an NT driver set for the Ultrasound. I made a serious mistake in not ordering the beta of the Device Driver Kit from Microsoft last year. So all I can do is offer to beta test. The Ultrasound and my page scanner are the only things that don't have NT drivers right out of the package and the scanner manufacturer is "working on the drivers" right now. By the way, I don't need any flames about OS 2 needing drivers first. It seems that there has been plenty of time and energy already devoted there. I have waited patiently until NT shipped. Now that I have my official release copy, I am more than ready for NT to handle my CD audio, .mod and .mid playing needs. J. A. Paulin | Genetics explains why you look like your father, MITRE Corp. | and if you don't, why you should. jap@mbunix.mitre.org | ANON ------------------------------ Date: Wed, 18 Aug 1993 00:01:26 -0600 (CDT) From: ddebry@grue.dsd.ES.COM (Dave DeBry) Subject: Win Mod Pro -- no stereo? Message-ID: <9308180601.AA29359@grue> Ok, I'll bite. What am I doing wrong that makes WinMod Pro not work in stereo mode with a GUS? When I turn Stereo on, I get absolutely no sound from the UltraSound. Any hints? -- Dave ddebry@ debry@ \ "How can I possibly understand you? I have a DeBry dsd. peruvian. | better chance of knowing which phone company es. cs.utah. | has lower rates." com edu / ------------------------------ End of Ultrasound Daily Digest V5 #17 ************************************* To post to tomorrow's digest: To (un)subscribe or get help: To contact a human (last resort): FTP sites: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/msdos/ultrasound archive.orst.edu pub/packages/gravis FTP mail server: mail-server@nike.rz.uni-konstanz.de Hints: - Get the FAQ from the FTP sites or the request server. - Mail to for info about other GUS related mailing lists (UNIX, OS/2, GUS-MIDI, etc.)