The GUS Daily Digest Monday, 18 December 1995 Volume 26 : Number 011 Today's Topics: Re: Pro Patches Lite - a discussion Re: The GUS Daily Digest V26 #10 Linux ultrinit? 2 soundcards Re: The GUS Daily Digest V26 #10 AWE32 and GUS DAMN joystick problem NFS sound doesnt work, help! Recording with a GUS Max Re: Pro Patches Lite - a discussion Re: Linux ultrinit? Re: Pro Patches Lite - a discussion win95 midi discrepancies 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. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Lance Kalzus Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 06:47:17 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Pro Patches Lite - a discussion On Sat, 16 Dec 1995, Gerd Reichinger wrote: > I hope this discussion about the quality of Pro Patches Lite does interest > other readers of the Digest, too - if not we'll discuss it per personal email. Unless you have specific improvements in mind that everyone should be aware of, maybe continuing this in e-mail would be better. This is my second time attempting to respond to your e-mail message. I think that what is so annoying for Eero is that you have criticisms for his work but you don't have suggestions on how to fix it. You just seem to say, "give it up, maybe we should wait for Gravis to fix things." > >When I bought GUS, I was pretty disappointed to the sound quality, because > >I had just heard Ensoniq SoundScape. That's why I made Pro Patches Lite. > >I bought GUS, only, because it was cheaper (money didn't come from my rear > >end :) )...and because of the support for demos and other software. > > Yes, sure - I guess that's why we all bought a GUS. > I don't know that Ensoniq soundcard, but I once listened to a Roland SC-55 > (oomph!), and I know how some of the SB wavetable upgrades sound. > >>I guess the problem is that Eero does neither have the equipment nor the > >>skill to produce high-quality patches like the professionals (Roland, > >>Terratec etc.). This is not meant as an offence but as an explanation. Add to this that he's not being paid by anyone and isn't responsible to anyone in particular to maintain it. Don't you think it's a bit discouraging to berate someone's work when the work's being done without expectation of payment? > >Bet I don't have the equipment. Skill ? I know something... > > > >I just have 1 meg GUS, Ess688 based 16-bit cheap SB-clone and couple of Wav > >editors. Just about anybody could do what I did and imagine how much better > >the sound of GUS would be, if there were more people developing sounds than > >people who are just critisizing the productions :(. > > What kind of argument is this? Only because I don't develop patches myself I > don't have the right to criticize your productions?? Well... You sound like you're saying that someone else could do better so why bother doing it yourself? > >Well, you could always ask Roland or Terratec to do a patch set for GUS. > >Hope it won't cost you anything :) !! > > I think we should all ask for (demand?) a better patch set from Gravis. And > that really shouldn't cost us anything. > I'm anxious to hear the patch set of the PnP GUS. Let's hope that one's better. Don't hold your breath: you'll strangle. The GF-1 is old technology in Gravis' eyes, and they aren't going to divert the small amount of juice in their InterWave department working on GF-1 patches. What I like best about PPL is that Eero is one person who listens to other people; if you notice a specific problem, he can clue in on it, fix it if it should be fixed, and release an update. Don't expect Gravis to move that quickly without any money involved! ;) > Once again, Eero: I appreciate your hard work to make the GUS sound better. > It's just that I don't want the readers of this digest to believe that PPL > can be recommended unreservedly. Why not? It's all subjective. I don't mind the level of noise in the PPL patches when there are about 24 instruments playing at once :) Why not advise readers to try for themselves and see what happens, instead of ... > I advise all readers to try out PPL, just don't expect too much. ? You make it sound like PPL is definitely a mediocre improvement at best. Well, I don't think anything will make the Gravis sound like a Roland X-1 or whatever $3,000 synth they have now. Nor do I think anyone can do that for the AWE. Just another lamer in the soup, Who sure doesn't help keep posts short :) Lance Kalzus ------------------------------ From: Kurt Schwind Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 08:09:52 -0600 (CST) Subject: Re: The GUS Daily Digest V26 #10 > From: kyhsin@singnet.com.sg > Date: Sat, 16 Dec 1995 23:16:52 +0800 > Subject: 2 soundcards > > Hello. > > I saw from some mails that some GUS users has two soundcards installed on > their computers and I wonder how would they connect the audio connector of > the CDROM drive. Can one drive be connected to two soundcards? > > Kenneth I'm running a Sound Bastard 16 and a GUS. The idea really isn't to connect the audio out on the CDROM to both soundcards. You don't gain anything by that. The audio in on a soundcard is a 'thru' line. This means that the sound card really shouldn't affect it (especially if you are using the line out and not the amplified speaker out.) I have the SB connected to my CDROM drive as both the controller and the audio out. It just simplifies things. I use the GUS whenever I need real sound quality. Hope this helps. Kurt A. Schwind kschwind@dsu2.deltast.edu _____________________________________________________________________ OS2/GUS/AMD/TCP/IP/IEEE/DOS/PCI/ALA/MBA/NBA/NHL/FBI/CIA/CIS/EFF/DIY ------------------------------ From: BRANDON WILLIAM HUME Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 13:22:58 -0400 Subject: Linux ultrinit? Has anyone heard of a project to develop something like this? My settings under Linux differ from that used under Win95 or DOS, and its a big bother to reboot back into DOS to adjust the settings to avoid I/O timeouts... I could use arguments to LILO or recompile the kernel too, but that's a bugger as well. :) Lacking that, does anyone know where one could find information of how to TELL the GUS how it should be set up? That seems to be something lacking from the regular GUS SDK. | Brandon "Hurricane" Hume = hume@ug.cs.dal.ca | | Technical Support/System administration (UNIX...Ohohohoho) | | "Just another Perl hacker...Ohohohoho Peeeeeeeeeerl..." | | - Finger for Geek codes, PGP, /dev/zero, yadda yadda. | ------------------------------ From: guardia@CAM.ORG (Samuel Audet) Date: Sun, 17 Dec 95 12:37:19 EST Subject: 2 soundcards >I saw from some mails that some GUS users has two soundcards installed on >their computers and I wonder how would they connect the audio connector of >the CDROM drive. Can one drive be connected to two soundcards? Sure, that's what I do... hehee... cuz my GUS for some reason, outputs the CD audio too soft, I plugged it also in my SB 16. :) ------------------------------ From: GUI TERENCE ANG Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 13:42:30 -0500 Subject: Re: The GUS Daily Digest V26 #10 On Sun, 17 Dec 1995 owner-gus-general-digest@apollo.COSC.GOV wrote: > I hope this discussion about the quality of Pro Patches Lite does interest > other readers of the Digest, too - if not we'll discuss it per personal email. > As it so happens, I'm fairly interested in the discussion that's going on. Without getting into a line by line commentary of everything's that's been said thus far, I'd like to put in my two cents worth (again, everything is MHO, and anyone is entitled to disagree with it as much as they wish). I downloaded PPL about a month ago, and have been using it on a regular basis ever since. I must say that on many games it sounds much better. The drums are much "livelier" compared to the rather flat ones included with the GUS (esp. if you have a good home stereo/subwoofer). The guitars and bass are also a significant improvement. The PPL also makes many midi files sound better, but it doesn't improve everything. I've also downloaded all of the bestmid#.zip collection (1-7, if there's any more let me know). Certain midi files don't sound as "rich" or "full" (apologies for my vagueness). If you try hero.mid (supplied with GUS), or other symphonic/orchestral pieces, I believe you'll notice the difference. Again, depending on how one uses their GUS will probably -at least in some fashion- shape their views towards how well the PPL performs. I'm not saying I can do any better (or even come close -cause I can't), but PPL may not be the best set of patches for anything one wishes to play. But it is definately worth getting and trying, and I'm sure most people will find that they will want to keep them. Regards, TAG ------------------------------ From: ricky@creative.lt.flashnet.it Date: Sun, 17 Dec 95 19:42:53 EST Subject: AWE32 and GUS I always wanted to see the REAL difference between a GUS and an AWE32... So I asked the AWE to a friend of mine who has it and I put it on my PC with a GUS and I started to test midi, mods and wavs... I had these impressions: Test a 256KB Gus with an Awe32 is a nonsense: The GUS simply hasn't enough memory to play midi files well... Testing a 1MB Gus with STANDARD patch set and the Awe32 with it's base patch set results to almost a tie... The two cards sound very "artificial" if compared to other "Roland quality" sound cards.... An the AWE reverb/chorus features is no big help.... Testing the GUS and the AWE32 with enhanced patch sets is, again, a nonsense, because with Ram based sound cards you can (in theory) do whathever you want. Anyway the Awe32 still costs much more than the GUS, plays "mod" files very badly compared to the GUS (and takes up processor power also), and if you want to make or modify an AWE custom patch set you have to modify the whole set, not just the instrument you want to change, as you can do with the GUS. The only thing the Awe is superior to a standard GUS is the possibility to put a LOT of ram (even if loosing 4 megs of ram I pay isn't a thing I like very much). Emulation is quite similar even if there are some things better for the Awe (for example you can hear the engine noise with Indycar) and things better for the GUS (a software emulation has much more possibilities to solve problems than an hardware one). On the Wav side the Awe plays better, while the GUS is not so bad as someone said. The Awe has, moreover, the possibility to sample at 16bit while the GUS hasn't... These are the impressions i had while testing the two cards... I don't want to say wich one IS better, but wich one SEEMED better to me. Finally, there is no report on the manual or on the box about the Awe32 Rom size. It just reports a "4MB Ram installed" which is , obviousily an error (should have been 4Mb (megabits) and not 4MB (megabytes) ). Bye, Ricky PS: If anyone tested the two cards the way I did, I'd like to hear his impressions too. ------------------------------ From: "Damien RAME" Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 18:21:47 +0000 Subject: DAMN joystick problem Hi, I know this subject has been talked about quite a few times, but there never seemed to be an answer (nor in the FAQ), so here it goes again! I've got an ISA board with a 486 DX2/66 chip on it, I installed a GUS 256k, and also have a SB 1.0 (or maybe 1.5) [btw, never been able to make the MIDI on the SB work since I installed the GUS, anyhow, I don't plan on using it so...]. Now, the problem is quite always the same... The joystick won't calibrate ok (ex: IndyCar Racing ][, I have to unplug it to play the game), or moves all by itself some times (some other game), and with one game, it works ok (NHL '96). I've tried to use GUS's port and disable SB's, and use SB's and disable GUS's. I've even tried using the joystick on the first port (the controller card's), and they all give the same result (which I didn't have before installing the GUS). So the problem comes from a conflict or bug on the GUS. I've tried changing the adress. No effect. What should I do? Just scrap that damn GUS card ?!? Maybe sounds 100 times better than a SB 1.0, but at least, my SB WORKED! Please, someone answer, I'm desperate. Damien RAME http://info.polymtl.ca/~daymz ------------------------------ From: "A.D.R." Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 00:51:52 +0100 (MET) Subject: NFS sound doesnt work, help! Hi! I just installed "Need 4 Speed" after having enjoyed the demo which sounded great with the GUS. The commercial version however starts fine with music and FX in the selection menus but when I click on 'drive' NFS starts loading the track and after a few seconds it drops to the DOS command line without any error message. Without sound everything works, and using SBOS in SB emulation sound works too but is very choppy and of low quality, and anyway the game has GUS support so I dont see why I should use SBOS! I have tried different IRQs and DMA channels but things are always the same. I have a 486DX2-80 ISA, 20MB RAM, GUSMAX with 512KB. Please, if you have NFS commercial version running fine with GUS sound, please mail me your system configuration details! (or if there is a patch please tell me where I can get it) _ (_ i a o, Arne +==============================================================+ | Arne Di Russo - IRC: Balbo, #phonecards #linux | | Roma, Italy - ar@RMnet.it (mc8189@mclink.it adr@iol.it) | +==============================================================+ \...................> powered by LINUX <...................../ ------------------------------ From: joey@newswire.gun.de (Michael Fehr) Date: 17 Dec 1995 13:18:00 +0100 Subject: Recording with a GUS Max oggd> thing set to 220,5,6,11,7. I've tried the mic in both input oggd> jacks (incidentally, does anybody know which one is for the oggd> mic and which one is for the line? The one closer to the oggd> joystic plug, or the one ont he outside?). I figure either On my GUS MAX, it's the one on the outside. But I'm having the same problems when I try to record by MIC ... Bye, Micha ------------------------------ From: Mark Woon Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 20:07:10 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Pro Patches Lite - a discussion Some time ago, Gerd wrote: > [big snip] > > >>However, I cannot agree with the enthusiastic opinions posted by various > >>people in this digest. > > > >I am getting them by Email also...and there are LOTS OF of them !! > >What can you say about that ? Everybody's wrong ?!! > > That's okay for me - please remember that I also see something > positive in PPL. > Isn't it allowed to critisize PPL without getting flamed? While I haven't tried out PPL, I'm going to side with Gerd here. I thought he wrote an honest criticism and was flamed for no better reason than a bruised ego. So Eero, why don't you just calm down a little here? *********************************************************************** Mark Woon * I have spoken! markwoon@princeton.edu * ASCII stupid question, get a WWW: http://www.princeton.edu/~markwoon * stupid ANSI. *********************************************************************** ------------------------------ From: Lance Kalzus Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 21:59:59 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Linux ultrinit? On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, BRANDON WILLIAM HUME wrote: On an unrelated note, I'm glad I "discovered" the digest and non-digest lists for myself :) Sure don't miss editing these "On Sun, 17 Dec ..." headers on my own to make replies coherent :) Anyway: > Has anyone heard of a project to develop something like this? My > settings under Linux differ from that used under Win95 or DOS, and its a > big bother to reboot back into DOS to adjust the settings to avoid I/O > timeouts... I could use arguments to LILO or recompile the kernel too, > but that's a bugger as well. :) Uhhhhh... Do you mean you use different IRQ/DMA settings? Just recompile the kernel and sound drivers to the setting you wish: they're completely independent of what setting you have in DOS (at least with recent GUS boards. This is true of practically everything except the GUS baseport of course: there's a jumper grid for that on the board). If you mean the mixer settings, I know what you mean. What I did was get sound driver version 3.0.1, then get Hannu's soundtools. Now you have complete control of the GUS Max mixer: microphone, pcm, CD-ROM line in, etc. The works. If you didn't mean either, my apologies; I don't know what the preceding messages said. ------------------------------ From: Lance Kalzus Date: Sun, 17 Dec 1995 22:06:24 -0500 (EST) Subject: Re: Pro Patches Lite - a discussion On Sun, 17 Dec 1995, Mark Woon wrote: > While I haven't tried out PPL, I'm going to side with Gerd here. I > thought he wrote an honest criticism and was flamed for no better reason > than a bruised ego. > > So Eero, why don't you just calm down a little here? I think what bothered him is that it there was nothing Gerd was pointing at that could be used to fix any problem. He just said, "Oh this ain't so good, don't expect miracles" as if people were expecting it to give a $100-$180 soundboard $600 quality in the first place. Though I would also say that Eero blew up back there :) ------------------------------ From: bsouth@iinet.net.au (Bob Southwell) Date: Mon, 18 Dec 1995 05:01:45 GMT Subject: win95 midi discrepancies Hi, I've been using Win95 since august with my ultrasound Max. It seems to work quite happily. From time to time its done strange things, but waht doesn't! However, I now have a weird problem that is absolutely repeatable. In my constant search for new midi files I came across a Billy Joel archive, which I downloaded. One of the files ( a favourite song of mine ) was UPTOWNGI.MID. I played it with Sound Impression which is what I usually use. I was rather disappointed in it as it seemed only to have the accompaniement tracks. I was going to delete it but I didn't. I happened to play it in DOS a few days later, and wonder of wonders, it is the full version. I have since tried it on a friends system who has almost the same MIDI setup as me ( especially the same revision of Gravis software ) but is using Win3.1 - it works perfectly. So, my question is, what is wrong with my win95 MIDI setup ? Any ideas gratefully accepted. BoB! Bob Southwell bsouth@iinet.net.au - -------------------------------------------------------------- "There's no justice - just us." from "Mort" by Terry Pratchett ------------------------------ End of The GUS Daily Digest V26 #11 *********************************** To post to tomorrow's digest: To (un)subscribe or get help: To contact a human (last resort): FTP Sites Archive Directories --------- ------------------- Main N.American Site: ftp.orst.edu pub/packages/gravis wuarchive.wustl.edu systems/ibmpc/ultrasound Main Asian Site: nctuccca.edu.tw PC/ultrasound Main European Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound ftp.pwr.wroc.pl pub/ultrasound Main Australian Site: ftp.mpx.com.au /ultrasound/general /ultrasound/submit South African Site: ftp.sun.ac.za /pub/packages/ultrasound Submissions: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound/submit Newly Validated Files: archive.epas.utoronto.ca pub/pc/ultrasound Mirrors: garbo.uwasa.fi mirror/ultrasound ftp.st.nepean.uws.edu.au pc/ultrasound ftp.luth.se pub/msdos/ultrasound Gopher Sites Menu directory ------------ -------------- Main Site: src.doc.ic.ac.uk packages/ultrasound WWW Pages --------- Main Site: http://www.xmission.com/~grue/gus.html Main European Site: http://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/ultrasound/ Main Australian Site: http://ftp.mpx.com.au/archive/ultrasound/general/ http://ftp.mpx.com.au/archive/ultrasound/submit/ http://ftp.mpx.com.au/gravis.html Mirrors: http://www.st.nepean.uws.edu.au/pub/pc/ultrasound/ GUS Digest Archives: http://gpu.srv.ualberta.ca/~itam/digest.html http://www.student.adelaide.edu.au/~godfathr/gus/gus.html MailServer For Archive Access: Email to Hints: - Get the FAQ from the FTP sites or the request server. - Mail to for info about other GUS related mailing lists (programmers, musicians, etc.).