#Sound cards
11 messages in this thread
Joe,
you may want to look into the CDPC released by Media Vision. Their number
is (510) 770-8600. This may be more than what you are looking for, if all
you want is a sound card. It consists of an external box that hooks into
your PC via an interface card.
What interests me about this CDPC thang, is that besides a CD-ROM player it
contains a unique sound card that is not available by itself. It can do
16-bit stereo sound! And it can do that at 44.1 kHz sampling rate which
apparently is what you need to get hi-fidelity stereo sound from
commercial, recorded CDs. This has built in MIDI interfaces, and the
ability to mix from multiple sources. These specs go way beyond the
minimum MPC standards. Also, it is compatible with and/or supports both
Sound Blaster and AdLib compatible software.
Anil
P.S. Oh, and it comes with equalized speakers!!
Arrgh!
Not THE DREADED EQUALIZED SPEAKERS <grin>.
The specs *may* go `way beyond' the MPC standard. Great. But, if this is
the case, are there, will there be, will they every ship drivers that will
take advantage of this? Who will support it? If it is available through
only one source, how will it get the market segment necessary for
developers to be interested in writing special drivers?
-Mike.
Now I could be completely wrong, but…
It will be supported under any system that has the Multimedia Extensions
for Windows. They will not need any special drivers to take advantage of
their higher sampling rate and wider bandwidth and 16 bit data path. A
486/33 with 32 Mbytes of RAM goes way beyond the MPC spec and you don't
have to have any special drivers to see the benefits of the faster machine.
The CDPC will just sound better than the Pro Audio Spectrum or the Sound
Blaster Pro.
Ggg
Yes, I know.
I guess I was *really* concerned about a `maverick' card that may turn out
to be a bad purchase decision. Remember the original Artist 1, VMI, etc.?
-Mike.
Do you know if the CDPC's sound card (which I hear will be released as a
separate product pretty soon) supports MIDI playback at anything beyond the
FM-Synthesis technology in their other cards? The 16-bit/44.1 khz
digitized sounds are going to create very large files, and I don't think
anybody is going to be real happy with the delays caused when trying to
load these files wHile running a script for a multimedia presentation (not
to mention the storage problems). The 16 bit technology is a big
improvement. I'd still recommend looking at Turtle Beach's MultiSound
16-bit card. They do a much better job of supporting MIDI.
Ggg
Greg,
What exactly are you asking about if the CDPC card `support MIDI playback
at anything beyond the FM-Synthesis technology…'?
These two technologies are related (often used together for musical
purposes) but *are* different. Midi, which stands for Musical Instrument
Digital Interface, is a standard format which allows machines to
communicate. MIDI is used to connect MIDI controllers (sequencers,
computers, keyboards, breath instruments, microphones, guitars, brum pads,
etc) to sound origination devices (keybaords, computers w/ necessary HS
(such as the CDPC), drum machines, tape decks, etc), to mixing consoles, to
effects units, etc. The data runs in both directions in most/many devices
in & out.
Before MIDI, all of this stuff was strung together using seperate Voltage
and pitch gates for each function which was to be transmitted from one
device to the next. The standard was 1 Volt/octave. Pitch and trigger
were the most common parameters, but many systems could also accept other
information. The problem was, each manufacture wanted to control different
types of triggers (start and end of `events') & voltages (the modulator)
and also wanted to control them in different ways! -ugh- This tended to
allow devices within one manufacture to easily talk to only devices from
the same manufacturer.
Just try getting your MiniMoog to talk to our ARP Odyssey!
Midi is a universal *software* interface spec (also talks about what goes
onto cable, I think) and allows Everybody to talk to Everybody.
-great relief-
<cont>
<cont from prev message>
FM Synthesis is a specific type of sound generating technology, made
popular in the DX line of Yamaha keyboards (DX7 is the *really* popular
model) as can be heard all through the late 80's. Other types of Synthesis
are Analog (what I grew up on, non-digital!), Phase Modulation (is this
still used?), Sampling, and a bunch of others I just can never remember.
If my memory serves (I could be *entirely* wrong): FM uses `operators'
that create a specific waveform. This waveform can be controlled in pitch,
envelope, filter, etc via modulators. Different devices employ differing
numbers of operators (I think the DX7 has 6). I believe you can use a
operator for either Voice generation (a voice is a *sound*, not necesarrily
a human voice) *or* as a modulator for other operators. In this capacity,
the waveform of operator 1 can be used to modulate pitch, amplifier (I
generically (wrongly) refer to this as envelope), filter, etc. of another
operator.
I hope I have all of the right; I never owned a FM synth. and it has been a
number of years since I last thought about all of this!
Anyway, as stated earlier, these technologies are not the same thing. The
Sound Blaster Pro card (and I assume this CDPC) uses FM Synthesis for sound
generation, and MIDI to allow it to control/ or be controlled by other
devices. Additionally, I think is has some sort of
Analog -> Digital and Digital -> Analog circuits for sample recording and
sample playback (this is the 16-bit 44.1KHZ stuff, I believe)
Did I answer a question, or just rattle on?
-Mike <I didn't think I could remember all of that junk <g>>
Boy, now I am really impressed! And you chose to go into Architecture? <g>
Anil
Hmmm…
Maybe it is *to* easy to impress you? Heh, Ha Ha!
From the depths of my memory rise many a thing…
-Mike.
From "New Media" November/December 1991, page 30:
"The theory is that relatively simple waveforms, when combined by frequency
modulation, can produce rather complex sounds. The complexity of these
sounds is related to the number of waveforms, or "operators," involved.
Yamaha's best-selling DX7, introduced in 1984, used six FM operators.
Two-operator FM, as used in the Pro Audio Spectrum and the Sound Blaster
Pro, is somewhat limited in its complexity and realism — few music or
audio professionals would find it acceptable for production work, though in
the context of a presentation it may prove adequate. FM can come in for
criticism as sounding "thin", "chirpy", or "metallic"."
Regarding the MultiSound from Turtle Beach, they "licensed the sample
playing engine and instrument library from E-mu Systems' Proteus/1. The
Proteus/1 is one of the most popular sampler/synthesizers of recent years,
producing impeccable sound quality from four megabytes of digital
recordings of 151 musical instruments. MultiSound essentially puts a
Proteus/1 inside your PC."
Here's what Turtle Beach says in one of their ads: "Would-be "Pro" sound
boards use a 14-year old game technology called "FM Sythesis" to generate
sound. This inadequate sound reproduction would surely make an
embarrassing boardroom presentation. To picture FM synthesis in your mind,
think of an all-kazoo disco band playing in your shower. MultiSound's MIDI
synthesizer uses small digital recordings of real instruments stored in
memory on the card. The 126 different, Compact Disc-quality instruments
include real drums, real strings, real horns, and a true, stereo recording
of a 9' concert grand piano."
So, I guess I wasn't so far off. Good to know my memory still works
(parity okay, heh?).
The DX7 has some really *hot* steel drum sounds. Strings were good, too.
the DX7 was the keyboard that really seemed to change the way that popular
music sounded. The fat analog sounds were being replaced by the really
interesting dynamic sounds from the DX7.
-cool-
I almost bought a DX21 (I think that's what it was), but I waited until I
could afford an Ensoniq ESP sampling workstation. Workstation means it has
the ability to be a MIDI Master controller, has a disk drive, advanced
performance features, and advanced sequencer.
Now, I kind of which I had a proteus. -sigh- If a proteus is really
inside of that card, it would be a really interesting buy. Although, do
not get too excited about that; the thing that makes the proteus a really
great keyboard is the quality samples that come with it, are the samples
that come with the card the same? Is the user able to manipulate the
sample playback like on a `real' keyboard? I think the rack mount version
of the Proteus (no keyboard on it, all electronics in a standard 2 high
rack unit) costs about $650.00 (or more, yikes!). Therefore, I do not
believe that this card has all of the capability of the Proteus. Although,
Hmmm, this card would not need as much memory, a big processor, etc becuase
this is included in the PC! Interesting…
Anyway, the card sounds pretty nice. I just would not expect it to be
everything the advertisements and columns claim it is. Although, I suspect
it is more than adequete for most of *todays* MM presentations.
-Mike.