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Re: A2 Music and Sound FAQ v1.2
In article irsman@iastate.edu (Ian Schmidt) writes...
>
>wave, which has very little musical interest. This went to the next step when
>a young engineer developed the VIC sound chip for the Commodore 64 computer.
>The VIC chip could play 4 tones at once, and each of the tones could be
>selected from a range of several waveforms. In addition, advanced effects
Just to point out a few minor discrepancies... :)
The Commodore 64 used what was known as the "SID" chip for music
and sound synthesis. It was also only capable of 3 independant tones/voices,
not 4.
>~~ DA About IIgs Stereo Cards
>
>Mfr Name Notes
>--- ---- -----
>MDIdeas SuperSonic First IIgs stereo card. Not very well
> constructed, but sounds nice. Digitizer
> option pretty good.
>
>MDIdeas Digitizer Pro Daughterboard for SuperSonic, but also takes
> up another slot in your GS. Pretty good, but
> very few were sold.
Once your mentioning MDIdeas' "Digitizer Pro" card, you should also
add the "SuperSonic Digitizer" to that table. This was a mini-daugtherboard
that piggybacked directly to the expansion connector on the SuperSonic stereo
card (the two pieces joined to form one complete card, although the stereo
half could function without the digitizer-half but not visa-versa). You do
mention it under notes, but it could easily be confused with the more advanced
"Pro" slot-based card.
>~~ EA What about them other machines?
>
>Here's a rundown of sound on other computers...
>
>Computer or Card Wavetable voices WT bits FM voices Stereo? Digitize?
>-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Apple IIgs 32 8 None Yes4 Yes (8)
>Soundblaster 1 8 11 No Yes (8)4
>Soundblaster Pro 2 8 22 Yes Yes (8)
>Soundblaster 16 2 16 22 Yes Yes (16)
>Pro Audio Spectrum 16 2 16 22 Yes Yes (16)
>Gravis UltraSound 32 8/16 None2 Yes Yes (16)4
>Commodore Amiga 4 8 None Yes Yes (8)4
>Mac (non AV, 0x0) 4 8 None Yes3 Yes (8)4
>AV Mac Infinite1 8/16 Infinite1 Yes Yes (16)
>PowerPC Mac 2 16 None Yes Yes (16)
This table is a little misleading the way you use the term "Wavetable
voices". I think adding a column for "Digital voices" would be more correct.
As you know, those above IBM boards use only FM-synthesis, but have the ability
to playback/record/manipulate "real-word" sound -- digital sound/voice/music
samples, or plainly put, "digitized sound". The SoundBlaster ASP has an add-on
WaveBlaster option for real Wavetable support, though like the GUS, has very
little support. I've always been confused about the Amiga and the majority of
Macintoshes out there though. I know a handful of Macs have true Wavetable
support (ie - Mac IIs), but I've been under the impression many do not (such
as the Mac LC, Plus, SE, SE/30, Classic, etc). Wavetable is defined by the
ability to use real-world "digital-sound" in waveforms for music synthesis,
right? (Amiga MODs kind of make this term confusing, especially when you have
non-wavetable systems playing MODs through digital-voices.. :)
Finally, maybe add a brief mention of the history of 8-bit Apple II
sound? Such as, all the accomplishments programmers were able to do using
the internal speaker (two-voice music, digitized sound, speech-synthesis,
or lately..5-bit digital sound). Some of the add-on hardware boards, like
the Mockingboard, Phaser, Echo, etc. (Okay, maybe old II sound wasn't much,
but it was interesting and I guess I'm kind of nostaligic.. ;-)
>Ian Schmidt / irsman@iastate.edu / irsman@cs.iastate.edu
>"Though we know that time has wings, we're the ones that have to fly" -Peart
Mitchell Spector
sb_spec@pavo.concordia.ca