tm@polari.UUCP (Toshi Morita) (05/07/90)
unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) writes: >In article <11669@netcom.UUCP> lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) writes: >>The sound on the IIgs is among the BEST in the PC industry, capable of >playing >>15 sounds simultaneously with Orchestraic quality. It is better than most >>stock Macs, and better than IBM's even with AdLib sound cards on them. > Well, you have underestimated it! As far as I've read/been told, >the GS's sound chip is capable of 31 channels simultaneously, yet through >"legal" means, 15 is how many you get... As we've all seen though, trickery >gets you much more than going through the legal means. I thought everyone and their dog knew this - where have you been for five years? The Ensoniq DOC has 32 oscillators. If monophonic sound is bearable then you can assign all 32 oscillators to a single channel and run 32 tones. Apple recomments that programmers write for a stereo machine and so only 16 simultaneous tones are possible (2 DACs per tone, one for each channel). Apple reserves the last pair of oscillators for system usage, so 15 pairs are usable under GS/OS. You're posting this information as though it were "t0p-sekrit insider news" or something. I hate to tell you this, but the "Apple //gs Hardware Reference Manual" (which contains this information) has been available at Tower Books and B. Daltons for the past five years. Why don't you buy one? Speaking of comp.sys.apple2.tech: On the comp.sys.amigas everyone seems to cross-post to all three newsgroups because of the loose classifications. For example, every amiga hardware question seems to be cross-posted to comp.sys.amiga, comp.sys.amiga.tech and comp.sys.amiga.hardware. Why not make the separation a little more obvious and name it comp.sys.apple2.programming? I'm sure we have enough Apple II/Apple //gs programmers to make the split useful. tm@polari
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (05/08/90)
In article <1981@polari.UUCP> tm@polari.UUCP (Toshi Morita) writes:
-The Ensoniq DOC has 32 oscillators. If monophonic sound is bearable then you
-can assign all 32 oscillators to a single channel and run 32 tones. Apple
-recomments that programmers write for a stereo machine and so only 16
-simultaneous tones are possible (2 DACs per tone, one for each channel).
-Apple reserves the last pair of oscillators for system usage, so 15 pairs are
-usable under GS/OS.
I didn't think stereo had anything at all to do with the oscillator
pairing. There is one pair per channel, and stereo cards typically
route even-numbered channels to one side and odd-numbered channels
to the other.lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) (05/08/90)
In response to tm@polari's message >You're posting this information as though it were "t0p-sekrit insider news" or >something. I hate to tell you this, but the "Apple //gs Hardware Reference >Manual" (which contains this information) has been available at Tower Books >and B. Daltons for the past five years. Why don't you buy one? What do you mean? I have all the Apple IIgs technical manuals, but recent discussion holds that many people don't know a lot about the IIgs, and make automatic presumptions that if it is an Apple II, it is bad, and Macs and IBMs rule. Since that is not the case, I wanted to state the facts, and show another point of view, that IS based on facts. I don't see why some people are getting so hyped up about this.. but if we don't stand up for the IIgs.. who will? President Bush? Toshi Morita also writes: >I thought everyone and their dog knew this - where have you been for five >years? Obviously, not everyone does.. if you do.. it doesn't justify a stereotypical remark that "everyone" does.... it's clear that MAC users don't. And if everyone DID, why then, did you restate it? I was not trying to state NEW facts.. just THE facts. If you have a problem with someone trying to stick up for their Apple II, then.. stay off this newsgroup. Lyle @ netcom
jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeremy G. Mereness) (05/08/90)
> Excerpts from netnews.comp.sys.apple2: 7-May-90 Re: Ensoniq Doug > Gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (684) > In article <1981@polari.UUCP> tm@polari.UUCP (Toshi Morita) writes: > -The Ensoniq DOC has 32 oscillators. If monophonic sound is bearable > then you > -can assign all 32 oscillators to a single channel and run 32 tones. > Apple > -recomments that programmers write for a stereo machine and so only 16 > -simultaneous tones are possible (2 DACs per tone, one for each channel). > -Apple reserves the last pair of oscillators for system usage, so 15 > pairs are > -usable under GS/OS. Wrong. Or atleast I hope so... The Ensoniq DOC is known in the synthesizer world as the Q chip, the same machine that drives the Ensoniq Synthesizers Mirage, ESQ-1, and Digital Piano. It is a 32 oscillator chip, each oscillator an independent entity. The Apple //gs is set up so that two of those oscillators are used for timing. That leaves 30. The Apple tools split the oscillators in half, so that for each tone, two oscillators are acting in combination. This is a standard configuration for musical synthesizers, as a single oscillator, playing by itself, sounds thin and unattractive. The second oscillator, slightly detuned or better yet playing a different timbre or waveform, fattens up the sound. This is called "Analog Synthesis" where oscillators are layered on top of each other to create a final sound. Conceivably, by bypassing the tools, you could have only one oscillator per pitch, allowing you to have 30 notes plays simultaneously. Or you could do the reverse, having 3 oscillators per pitch, allowing only 10 note polyphony but fattening up the sound quality tremendously. This technique is not widely used on the //gs or any computer for that matter, as computists prefer to sample the waveforms into a space and leave it at that. The DOC has much more power, however, to take sampled and/or simulated waveforms and layer them by the technique I described above, but it has yet to be exploited. My recommendation? Go to a music-performance store (a real one, not the Kimball's at the mall) and play with the ESQ-1 by Ensoniq. Try programming in a sound (called a "patch" in synth-speak) and become familiar with filters and envelopes and modulations. Then, think about that thing sitting inside every //gs in the country..... YOW! ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^ |Jeremy Mereness | Support | Ye Olde Disclaimer: | |jm7e+@andrew.cmu.edu (internet) | Free | The above represent my| |a700jm7e@cmccvb (Vax... bitnet) | Software | opinions, alone. | |staff/student@Carnegie Mellon U. | | Ya Gotta Love It. | ------------------------------------------------------------------------- --
dseah@wpi.wpi.edu (David I Seah) (05/08/90)
In article <1981@polari.UUCP> tm@polari.UUCP (Toshi Morita) writes: >unknown@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Unknown User) writes: > >>In article <11669@netcom.UUCP> lyle@netcom.UUCP (Lyle Fong) writes: >>>The sound on the IIgs is among the BEST in the PC industry, capable of >>playing >>>15 sounds simultaneously with Orchestraic quality. It is better than most >>>stock Macs, and better than IBM's even with AdLib sound cards on them. >> Well, you have underestimated it! As far as I've read/been told, >>the GS's sound chip is capable of 31 channels simultaneously, yet through >>"legal" means, 15 is how many you get... As we've all seen though, trickery >>gets you much more than going through the legal means. > >I thought everyone and their dog knew this - where have you been for five >years? Give the guy a break. there are new IIGS users and new netnews dudes cropping up every day. Remember that guy who upgraded from System Disk 3.1 to 5.0? I bet he was really surprised! >The Ensoniq DOC has 32 oscillators. If monophonic sound is bearable then you >can assign all 32 oscillators to a single channel and run 32 tones. Apple >recomments that programmers write for a stereo machine and so only 16 >simultaneous tones are possible (2 DACs per tone, one for each channel). >Apple reserves the last pair of oscillators for system usage, so 15 pairs are >usable under GS/OS. There are two reasons I can think of for the 2 oscillators-per-voice rule. The Sound Tools operate two oscillators in "swap-mode", in which only one oscillator is active at a time. This allows the system to play long samples: while one oscillator is playing part of a sample, the other is getting prepped to play another chunk. The other reason is that two voices playing the same wavetable will sound "richer". There's a small difference between the outputs of any two oscillators...oscillator output is time-multiplexed. With this slight delay, you get a "chorus" effect. Two oscillators-per-channel doesn't have anything to do with stereo effects...you assign the output channel of an oscillator by setting some bits in the appropriate Oscillator Control Register. You don't have to assign all 32 oscillators to ONE channel to get 32 tones. Remember, too, that you can decode for 8 separate channels... it's all controlled by the Ensoniq oscillator control registers. >You're posting this information as though it were "t0p-sekrit insider >news" or something. I hate to tell you this, but the "Apple //gs >Hardware Reference Manual" (which contains this information) has been >available at Tower Books and B. Daltons for the past five years. Why >don't you buy one? Lyle posted a "feel good!" post, to which The Unknown User clarifies a small point. Perhaps you ought to crack open your hardware manual and check up on the DOC to make sure I'm right. Or ask your dog. -- Dave Seah | O M N I D Y N E S Y S T E M S - M | "Yargh, cats!" | User Friendly Killing Machines | .............................................................................. I-net: dseah@wpi.wpi.edu - America Online: AFC DaveS (Apple II Art & Graphics)
gminette@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU (The Silver Dragon: AKA G. Minette) (05/09/90)
[lots of stuff about how everyone thinks the Ensoniq DOC works deleted]
Okay, hotshots, I was just looking through my "Apple IIgs Technical
Reference Manual" published by McGraw-Hill and I found some stuff about the
DOC. Anything in {} is my comment. It says, I quote:
"Control Register. These registers control the channel assignment, oscil-
lator mode, and halt bit for each oscillator in the form of a bit array."
(page 349, table 14-1)
"[Control register bit meaning table]
Bit Use
0 Halt bit. Set when an oscillator has been halted either by the DOC
or otherwise.
1-2 Mode. The value in these two bits sets the oscillating mode as
follows:
0 Free Run - Oscillator runs in a continuous loop, repeating the
waveform until halted or until there is a 0 in the waveform table.
1 One Shot - Oscillator moves through the waveform table once and then
Halts.
2 Sync/AM - If lower oscillator is odd-numbered, it is used to amplitude
Modulate the even oscillator. {as in waveform with an envelope} If
lower oscillator is even, the higher oscillator syncs to the lower
one. {what would this be for?}
3 Swap - Uses a pair of oscillators (lower even and upper odd) in which
the two oscillators swap off waveforms. {1 for attack, 1 for decay}
3 Interrupt enable. If set, interrupt passed to the oscillator interrupt
register when the oscillator completes the cycle.
4 Set to route output to channel 0 of an external analog multiplexer.
5 Set to route output to channel 1 of an external analog multiplexer.
6 Set to route output to channel 2 of an external analog multiplexer.
7 Set to route output to channel 3 of an external analog multiplexer."
(page 350, table 14-2)
It also says on page 335, in the fourth paragraph down from the top of the
page that:
"Many of the Sound Manager routines refer to generators. A generator is a
pair (sometimes called a swap pair) of oscillators in Swap mode."
'Nuff said on that subject.
I also found something bizzarre sounding on page 351, table 14-3. It says:
"bit 6 Extend the addressing range of the DOC with address range beginning
at 65536 if bit is 1."
Does this mean Apple expects to eventually make a 128K sound RAM?
Another thing, on a different subject. It says on page 353 that the sound
output of the GS is fed to, among other places, "The sound line in the RGB
output connector. (Capable of driving a 600-ohm load)" Anyone made use of
this yet? Is it stereo or mono? (with that singular 'line', it sound like
it's Monophonic. Can anyone confirm or deny this?)
-Thanx,
-The Silver Dragon. (Just a GS user, not a GS wizard)
--
******************************* }>=:) (dragon smiley) *********************
* _____ The Silver Dragon, G. Minette * "A sunrise is a beautiful *
* (_|_ \ Pern Fan Extraordinaire * thing to see...before going *
* __|_)_/ gminette@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU * to bed!!" - Me. (6:45am.) *cyliao@eng.umd.edu (Chun-Yao Liao) (05/09/90)
In article <12800@smoke.BRL.MIL> gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) writes: > >, and stereo cards typically >route even-numbered channels to one side and odd-numbered channels >to the other. no, THE GS *tells* the stereo card *when* to output the signal to left and *when* to output signal to right. The stereo card only follow THE GS's commando. -- cyliao@wam.umd.edu o NeXT : I put main frame power on two chips. @epsl.umd.edu o people: We put main flame power on two guys. @bagend.eng.umd.edu o :::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: xxxxx@xxxxx.xxx.xxx (reserved) o RC + Apple // + Classic Music + NeXT = cyliao