Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard Path: rtmrd1!sun4nl!utrcu1!infnews!infnews!waardenb From: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl (Jerry van Waardenberg) Subject: ** SUMMARY SOUNDCARDS Message-ID: <1993Jan6.120729@cs.utwente.nl> Keywords: Soundcards Sender: usenet@cs.utwente.nl Nntp-Posting-Host: utis107 Organization: University of Twente, Dept. of Computer Science Date: Wed, 6 Jan 1993 11:07:29 GMT Lines: 675 **** SOUNDCARDS - Which is the best? - January 1993 **** First of all: Happy newyear to everyone! Here is the 3rd revision of the article about soundcards. There are no new cards added (yet), but a number of mistakes have been corrected. I have also added an overview of the specifications of some cards. The text of this article is composed from a lot of messages of different people. I hope they're not going to flame me for taking their remarks and putting them into this article. But anyway... Thanx to everyone who contributed to this article. I'm not sure if everything in this article is correct. If you find any mistakes, or have comments or suggestions, then let me know by e-mail. The opinions in this article are my own, unless stated otherwise; other people might have other opinions (I certainly hope they do ;-)). **** INTRODUCTION Generally PC's can produce music in four different ways, dependent on the type of soundcard used: 1. By Digital to Analogue (D/A) conversion. Samples stored in the computer's memory are digitally processed and transformed to analogue signals, that can be played over a stereo set or headphones. 2. By synthesis. The computer sends note-information to the soundcard, which produces analogue signals. There are two basic forms of synthesis: FM and wavetable synthesis. 3. By MIDI. Note-information is send through a MIDI-interface to a MIDI-device, which produces the music. 4. By controlling a CD-ROM drive. The music is stored on CD-ROM which is controlled by the computer. ** FM synthesis With FM synthesis the tones are produced by waveform- generators, called operators. The more operators are used, the better the sound quality will be. A disadvantage of FM synthesis is that it is very hard to produce realistic sounding instruments, especially when playing high pitched notes (reeds, guitar, etc.). The Adlib was the first soundcard that used this technique, using a Yamaha YM3812 FM chip with two operators. Most Adlib compatible cards (SoundBlaster, Pro Audio Spectrum) are also using this techn ique. The newer cards are mostly using the new Yamaha YMF262 (OPL-3) FM chip, which has four operators. ** Wavetable synthesis (WS) With WS (mostly 16-bit PCM) samples are used to produce sound. The samples are stored in ROM or RAM on the soundcard. A WS-processor performs operations on the samples, such as altering their pitch and length. Since the samples are taken from real instruments, they generally sound very realistic. Until recently this technique was only used by high-end soundcards, but it is becoming more and more popular now. Examples of cards that use WS are the Gravis UltraSound and the Roland SCC-1. ** MIDI [The following explaination is from Teemu Mottonen] (General) MIDI is a standard that many synth- and soundcards manufacturers are starting to use. It assigns particular sounds to certain sound (or patch) numbers. There are 128 of them. This way, say, a MIDI file that uses sound number 1 will always play an 'acoustic piano' on different synths. In PCs, mainly two kinds of MIDI interfaces are used: UART MIDI and MPU-401. The first can be found in soundblasters, Pro Audio Spectrums, etc. With these the computer (or the program using MIDI) handles everything. MPU-401 is the model of an early PC MIDI interface by Roland. These cards have two modes: dumb and intelligent. Many DOS programs use the MPU in the intelligent mode, so compatibility is a must. In Windows things are different; as long as you have a driver for the MIDI card, things should work o.k. Some cards use a mixture of these techniques, such as the Roland LAPC-1. ** Sampling Most cards nowadays support sampling. Usually this is done in 8-bit or 16-bit resolution, but there are cards that use other resolutions (Adlib Gold 1000 uses 12-bit sampling). Sampling is done by a Analogue to Digital Converter (ADC). Samples can be compressed by using PCM (Puls Code Modulation) or AD-PCM, which is an variant of PCM that yields higher compression. With AD-PCM the sound quality usually is less than with PCM. ** MPC (Multimedia PC) specifications. A PC may be called a "Multimedia PC" (MPC) if it conforms to a number of specifications. For the soundcards these specs are: * 8-bit DAC (16-bit recommended) with PCM and 11 and 22 KHz sampling. Processor load may not be more than 10%. * 8-bit ADC (16-bit recommended) with PCM and 11 and 22 KHz sampling. * Microphone input. * MIDI synthesizer, 6-tone polyphonic (6 tones at the same time), FM-based and/or sample-based (WS). If sample-based, the samples must at least be 8-bit. * Audio mixer. Since a MPC must be equipped with a CD-ROM, most soundcards provide a CD-ROM interface, with a minimum throughput of 150 kB/sec. ** Channels, instruments and voices. These words are common in the soundcard-business, but what do they mean? It took a while before I understood what they were and I am not sure if I do now, so correct me if I'm wrong. I will try to explain. Instruments, patches and notes are synonyms. Each instrument can be played "through" a single channel. So if a card has 8 channels, it means that it can play 8 instruments at the same time. And the number of voices is the number of instruments per channel. Let me try to illustrate that with an example: Consider an orchestra divided into 8 sections (channels). Each section plays one type of instrument (patch, note). Every section can contain 16 musicians (voices). Then we've got 8-channel, 16-voice sound. Now you see? **** REVIEWED CARDS I will give an overview of some cards that looked interesting to me. Most of them were released only recently. The reviewed cards are: The SoundBlaster Pro, the SoundBlaster 16, the Pro Audio Plus/16, the Gravis UltraSound, the Roland LAPC-1 and the Roland SCC-1. After that I'll give an short description of some other cards. All these cards, except for the Rolands, are MPC-compatible. ** The SoundBlaster Pro (SB-pro) The SoundBlaster (SB) from Creative Labs was the first Adlib compatible card that, besides FM music, was capable of recording and playing (8-bit) samples. The original SB contained 1 (mono) or 2 (stereo) Yamaha YM3812 chips. The first SB-pro was also equipped with 2 YM3812 chips, but the newer version (SB-pro 2.0) contained the new OPL-3 chip. The SB-pro is capable of 8-bit sampling at 44.100 Hz in stereo and supports AD-PCM compression. It has a CD-ROM interface which is only compatible with Matsushita drives. A General MIDI interface is present. The SB-pro has a 2 x 4 Watts amplifier. Volume can be altered manually on the back of the card or by software. Inputs: * Microphone, * external line in. Outputs: * Audio, * line out, * SB compatible MIDI, * SB CD-ROM interface. The SB-pro is fully Adlib and SB compatible. It is supported by a lot of games, but many of these games do not use the extra possibilities of the Pro version. Sampling quality of the SB-pro is good. Since it uses FM-synthesis to generate sound, the SB-pro is not a good card to produce high quality music. However, FM-synthesis in combination with sampling produces good results for games. The SB-pro comes with seven 5.25" DD disks or four 3.5" DD disks, which contain drivers for Windows, demos and applications. Interesting are Voice Edit 2, for recording and editing samples. Unfortunately SB uses its own "voice" format for storing these samples (.VOC files), instead of the more general Windows-compatible "wave" format (.WAV files). The Windows software consists of a simple but good Mixer program and JukeBox, for playing MIDI files. The rest of the software isn't much good, except for Voyetra (a MIDI sequencer). PERSONAL OPINION: The big advantage of the SB is its support by a lot of games. Too bad these games usually do not support the extra capabilities of the SB-pro. Therefore, if you're looking for a CD-ROM, I think you can better buy a normal SB than a SB-pro. If you do want to have CD-ROM, you can better take another card (read on!), since the SB-pro supports only Matsushita CD-ROM drives. ** SoundBlaster 16 The SoundBlaster 16 (SB 16) is an improved version of the SB-pro, that offers real 16 bit stereo sound. Of course the SB16 is SB, SB-pro and Adlib compatible. The SB-16 supports 8 and 16 bit stereo sampling and playing up to 44.1 KHz, has dynamic filtering and ADPCM compression. It also contains a 16 bit ASP (Advanced (Digital) Signal Processor), which enables you to download a compression and/or voice recognition algorithm. On-board real-time (de)compression takes much load off the processor (up to 75%). Compression also minimizes the amount of data that must be transferred from memory to the card (16 bit stereo sampling at 44.1 KHz requires 2x2x44 = 176 kB/sec uncompressed... *glug* that really keeps your PC busy! No more smooth scrolling!). Like the SB-pro the SB-16 has a Yamaha YMF262 (OPL-3) synthesizer chip, with 4 voice operator FM synthesis. A WaveBlaster daughterboard is optional. The WaveBlaster works according to the General MIDI system and has 128 PCM sampled sounds. Inputs: * Microphone, * external line in. Outputs: * Audio line out, * MPU 401 UART and SB compatible MIDI, * SB CD-ROM interface. The MPU-interface is only supported in dumb mode. The SB16 comes with quite a lot of software. I haven't seen it, so I don't know if it is good stuff. Included are: Creative Wave Studio, HCS Interactive, DB Talker, SB Sim, Creative Mosaic, PC-Animate Plus, Intelligent Organ, MMPlay, Creative Talking Scheduler, Monologue for Windows, SB MIDI and DOS and Windows 3.1 drivers. The sampling quality of the SB-16 is good, but there is quite a lot of noise (I've heard this from someone who's reviewing a test version, which may not be entirely correct. Maybe the circuitry isn't shielded very good?). Since there is no software for the SB-16 yet, the special capabilities cannot be tested. PERSONAL OPINION: Since it is a SoundBlaster, it is supported by a lot of games. Together with the optional WaveBlaster it forms a great, but quite expensive, combo. It's advantages are its MPU-compatible MIDI interface, 16 bit sampling and ASP. But it still has a SB-compatible CD-ROM interface instead of a SCSI interface. I think it is best to wait until this card is more supported. ** Pro Audio Spectrum Plus and Pro Audio Spectrum 16 The Pro Audio Spectrum Plus and -16 (PAS+ and PAS-16) from Media Vision are probably the SB's main competitors when it comes to Adlib compatible cards. Both cards are almost identical, except that the PAS-16 has 16 bit sampling and the PAS+ 8-bit. The PAS-16 features 8, 12 and 16 bit stereo sampling and playback (up to 44.1 KHz), dynamic filtering and ADPCM compression and decompression. The PAS+ does not have 12 and 16 bit sampling. Like the SB-pro and SB-16, the PAS has a Yamaha YMF262 (OPL-3) synthesizer chip with 4 operator FM sounds. The PAS has shielded circuitry and dynamic filtering. Inputs: * Microphone, * External line in (stereo), * PC speaker. Outputs: * Audio line out (headphones, amplifier), * SCSI (not just for CD-ROM, but also for tape-streamers, optical drives, etc), * general MIDI (requires optional MIDI Mate), * joystick. S/N: 90 db. Dynamic range: 90 db. Harmonic distortion: 0.05% The PAS-16 is one of the two cards I've tried myself (the other is the GUS). The 16-bit samples sounds incredibly good. The example MOD-files that come with the PAS-16 sound really awesome (great stereo, no noise)! The PAS16 comes with quite a lot of software (compared to the other cards): Stereo Studio F/X is a waveform editor. It looks very neat but is incredibly slow. SP Spectrum is a MIDI sequencer. TrakBlaster Pro is a very nice MOD-player. Furthermore, there is a mixer (supports "loudness", which makes low pitched sounds come out better), a multimedia application (Audio Mate) and a speech synthesizer (Pro Speech). For Windows there are three (!!) mixers and a number of drivers. Although Media Vision claims the PAS is fully SB(-pro) compatible, some people have problems when using the PAS as a SB. It seems that the PAS is not 100% SB compatible. PERSONAL OPINION: The PAS16 is a good soundcard and offers a lot of value for your money. The 16-bit MOD files sound very good. But playing MIDI songs through the internal FM chip is quite a disappointment. I like the amount and quality of the software that comes with the PAS16 and the standard SCSI interface for CD-ROM. This, and the overall mechanical quality of the card, IMHO makes the PAS a better card than the SB. Too bad the PAS16 is not 100% compatible with the SB(-pro). ** The Gravis UltraSound The Gravis UltraSound (GUS) from Advanced Gravis is a brand new 16 bit soundcard that uses wavetable synthese (WS) to generate sound. With WS 16-bit samples (called patches) are used to generate sound effects and music. On the GUS, these samples are stored in RAM. Standard the GUS supports 8 bit stereo sampling and 16-bit playback, up to 44.1 KHz. 16 bit recording is optional (requires a daughter board). It has 16 stereo channels and 32 voice Wavetable Synthese, which enables you to create very realistic instruments. Unlike the Roland SCC-1, the GUS stores the samples for WS in RAM, so you have unlimited possibilities. The instruments can be stored on disk and downloaded to the card when needed. The GUS comes with 256 kB RAM, but this seems a little too short. However, it can be expanded to 1 MB. According to the importer (for the Benelux this is Logitech), 1 MB will soon become the standard amount of RAM for the GUS. Inputs: * Microphone, * Audio Line In. Outputs: * Audio Line Out, * Amplified Audio Out, * speed compensating joystick (up to 50 Mhz), * general MIDI (requires optional MIDI adapter), * SCSI CD-ROM (requires optional SCSI interface card). S/N: 80 db. Dynamic range: 96 db. Harmonic distortion: <0.014% Gravis claims 100% compatibility with SB and Adlib. This compatibility is achieved through software emulation by SBOS (Sound Board Operating System). Unfortunately, in practice SBOS is not 100% SB compatible. Newer releases are becoming more compatible. Another big disadvantage of SBOS is that it degrades performance considerable in some cases. In general SBOS doesn't work good with demos and high speed animation. It works o.k. with (for example) King's Quest VI, Dune and Links 386 Pro. Since the GUS has no FM-chip, the FM-sounds are emulated through samples/patches. This results in slightly different (but not worse) sounds than the SB. All of this is not really a big problem, since the GUS is not intended to be a SB clone. MIDI files, for example, sound very good. If you play a piano-song, then you _hear_ a piano and a guitar sounds like a guitar. As soon as software companies are going to support the GUS directly, the sound quality will be far better than a SB. Sierra already announced support for the GUS. The GUS has no special effects, like chorus and reverb. I am not sure if the GUS has (dynamic) filtering, since documentation is brief. The sound quality is very good, in most cases even better than a Roland LAPC-1. However, the sound quality of the GUS is dependent on the quality of the patches. Some patches are not so good, so those instruments sound worse. The GUS is definitively not complete at this moment. The software is flaky and is still being improved. Currently the GUS comes with DOS and Windows drivers, Studio 8 (a 8 bit waveform editor), UltraFli (Multimedia application for .fli files) and PlayMidi (MIDI player and composer). The Windows mixer is *very* (i.e. too) simple. At the moment, not even all 192 MIDI-patches are available. Since the GUS is mainly software controlled, it is very flexible. Gravis is still working on better software support for the GUS. Rumours say they're working on a MOD-player and MT-32/LAPC-1 emulation. With better software (and no doubt it will be released soon) the GUS is going to be a very good alternative for the FM-based cards. PERSONAL OPINION: The GUS seems to be a good soundcard. It offers high (sound) quality for a low price. Unfortunately it is not 100% SB compatible, but this may be solved by new software patches. Since the card is becoming quite popular, software developers will probably start to support it very soon. The GUS is, at this moment, my favourite. ** The Roland LAPC-1 and SCC-1 The Roland LAPC-1 is a semi-professional soundcard based on the Roland MT-32 module. In fact, the LAPC-1 is a MT-32 and MPU MIDI-interface on a PC-card. The LAPC-1 contains 128 LA (Linear Arithmetic) synthesized instruments. The LAPC-1 uses a combination of samples and waveform synthesis to build a patch (note): A patch consists of 4 "partials" that can be either a sample or a linear part. The total number of partials is limited to 32, up to 8 instruments can be played simultaneously and each channel can pl ay up to 16 voices at the same time. There is a 9th channel for percussion sounds (MIDI channel 10). Besides 128 instruments, the LAPC-1 has 30 pre-sampled drum- and percussionsounds and 33 sound-effects. The SCC-1 is the follow-up of the LAPC-1 and is compatible with the SC-55. Like the LAPC-1, it is a module (in this case a CM-300) and a MPU-MIDI interface on one card. The SCC-1 does not use waveform-synthesis, but is fully WS-based. It contains 317 PCM samples in ROM. A patch can consist of 24 partials, but most patches use only one partial. Like the LAPC-1 it can use 32 partials simultaneously, but it has 15 channels for instruments (+ 1 for percussion). The sounds can be fully programmed, except for the samples. The LAPC-1 has two special effects: hall and echo; the SCC-1 has chorus as well. The Roland cards do not have a DAC/ADC, so it is not possible to record or play samples. They also don't have a CD-ROM interface. This means that the Roland cards do not conform to the MPC specifications. The sound quality of the LAPC-1 is good. High pitched instruments like piano or reeds do not sound as good as with the GUS. The quality of the sound-effects in general is quite good. The sound quality of the SCC-1 is outstanding. The PCM samples are of high quality. The SCC-1 is not fully compatible with the LAPC-1. The LAPC-1 comes with no software at all. The SCC-1 only has a program for enabling the MT-32 emulation mode. PERSONAL OPINION: The Roland cards are good cards for making music, especially since they contain a MPU-MIDI interface. However, the cards are quite expensive and offer less functionality than other cards. In combination with a cheap SB the Roland cards are very nice (just listen to Space Quest IV :^))! But I think the GUS comes close to this combo and it is far less expensive. It's a pity that the SCC-1 does not have RAM to store samples in. ** Other cards Here follows a list of other popular cards, with a short description of each card: * Covox/Disney Sound Source. Simple DAC plugged into your computers printer port. * Adlib Gold 1000. Adlib and SB compatible card with SCSI and General MIDI interface. Yahama OPL-3 FM chip. 20 channels, 1-voice polyphonic. Surround processor to improve sound quality. 12 bit sampling and playing up to 44.1 KHz. Inputs: Mic and Line. Outputs: Line. * Adlib Gold 2000. Like the Adlib Gold 1000, but with 16 bit sampling. * Thunderboard. Predecessor of the PAS+/16. Adlib and SB compatible. Yamaha YMF3812 FM-chip. 11 channels, 1-voice polyphonic. 8 bit mono sampling up to 22 KHz. SB-compatible MIDI interface. Inputs: Mic. Outputs: Headphones. * ATI-Stereo F/X. Adlib and SB-compatible. Yamaha YM3812 FM-chips. 11 channels, 1-voice polyphonic. 8 bit stereo sampling up to 44.1 KHz. SB-compatible MIDI-interface. Inputs: Mic, Line. Outputs: Line. * Turtle Beach MultiSound (TBM). GM/GS compatible. Proteus-1/XR soundchip. Motorola 56001 DSP. 384 pre-sampled 16-bit PCM instruments. 15 channels + Drums, 32 voices. Special effects: Hall, Chorus and Echo. 16 bit stereo sampling up to 44.1 KHz. Turtle Beach compatible MIDI interface. Inputs: Aux, Line. Outputs: Line. The specs of this card are impressive, but it costs about $1000 !!! (You can buy 8 GUSses for that money :-)). [from Stefan Hartmann] * AudioBahn 16 from Genoa Systems. Arial chip from Sierra semiconductor. Adlib and SB compatible with MPU-401 MIDI interface and Adaptec SCSI interface. 1 MB PCM samples in ROM. 32 voices simultaneously. 16 bit stereo sampling at 44.1 KHz. MPC compatible. GREAT SPECS, BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PRICE???? * Please mail me more... **** OVERVIEW SPECIFICATIONS =========================================================== SBpro SB16 PAS16 GUS HARDWARE ISA slot (bits) 16 16 16 16 Compatibility Adlib Adlib Adlib Adlib### SB SBpro SB SB### CONNECTIONS: Mic in mono? mono? mono? mono? Line in stereo stereo stereo stereo PC speaker in yes ? yes no Line out stereo stereo stereo stereo Amplified out 2x4 W 2x4 W 2x4 W 2x2 W Joystick yes yes yes yes MIDI UART UART & UART# UART# MPU CD-ROM SB SB SCSI SCSI#? SYNTHESIZER Type FM FM FM WS Chipset OPL-3 OPL-3 OPL-3 ? Voices* 1 1 1 32 Channels 20 20 20 16 Instruments 128 128 128 RAM Effects - by ASP - - Miscellaneous - ASP - - SAMPLING AD (bits) 8 16 16 8 (16#) DA (bits) 8 16 16 16 Freq. stereo (Khz) 11-22 5-44 4-44 ?-44 Freq. mono (Khz) 4-44 5-44 4-44 ?-44 Compression ADPCM ADPCM ADPCM ? ___:1 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 ? Decompression ADPCM ADPCM ADPCM ? ___:1 2 3 4 2 3 4 2 3 4 ? SNR (dB) 90 80 Dyn. range (dB) 90 96 Harmonic dis. (%) 0.05 0.014 MIXER** Master 16 32 63 ? Synthesizer 16 32 31 ? DAC 16 32 31 ? Mic 8 32 31 ? Line in 16 32 31 ? Tone*** (dB) - 12 12 - PRICE (est.) $200 $250 $200 $150 =========================================================== LAPC-1 SCC-1 TBM HARDWARE ISA slot (bits) 8 8 16 Compatibility MT-32 GM/GS GM/GS MPU MT-32### MPU CONNECTIONS: Mic in - - mono? Line in - - stereo PC speaker in - - ? Line out stereo stereo stereo Amplified out 2x? W 2x? W 2x? W Joystick - - yes MIDI MPU MPU TB# CD-ROM - - - SYNTHESIZER Type LA WS WS Chipset Roland Roland Proteus Voices* 32 24 32 Channels 7+drum 15+drum 15+drum Instruments 128 317 384 Effects Hall Hall Hall Echo Echo Echo Chorus Chorus Miscellaneous DSP SAMPLING ADC (bits) - - 16 DAC (bits) 12##? 12## 16 Freq. stereo (Khz) - - ?-44 Freq. mono (Khz) - - ?-44 Compression - - by DSP ___:1 - - by DSP Decompression - - by DSP ___:1 - - by DSP SNR (dB) Dyn. range (dB) Harmonic dis. (%) MIXER** Master - - ? Synthesizer - - ? DAC - - ? Mic - - ? Line in - - ? Tone*** (dB) - - ? PRICE (est.) $495 $495 $499 REMARKS * Number of voices per channel. ** Volume control in steps. *** Bass and treble. # Optional. ## Only for playing on-board samples. ### By emulation. - Not present. ? I am not sure :-). PLEASE FILL IN! **** CONCLUSION Many manufacturers are now rapidly releasing new soundcards. Game companies are already working on support of a new generation of sound cards, that will offer significantly better quality over the present cards. The GUS is an example of a card with great potential. It's not the Ultimate Sound Card, but it is probably the first of a whole series of high quality cards. Secondly I think the FM-based cards are rapidly going to be replaced by WS-based cards, since WS gives much better sound quality than FM. Watch which cards the software companies are going to support. If you want to buy a card now, go for a cheap sound card. Maybe you can get an old SB for just a few bucks. If you want a card with better sound quality, the GUS is a good choice. **** NOTE The information in this article may not be entirely correct or up-to-date! Some info is from my own experience, other is from different sources. If anyone finds any mistake, please let me know. If you want to contribute to this article, please send your info. I'll put it in a next release (if it's interesting enough and if you want me to ;-))! ** Thanx to: Josha Munnik (for lending me his lended GUS :-)), Bjorn Haavard Kleven, Phat Tran and Stefan Hartmann (for their useful tips and info on the newsnet), Timo Veijola (for his info about the Roland cards), Teemu Mottonen (for his info about MIDI) and a lot of other csips-readers. Jerry *------------------------------------------------------------------------------* Jerry van Waardenberg _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ Tele Informatics and Open Systems _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ Department of Computer Science _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ University of Twente, Enschede, The Netherlands _/ _/ _/ _/ _/ E-mail: waardenb@cs.utwente.nl _/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/ _/_/_/