
GUS Musician's Digest       Thu, 21 Apr 94 14:19 PST     Volume 6: Issue  21  

Today's Topics:
                     GUS Musician's Digest V6 #20
                     GUS patch cacheing awareness
                       Harpsichord patch needed
                   midi sync with Power Tracks Pro
                              Pitch bend
                           Pitch bend again
                       Pitch Bend and Cakewalk

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.

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Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 11:22:27 -0400
From: jgamache@aix1.si.usherb.ca (Jerry Gamache)
Subject: Re: GUS Musician's Digest V6 #20

On the matter of the channel specifity of pitch bend I would like to
add this simple remark: Take the CHRIS.MID that comes in the
distribution files and play it with PLAYMIDI. You can visually see
that pitch bend only affects one channel. The problem someone
encountered can be due to: 1) use of Midi Mapper, 2) confusion between
channel and port, 3) (very improbable) badly designed software.

					Greetings
						Jerry

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 12:57:34 +0100
From: P.VanHorssen@hol0606.wins.icl.co.uk
Subject: GUS patch cacheing awareness

Hey Cubase Score users.
Sometime I had a conversation with Cubase, Germany about patch
cacheing facility of the GUS: I was told that Cubase would
introduce the dynamic loading of patches in Cubase. Anybody in
the know whether this happened? I have an interest in buying
Cubase Score. Rgrds, Pieter van Horssen

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 15:57:07 +0300 (EETDST)
From: Markus Vuori <Markus.Vuori@lut.fi>
Subject: Harpsichord patch needed

Could anyone tell me where I could find a GOOD harpsichord
patch fo my GUS (w 1 Meg) ?
I think that the patch which came with my GUS is poor.
Any suggestions?  Heelp ...

Thanx
mvuori@cc.lut.fi
-- 
*************************************************************************
*  MARKUS VUORI, LUT, tite 1 (computing technology), FINLAND            *
* Lappeenranta University of Techonology - Silicon Valley of Finland :) * 
*************************************************************************

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 09:16 -0400
From: WADLEIGH@PROCESS.COM
Subject: Re: midi sync with Power Tracks Pro

>Can you using tape to midi sync with Power Tracks Pro?
Why not dump the PTP to MIDI and merge them?

>Next question, can you use any GUS software to play the GUS and MIDI
>port modules at the same time ? (I want my MIDI sequence to play
>some stuff with the GUS and others with a CZ101 and a VZ8M at the
>same time. Can it be done ?)
Use MIDI Mapper under Windows.

>Next question, does anyone have the 16 bit sampler daughterboard
>working with the rev 3.7 gus ?
It requires special drivers for the DB.

Hal

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 1994 09:01:30 -0500 (CDT)
From: vic@cd.com (Vic Serbe x237)
Subject: Re: Pitch bend

Shawn T. Rutledge writes:
>
> > to have as many different independent PB events going on as you have
> > channels on any separately addressable bus (port).  Do you only have this
> > problem when using the multi-timbral implementation on the GUS?  If so,
> 
> Isn't it always in that configuration?  Or is it a function of whether
> or not the patch uses it?

Yes, but it might not have been done right with regard to MIDI usage.
There might not be enough independence between sounds/channels

> As I understand it a patch is simply a 2-channel waveform being played back.

Actually, I'm not sure about the gus, but patches can either be a two
channel stereo sound or a monaural sound "panned" somewhere between the L
& R channels.  It depends on how many actual DACs are used and how there
outputs are mixed in the hardware.

> Maybe some fancy patches allow multiple
> waveforms to be mixed and played back at once, or maybe even with special
> effects or modulation applied, but maybe not.  I hadn't really thought
> about whether or not it is multitimbral before.  I would think that
> since ther are only 32 channels of software mixing being done that maybe
> there is such a thing as a patch that uses several channels at once, for
> chorus effects and such; or maybe you simply have to synthesize it or
> sample it with the chorus effect built in to begin with.

You're getting *voices* and *channels* confused.  There are only 16
*channels* on a midi bus.  You can use as many *voices* on each channel as
your sound source can support.  Example:  Play a 4 note chord on the piano
sound.  That's 4 of your 32 available voices, but only on one channel of
the MIDI bus.  Multitimbral simply means able to play more than one
independently addressable sound concurrently.  The GUS is multitimbral,
and no, you can't turn it off (not that you'd want to anyway).

> Sorry - I'm not rich, and I don't subscribe to the Musicians In Debt
> Indefinitely (MIDI) philosophy.  :-)  No modules to try out.

It depends on how out of control you get.  You can get a darn nice GM
compatilbe multitimbral external sound module for about $350 these
days.

> BTW, after the other reply (from Vic, above) I'd be more inclined to suspect
> the drivers.  Then again, I'm using CW 1.03 for Windows.  Not rich enough
> to go out and buy the new version of that either...  :-)

The upgrade is under $100.  It's worth it.

-- 
Vic Serbe (vic@cd.com), Applications Engineer
Central Data Corp. - Makers of the scsiTerminal Server
800/482-0315 or (+1) 217/359-8010 (FAX-6904)

------------------------------

Date: Thu, 21 Apr 94 15:14 GMT
From: Clarke Brunt <CLARKE@lsl.co.uk>
Subject: Pitch bend again

Just a few more comments on the comments about getting pitch bend to
operate on a single channel, which most people seem to think is
possible, and I haven't experimented enough to know.

>As I understand it a patch is simply a 2-channel
>waveform being played back.  Maybe some fancy patches allow multiple
>waveforms to be mixed and played back at once, or maybe even with special
>effects or modulation applied, but maybe not.  I hadn't really thought
>about whether or not it is multitimbral before.  I would think that
>since ther are only 32 channels of software mixing being done that maybe
>there is such a thing as a patch that uses several channels at once, for
>chorus effects and such; or maybe you simply have to synthesize it or
>sample it with the chorus effect built in to begin with.

A lot of maybe's...

The GUS has 32 voices, all operating in parallel. Each one plays though
a (mono) sample stored somewhere in the GUS RAM. Without any software
intervention, the sample can be divided in some proportion between
right and left speakers, it can repeat a looped section, it can apply
a volume ramp, and its amplitude/frequency can be modulated to
achieve vibrato/tremolo. It is up to the Windows driver how to utilise
this hardware capability, but a standard patch format, understood
by the driver (not the GUS!) has been decided on by Gravis. A patch,
being played with just a single note, uses exactly 1 voice. The driver
allocates a free voice to it when the note starts. It is
not true stereo (right and left only differ in amplitude), and there
is nothing clever involving the use of several voices. The driver
controls when to begin attack/sustain/decay sections etc. As you say,
if you want a fancy effect, you have to build it into the patch
to begin with. I think it is to the GUS's advantage that the hardware
is powerful (lots of voices) yet simple - it can be made to do
virtually anything with suitable driver software.

>Redirecting ports/channels within cakewalk, or with Midi Mapper?
[to get pitchbend to work]

I don't know that I'd expect this to matter. CakeWalk has things called
'ports' which correspond to available Windows MIDI devices. You might
expect the choice of ports to include UltraSound Synth, UltraSound MIDI
port, and MIDI mapper. However many of these you select in the
dialog box, CW port numbers just cycle round, so if you selected all
three, then port 4 would be the same as port 1 etc.
CW can assign each track of a song to a single port (tracks only have
an existence in MIDI files, and in the minds of sequencer programs - no
track information is sent in the MIDI data stream).
If you have a track assigned to a port number corresponding to MIDI Mapper,
then the MIDI data sent can be further mangled according to your MIDI
Mapper setup, in particular, each channel can be diverted to a different
output device (port in CakeWalk's terms). Note that MIDI Mapper diverts
CHANNELS, while CakeWalk diverts TRACKS.

This all brings us back to the fact that pitch bend is a channel message,
and should only affect a single channel. If it is shown to affect all
channels, then either (a) the sequencer is sending out the message 16 times,
once for each channel, or (b) the Windows driver is responding to the
message incorrectly by applying it to all 16 channels. The GUS itself can
obviously change the pitch of a single voice, otherwise we'd never get
different pitched notes out of it!

------------------------------

Date: Wed, 20 Apr 1994 16:29:50 -0700
From: chrisw@leland.stanford.edu (Chris Wilkins)
Subject: Pitch Bend and Cakewalk

What on earth is going on here? I find the digest full of messages about how 
either Cakewalk or the GUS doesn't handle pitch bend messages properly. This 
is utterly wrong. I have been pitch bending for over a year on the 
GUS/Cakewalk combination with not a single problem. I've also used all sorts 
of external gear with no problems. Pitch bend messages go to the precise 
channel and port that is selected.

Cakewalk has a very nice manual. Please read it. (If you don't have it then 
I'm afraid I can't have too much sympathy).

Anyway, PLEASE STOP THIS THREAD. It's silly.

Chris.

------------------------------

End of GUS Musician's Digest V6 #21
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