A guide to sound cards and digital sound Onboard sound chips is an in-expensive an simple via to incorporate sound facilities in your PC. ● Next page ● Previous page Learn more [top] Read Module 6a about file systems Read about chip sets on the motherboard in module 2d Read Module 4d about super diskette and MO drives Read module 5a about expansion cards, where we evaluate the I/O buses from the port side Read module 5b about AGP Read module 7a about monitors, and 7b on graphics card Also see: Module 7d - about digital music: MP3s, MODs etc. [Main page] [Contact] [Karbo's Dictionary] [The Software Guides] Copyright (c) 1996-2001 by Michael B. Karbo. www.karbosguide.com. http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c2.htm (4 of 4)7/27/2004 4:06:59 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Please click the banners to support our work! KarbosGuide.com. Module 7c3. PC sound - continued The contents: ● 3D sound ● Next page ● Previous page 3D sound [top] 3D sound is a new hot area. You can create a very powerful illusion of 3D sound coming from just loudspeaker. This is done using new 3D processors on the sound card, which work with some very complex mathematical models. The sound comes from behind, from the front, from side to side - completely realistic. The idea of 3D sound has to come from games, which especially are designed for it. The sound systems often include 4 or 6 loudspeakers. But they work fine with headphones too. Sound Blaster Live is such a high-end, high fidelity 3D card coming from Creative Labs. It is a PCI-based card, and the best performance comes with the Four Point Surround sound system. Diamond MX300 is another. SB Live! The SoundBlaster top model sound card is called SoundBlaster Live! It includes a lot of fine and powerful features: ● EMU10K1 accelerator chip http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c3.htm (1 of 4)7/27/2004 4:07:01 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound ● Connections for four speakers. ● Digital DIN plug, which can be used for future high-end sound systems like Dolby ProLogic. ● SP/DIF digital phone plug, which can be connected to units such as DVD drives, DAT or MiniDisc for direct digital input. ● Plug for digital MPEG signal. The EMU10K1 is as powerful as a Pentium 166 MHz CPU. It is an accelerator chip which relieves the PC’s CPU when executing sound, such as DirectX activities that require a lot of processor power. Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live is a phenomenal piece of hardware: 3D sound - better than stereo In the 1950s stereo was invented. The music is recorded using two channels - a left and a right channel. Since then the aim has been to expand the sound into 3 dimensions. This is possible. Only using two speakers you can create an illusion of "room". Many new sound cards are capable of giving 3D sound effects (i.e. Virtual Dolby). This way games can achieve even more realistic sound. http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c3.htm (2 of 4)7/27/2004 4:07:01 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Diamond MX300 is a 3D sound card. It is constructed using accelerator chips from Aureal (Vortex 2 and A3D ver. 2.0). The first sound chip from Aureal was very revolutionary to 3D sound performance. It has been used by many vendors (such as Compaq). In 1999 the next generation chip was shipping. The Diamond card was very well received. It should be just as good as the SoundBlaster Live! product, which has been in a class by itself since the introduction in 1998. SoundBlaster Live works with an open standard for 3D sound called EAX (Environmental Audio Extensions). The MX300 card is compatible with this as well as with the Microsoft's standard for 3D sound. 3D environmental sound The 3D sound card gives the listener an illusion of being in a landscape, where the sounds come from the front and the back. Sounds coming from up and down are difficult to reproduce. The illusion is best when you use a four-set speaker system as SoundBlaster PC Works, which gives a very high quality at a modest price. 3D sound is also possible using only two speakers. The MX300 should be very good at this. The spacious sound is created using advanced mathematical manipulations, which need a good portion of CPU power. Hence the accelerator chip. This is called 3D Positional Sound. The best result should be achieved using headphones. http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c3.htm (3 of 4)7/27/2004 4:07:01 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Another 3D effect is called Environmental Sound. Here the sound from a game is changed corresponding to the physical situation of the characters. If a person enters a tunnel, there may be an echo. In a big empty hall the sound is completely different. This way the games can send commands to the sound card, which adjust the feeling of the sound to the environment. ● Next page ● Previous page Learn more [top] Read Module 6a about file systems Read about chip sets on the motherboard in module 2d Read Module 4d about super diskette and MO drives Read module 5a about expansion cards, where we evaluate the I/O buses from the port side Read module 5b about AGP Read module 7a about monitors, and 7b on graphics card Also see: Module 7d - about digital music: MP3s, MODs etc. [Main page] [Contact] [Karbo's Dictionary] [The Software Guides] Copyright (c) 1996-2001 by Michael B. Karbo. www.karbosguide.com. http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c3.htm (4 of 4)7/27/2004 4:07:01 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Please click the banners to support our work! KarbosGuide.com. Module 7c4. PC sound - continued The contents: ● USB sound ● Next page ● Previous page Sound over the USB bus You may experience very high quality sound systems using the USB bus. The difference is that there is no sound card in the PC. You connect the speakers to a USB port instead of using the sound card. Using this system, the sound signals are in digital form right coming from the harddisk or whereever, and they stay in this form when they are sent out on the USB channel and into the speakers: http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c4.htm (1 of 3)7/27/2004 4:07:03 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Less noise Inside the PC there is a lot of electric (static) interference from many sources. That can affect the integrity of the signals in the sound module. With USB the noise sensitive digital/analog conversion will take place in the speaker, and this results in a superior quality. Both Philips and Altec Lansing produce USB speakers. More CPU work With USB sound you leave all the sound processing to the CPU. This "costs" some CPU power; however, modern CPUs are so powerful, that this is OK. http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c4.htm (2 of 3)7/27/2004 4:07:03 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound You find high fidelity loudspeakers with built-in amplifier and converter, which can receive pure digital signals (via USB). One could hope, that these speakers will be able to interpret data from hi-fi equipment, PC, TV/video and other sources. See the description of some of the finest speakers I ever have heard: A set ofPhilips USB speakers. ● Next page ● Previous page Learn more [top] Also see: Module 7d - about digital music: MP3s, MODs etc. [Main page] [Contact] [Karbo's Dictionary] [The Software Guides] Copyright (c) 1996-2001 by Michael B. Karbo. www.karbosguide.com. http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c4.htm (3 of 3)7/27/2004 4:07:03 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Please click the banners to support our work! KarbosGuide.com. Module 7c5. PC sound - continued The contents: ● DOS or DirectX ● Next page ● Previous page DOS or DirectX [top] When so many games used to be DOS based, it primarily was because of the sound. Under DOS the programmer can modify and manipulate the sound card to a very high extent. It can be controlled very precisely, sounds can be mixed without interruption, and all kinds of effects can be designed. Here DOS proves very effective - the operating system permits direct control of the hardware. The disadvantage with DOS sound is, that the hardware must be totally standardized. This gave the Sound Blaster card its great success. Windows In Windows all program instructions to hardware are executed through a programming layer http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c5.htm (1 of 3)7/27/2004 4:07:04 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound (API). The first multimedia API would not allow mixing of sounds. Therefore the music in the Windows-based game had to be cut off, if there was a need for playing such a thing as the sound of an explosion. This put heavy restraints on programming creativity. Consequently DOS based game applications remained long into the Windows era. But it changed DirectX DirectX is a set of multimedia APIs ( application program interface ) developed for Windows . It is a collection of programs which enable much improved low level control over the hardware in games and other multimedia applications. DirectX has now reached version 6.1 and includes: ● DirectDraw ● DirectSound ● DiectSound3D ● DirectPlay ● DirectInput ● DirectSetup These programs are designed to enable all possible image and sound effects. The advantage of DirectX is that the applications can be written directly to Windows and simultaneously get maximum hardware control. Hence DirectX is very important to hardware manufactures. To make sure that the new products work together with all software, the drivers have support the latest version of DirectX. With DirectX we should finally have eliminated the need for programs to rely on Sound Blaster compatibility. DirectX comes in new versions every year. In version 7.0 you find improved 3D acceleration of sound as well as picture with reduced CPU usage. The performance should be increased with 20% compared to version 6.1. Windows 2000 was the first NT-based version of Windows to include DirectX. ● Next page ● Previous page Learn more [top] http://www.karbosguide.com/hardware/module7c5.htm (2 of 3)7/27/2004 4:07:04 AM [...]... keyboards [top] A musical keyboard can be connected to the sound card with a connector That is called a MIDI interface You can buy special PC musical keyboards, or you can use one of the keyboards which are available in music stores It will work as long as the MIDI connectors match You connect your DIN connector to the piano keyboard In the other end of the cable is a DB15 connector to the sound card Then... Ripping To produce MP3s you use a ripper You load a music CD into the CDROM drive The software finds a CDDB database on the Internet and finds the artist name and the title of the disk and each song You just tell the ripper which tracks to rip, and the recording starts I use MusicMatch: http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7d4.htm (5 of 9)7/27/20 04 4:07:13 AM A guide to MP3 I used to rip at a constant... http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7d4.htm (3 of 9)7/27/20 04 4:07:13 AM A guide to MP3 The RIO player In October 1998 the American organization RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) tried to stop Diamond Multimedia from selling this great little thing It is a MP3Man, just like a portable CD player: Holding the music in 32 MB of flash memory the player has no moving parts Without moving parts,... that of the professionals The technique MODs' sequencing information is based on "patterns" and "tracks" A pattern is a group of tracks with a certain length, usually 64 "rows" The tracks are independent of each other A four track MOD can play four http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7d3.htm (1 of 4) 7/27/20 04 4:07:10 AM A guide to digital music #3 voices or notes simultaneously The patterns can... potential than the "flat" MIDI files earlier mentioned Koan is an electronic music standard And this represents a fascinating technology developed by the British company SSEYO Koan requires the addition of a plug-in to your browser to enable playing the files Koan music is written to designated sound cards The Sound Blaster AWE is the best as far as I know I just have an ordinary Sound Blaster 16, and there... play for about 15 hours on a single alkaline AA battery The RIO was a revolutionary new device Later MP3 decoders have come in many (better) versions, including mobile phones and digital cameras as well Karbo's Player My own favorite device would be a Sony MiniDisc recorder holding MP3 playback software and an interface to the PC With the 140 MB MiniDisc you will have a great medium for musical storage.. .A guide to sound cards and digital sound Also see: Module 7d - about digital music: MP3s, MODs etc [Main page] [Contact] [Karbo's Dictionary] [The Software Guides] Copyright (c) 1996-2001 by Michael B Karbo www.karbosguide.com http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7c5.htm (3 of 3)7/27/20 04 4:07: 04 AM A guide to digital music #1 KarbosGuide.com Module 7d1 About digital music The contents: There... keyboard is especially designed for the PC Links [top] Here is a link to Anselmo Salzani, who tries to create exciting music in the MIDI format His page also includes a lot of other interesting music links: Brazilian MIDI music And a Dane: Anders Kornerups MIDI music http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7d2.htm (3 of 4) 7/27/20 04 4:07:08 AM A guide to digital music #2 q q Next page Previous page [top]... set as well as to the cars sound system Winamp I use the little program called Winamp and replay from harddisk through my PC' s loudspeakers: Microsoft's Windows Media Player also plays MP3s But It is not as smart as Winamp is Microsoft tried to "kill" the MP3 format introducing their own Windows Media Audio (WMA) format, which is similar to MP3 but not compatible This attempt to incorporate yet another... 4) 7/27/20 04 4:07:08 AM [The Software Guides] A guide to digital music #3 KarbosGuide.com Module 7d3 MODs - digital music The contents: q q About MODs Links to the music and software Next page Previous page The MODs MODs another very interesting format Originally made for Commodore Amiga computers and used for musical demos by a company that sold the music editor SoundTracker The source code of this program . Michael B. Karbo. www.karbosguide.com. http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7c3.htm (4 of 4) 7/27/20 04 4:07:01 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Please click the banners to support. http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7c3.htm (3 of 4) 7/27/20 04 4:07:01 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Another 3D effect is called Environmental Sound. Here the sound from a game is changed. Michael B. Karbo. www.karbosguide.com. http://www.karbosguide.com /hardware/ module7c4.htm (3 of 3)7/27/20 04 4:07:03 AM A guide to sound cards and digital sound Please click the banners to support