🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan26.051739.25502@cc.umontreal.ca> dionf@ERE.UMontreal.CA (Francois Dion) writes:
>In article <gate.84kRXB1w165w@sytex.com> mbenson@sytex.com (Michael Benson) writes:
>>JL>        - Wave Table synthesis
>>  >        - 1 MB on board ROM with 128 sampled instruments
>>
>>In the next month or two you will see MANY MANY new brands of sound
>>cards because of propagation of sound chips.
>
>But only the GUS has 1 Meg ram and not ROM. You can put around 40-50 GUS
>patches in 1 Meg, so 128 sampled instruments in 1 Meg ROM is a really
>bad idea. Not counting that 128 instruments is only the voice part of
>GM, the other beeing percussions. If some of you dont understand what
>i'm implying, here's the deal:
>
>If you put more patches in the same area, you have lower quality samples.
>To hold all the standard GUS patches you need 4 Meg.
>

This assumes that the samples in ROM are not compressed.  But there is no
basis for that assumption.  When I have seen descriptions of synths that use
ROM for waves, they often mention that the waves are compressed.  Since the
hardware is dedicated and the format is proprietary, there is absolutely no
reason NOT to use compressed samples.  Since sound is highly redundant, the
compression must be considerable.

>Another advantage of RAM is that it allows MOD players of 1 meg mod files
>without using a dos extender, and using only 64K main ram.
>
>A third advantage is the fact that you need RAM to use FOCAL POINT 3D audio
>technology to preprocess your samples. (which is exclusive to the GUS on the
>IBM platform for 1 year, with option for 4 more years)
>
There is other 3D audio technology around.  I believe Roland has demoed it.
I would be surprised if it requires samples to be in RAM, since anything in
RAM can be in ROM.

>A fourth advantage is that you can use any sound and sample it and put it on
>the card (be it a Juno-106, a TR909, a pan flute, a chainsaw etc...)
>

This is undeniably the major advantage of using RAM.  Seems to me the best
card would use both ROM and RAM, like high end synths do.  If there is a
point to putting stuff in RAM, it is to avoid loading from a disk and to make
sure there is a reliable standard set of samples available -- the Gen Midi
set for example.  I don't see any point in having the Gen Midi set in RAM.
It just makes the process slow and unreliable.  Save RAM for custom sounds
and upgraded sounds.  4 meg ROM and 4 meg RAM seems like a reasonable size
for a quality card -- and onboard reverb of course!


Cheers,

Dave