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TraxWeekly Issue 106
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founded march 12, 1995 _| : _____ t r a x w e e k l y # 106
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| TraxWeekly Issue #106 | Release date: 25 Jul 1997 | Subscribers: 951 |
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]--[Introduction]------------------------------------------------------------[
Welcome to TraxWeekly #106!
This week features a huge article by Andrew J. Bibby on the concept of
"groove" in music, followed by some techniques for tracking in articles
by Bojan Landekic and Airon.
Music Contest 5 is now in the first phase of judging. All of you who
registered to be judges should have recieved your voting assignments in
email. ***Be sure to read the judging guidelines on the MC5 website!***
The deadline for phase one is August 4, 1997. Comments or questions
should be directed to gd@hornet.org.
Until next week (or maybe the week after)! =)
Gene Wie (Psibelius)
TraxWeekly Publishing
gwie@csusm.edu
]--[Contents]----------------------------------------------------------------[
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/ ____/_/ __/ \ __/ / _____/ \ __/ __/ ___/_
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\ \ \ \\ \ \ww\ \\ \\ \ \ \ \ \_
_\________\________\\___\____\ \_____\\_______\\___\____\ \_____\_______\
Letters and Feedback
1. Letter from KXmode
2. Letter from Exxon
General Articles
3. Groove - what it be?..........................Bibby
4. The Use of the Samples........................Bojan Landekic
5. A Little Panning..............................Airon
Advertisements
JOTD Website
ViperMAX Sound Card
Closing
Distribution
Subscription/Contribution Information
TraxWeekly Staff Sheet
]--[Letters and Feedback]----------------------------------------------------[
--[1. Letter from KXmode]-----------------------------------------------------
From randrew@primenet.comSat Jul 5 23:38:55 1997
Date: Sat, 5 Jul 1997 16:27:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Ryan Allen <randrew@primenet.com>
To: Gene Wie <gwie@mailhost2.csusm.edu>
Subject: Traxweekly Submission
> Hmmm, that two articles in TW #103 on different RealAudio topics
those two articles would be by myself (actually a letter letting
everyone know about Groove Radio's livefeed) and Mental Floss (POTS).
> Imagine an Internet radio station that broadcasts live once a week (surely
> the broadcasts are archived so that you'll never miss it :), playing the
one problem. Money. Most people don't have the money to fork over to rent
the realaudio server equipment needed to broadcast a weekly #traxnet (as
you so precisely put it) livefeed. Unless Mental Floss can, since your
friend let you borrow the realaudio server for POTS. How about it? :)
> newest really good tracked music, in between discussing tracking topics,
> and once a month there'd be a theme broadcast, focusing either on special
> styles of music (from ballads to gabba), music groups or even special
> broadcasts playing music from just one special tracker (only really good
> ones ofcoz :)) I think that something like that would help people to find
all excellent ideas. I'm sure someone would give there soul to do this
kind of thing, but when you think of time, money and relative whatnots
something like becomes a momumental undertaking. Hell, radio DJs get
paid money to do what they do. Granted there are a few induviduals that
"hack" into radio airwaves via the "Pump Up the Volume" syndrome but for
the most part it's a hell of a time to do a project like this with no
financial backing. I'm sure Mental Floss felt drained?
> the really awesome tracks (since there's no *****'s at Hornet anymore), and
> maybe it would even help to raise the interest of "out-of-scene" people in
> this part of the Net...
there is a rating system in place now which i think personally is a lot
better than the previous system. If voting gives people power, then power
to the people. Now every song uploaded to hornet is voted on by many ppl
in the scene, then say four or five induviduals at hornet. The broader
range of tastes is a lot easier on the palette. And the chances of a newer
tracker receiving a fairer rating is a bit more realistic.
> BTW: My favourite netradio station at the moment is Club IMusic
> (http://club.imusic.com/) also playing things like the Prodigy ("The
thanx for the address... i'll be sure to check them out, although i'm
personally getting sick and tired of Prodigy's "Breath". Anyone agree? :)
. .
k X m o d e ^ a c i d
ACiD productions
....:.............:.....
: pHluid . reMorse!ascii :
: randrew@primenet.com :
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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--[2. Letter from Exxon]------------------------------------------------------
Well, people, you really disappoint me!!! I had hoped that at least a few
people would support me with that TraxRadio thing, the only one who mailed
me was LaLa. He came to me with a lot of interesting ideas (Thanx dude!!).
One I really liked and want to announce right here is the launch of the
great "TraxRadio-Signationcompo":
A radiostation needs a catching melody for start, end and for jingles in
between. At first I had thought of a chippie remix of PM's "Atomic Playboys",
but a tune composed especially for TraxRadio would be a lot more original...
So what I search for is a little piece of music with really catchy melody of
about 30 seconds, which then loops nicely so it can be faded out or talked
over it and it should be instrumental of course, although most tracked
music is. Send your contributions to: exxon@bigfoot.com !!
And, as pointed out at the beginning of this article, I need some more
helpers for such a project. I think the idea of an internet radio station
should be nice for every single tracker on earth, so why not help building
it up a little?? I surely won't make it a one-man-show, so if you are
interested in doing little reporter-stories on the Tracker scene, putting
together playlists for special theme broadcasts, interviewing trackers or
if you have any other great ideas to brainstorm about, don't hesitate,
mail me !!
- ExxoN / TraxRadio -
- exxon@bigfoot.com -
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
]--[General Articles]--------------------------------------------------------[
--[3. Groove - what it be?]------------------------------------------[bibby]--
Groove; now there's a truly interesting subject. Hours and hours I'll spend
just listening to tracker music. Some of it grooves, some doesn't. I'm not
quite sure if I could assign a percentage to determine which is greater,
but it also goes along with how much tracker music is 'good' and how much
is 'poor'. I was compelled to look it up in the dictionary.
-groove: a narrow furrow or channel; a situation or activity to which one is
especially well suited; niche.
(also)- groovy: pleasing, deeply satisfying [from slang term 'in the groove']
To the side of the definition lies a few sample illustrations. One shows a
straight profile of a screw with a thin arrow pointed inbetween two of the
many rises along the shaft. The depiction of gears appears just next to the
screw, with a thin arrow pointing between two of the teeth. The third and
final 'groove' illustration is that of a household window opened halfway,
a thin arrow pointing to the tracks along the side that keep the window in
place.
Now, its hard enough to try to unravel this abstract concept into words and
place it in the form of an article, but it's going to take the abstractness
of your artistic minds to put it back together and apply it to the music you
compose and listen to. Music grooves, there is no denying that. So first, I
should state that the word 'groove', when associated with music, is most
often understood to be like hip-hop or funk, ect. Now I would think that this
unintentional synonym was entered into common use because the relaxed feel
and pleasant nature of that part of the musical spectrum happened to groove
a lot better than other music. The truth of the matter is, country music
grooves. Punk rock grooves. Rave grooves. They're all just different grooves.
Ourselves personally might not fit into these grooves, and therefore we
don't tend to like that kind of music.
(Here's a funny sidenote of use:)
The guitar player I live with was cut out for jazz from day one.
But a drummer friend of ours that graduated from high school 2 years before
us, who was also autistic and very sound sensitive, asked him to be in his
punk band. My friend, Zack, accepted, figuring he had nothing to lose.
He learned about 3 hours of music in a weekend; it was REAL easy, but that
isn't the point of punk music, is it? Anyway the point of this sidenote is
I'll never forget the look on his face when our drummer friend told him that
he couldn't groove. His astoundment is permanently etched in my brain.
He couldn't play punk to save his life. I mean, he knew the music fine and
nailed all the chords, but the 'edge' that makes punk so distinctive wasn't
there. It didn't feel right at all. Zack is just too relaxed of a player.
When I think back to that incident, I remember our director back in
high school telling our jazz band (ranked 5th in the state) that the purpose
of the whole band is to sound like one.
It has to flow in one direction with the same intentions. So when
that punk band started playing, it dug a groove (this also creates
the term where a player applies himself more in the feel,
known as 'digging in'), when Zack didn't fit the groove, it undermined
everything that the band was trying to do, ... to feel like one. So
naturally, they fired him. Back to tracking- tracking is an interesting
musical art, not just for its close ties with computer science, sampling
techniques, direct use of waveforms and envelopes, but for the fact that of
the whole and complete compositions that are the product of tracking,
about 98% of them are done by a single person, giving that individual the
full power to control the direction of the song. But still, when tracking a
song, each sample or instrument (or group of samples) could easily be
considered a 'player'. In fact that's how I think when I track, because one
instrument (or the trackings of that instrument) could very well not fit or
completely undermine the groove. Hope this has been making sense so far, cuz
I'm not sure. I always use example to back up what I say whenever I can, so
I'll start breaking those out in a bit.
Now I've argued this point with many people for a long time, and just about
every drummer I've worked with has been in full agreement, the heart of the
groove, is in the bass. So not only is the bass responsible for the
'fundamental frequencies' that determine key and the root note of the chord,
the bass is responsible for the very feeling and flow of the tune. Drums
come second, with the obligation to accent beats 2 and 4 and has control
over dynamic levels. I'd say a song really grooves when all the instruments
are truly as one, but it all starts with the bass and drums. Without a
foundation the building will fall. Now some proof that in order to groove
all you need is a bass. ..
-Bleeding Sun - an .it by Vincent Voois
At first, just repeat the first pattern over and over again. The first two
chords, bass note included, hit on beats 1 and 3 , but the 3rd chord hits on
the & of 4. - This is really all you need. We're groovin' already. Bass can
groove all by itself. (Now hold up, & of 4? we all understand off-beats,
don't we?) Well just like everything else in this world of ours, a beat has
two sides. A 'downbeat' is right on the beat. Count 1,2,3,4. These are the
downbeats, if you were tapping your foot the your favorite mod, all these
would appear, ... .. yep, when your foot was down. But now pay attention to
when your foot came up. Could this be called the 'upbeat'? Yep, you can all
it up, off, mid, whatever as long as it's understood that that's what you're
talking about. Music teachers will generally tell you to call these off-beats
"and" (&), so that it's easy to insert them in your count. Now count:
|: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & :| (a couple of times. tap yer foot. Any numbers when
the foot is down, '&' when the foot is up. This is also the count on a
straight 8ths hihat pattern and such, 8 hits in a measure. Remember Zack?
He once tried to tell me that in reggae, the guitar would play on beats 2
and 4, but once again, he's wrong. In reggae and ska (2 very closely related
styles) The guitar would play only on the offbeats. One good way to find the
groove is, if the beat is consistent, try to line up the snare hits on 2 and
4. (most styles now incorporate a snare hit on 2 and 4, but in swing, it's
done with the closing of the hihat).
*K_Muffld.xm , "Muffled Drums" by Lord Pegasus / Kosmic is a great example
of this. Keyboard chords on the offbeats over a reggae-ish style. I'll list
all the songs I mention at the end.
Back to 'Bleeding Sun', In only the 1st pattern of the song the groove is
dug, now it's up to everyone else (the instruments I mean) to fit in it.
The 1st bar (1st 4 beats) begins on the 1st two downbeats, very straight,
but the 2nd bar is all off, and then goes back. So the groove of this song
is really built of a repetitious pattern over 2 bars, (..leads me to believe
that things like this make dancers count to 8 instead of 4) Let me mark
where the chords would attack:
Eb6 Dmin7 Gmin7 Gmin9
| | | |
up | & & & & | & & & & |
down | 1 2 3 4 | 1 2 3 4 |
(2nd time subs Eb6 for Cmin7, which is only a change of bass note)
Sure beats the hell out of squaring them off to hit on 1,3,1,3.
When the drums come in, they make an interesting fit. Find a well established
pattern, I think pattern 01 will do fine. Now mute all the channels but the
bass (05) and the drums (18 & 19) Now usually, The bassdrum pattern would
try to accent the bassline, and I really wish it, would've played with the
bass at the 4th bar of the pattern. Instead, it sounds to me like the bass
and drums are still in a agreement though, by covering the holes left by the
other. When the bass isn't busy, that's when the kick drum is. An
interesting move. It still grooves, but it feels more like friends helping
each other out than players thinking with one mind. Now drums have another
interesting obligation, and that's to setup the next phrase. Generally they
bring an entrance with them to help carry the song to that next layer of
intensity, whereas a bass is only asked kindly to hit on 1 of the next bar.
You often see this in hip-hop tunes of all kinds, with a drum track. They'll
take it away but won't give it back on 1 very often , generally on 4 with
the snare hit of the & of 3. Just thought I'd mention that. Now the function
of a 'rhythm section' (usually consisting of bass, drums, piano, and/or
guitar) is not provide chord structure and keep the feel for a soloist, a
horn line, or vocalist, ect., so in order to do this, they all have to lock
into the groove together and play as one. There's a part in this song where
the piano decides that he no longer wants to hit that 3rd chord on the & of
4 , he'd rather wait until 1. Granted it's only an 8th later, but it catches
my ear, and during that 8th, the bass note and the leftover chord don't
match. Guitars and pianos can get away with things like that most of the
time, they have a considerable amount of freedom for being rhythm players.
If the bass hit that chord on 1 instead of the & of 4 after it being played
like that for that long, I'd probably fall out of my chair.
Let's see more on these upbeats .. .
*Pn_cncpt.it , "Conception" by pinion / pHluid. (think its on ph-0297.zip)
anyway, when the deep sine-bass comes in (ptrn 16), start that foot
a'tappin and check out where those bass notes hit. They keep bouncing back
and forth from the 'on' and 'off'. Plus it's a killer tune.
Now more on agreement-
- Martian Girl - a wonderful .xm by radix / groove(!)
This tune is the greatest, although I have to say that I've downloaded
nothing else by the group called 'groove', or any of radix's other groups,
but I will shortly. I would have trouble recalling when else I've heard such
bass and drum agreement. If you mute all channels but 1-3, and listen
through the song for awhile, you can hear that nothing is thought by one
that isn't completely understood by the other. An interesting part of the
groove implements less accent of the 2nd and 4th beats , and also less
accent of 1! Many times, the bass note on beat 1 is the 7th (G) that slides
up to the true root (A) and re-establishes itself with a snare hit, which
lies one 16th ahead of 2.. . I've found radix to play on the 16ths more than
the 8ths. If you can cut a 4-count into 8ths, you can easily cut it again,
but I wouldnt suggest trying to count 16ths with this song. This one you
just gotta go with, it's much easier to let it move you than dissect it.
You can't get too scientific and mathematical, you gotta have faith in the
groove. In this song, though, there's even more agreement than I had
initially hoped. The piano fits right in. The guitar harmonics take a
different rhythmic approach, but of the four instruments typically found in
a rhythm section, this one has the most licensee to be flighty, plus the
chord has already been laid down by the bass and added onto by a string
sample. I especially love the rhythm played by what I can only describe as
a keyboard instrument starting at pattern 14; it matches what is played by
the bass and drums beautifully. With groove, it's all good so long as
everyone does it together.
*wrong.xm , "wrong way home" by hunz / analogue ; another really tight
rhythm section (piano, bass and drums) only a much tighter feel than the
relaxed, martian groove. Just about every movement by one is matched by
the other two in some way.
It also turns out that radix is in affiliation with another group dedicated
to helping and teaching trackers more about music and better tracking.
"The Zen of Tracking" is what it's called. The addy where it is located at
http://falcon.invincible.com/~jerm/newcomers.html, which is put up by
Introspective. That's a new group (as of this year) which includes Smash/NOI
SE, Screamager/Kosmic, Radix/TooManyGroupsToMention, and JRice/Landslide
... This page is nice and I suggest you check it out.
Tell them bibby sent ya'(maybe I can get a job or something...)
To be honest, I can't begin to explain why I decided to write this article,
(other than the fact that I said I would in my last one) There are
so many examples of good groove in mods today, and I didn't want to
drag out any just to say that it didn't. Good feel is what
most trackers are looking for in determining if their song is all right.
There are many styles that can be easily tracked without any knowledge of
chord structure and progression, as long as it grooves. Groove I don't think
can be taught either, you just gotta find it.
I ran out of things to say already, but I guess I did okay considering I
didn't know what to talk about in the first place.
-songs discussed- however little some were:
Bleeding Sun Vincent Voois bleedsun.it
Muffled Drums Lord Pegasus / Kosmic k_muffld.xm
Conception pinion / pHluid pn_cncpt.it
Martian Girl radix / groove mars.xm
wrong way home hunz / analogue wrong.xm
Until next time. Please mail me with any comments, suggestions, or ideas.
I've gotten a lot of mail since I've been doing articles, and I re: quickly.
So feel free!
Gotta joke for you, too.
Q. "How many guitar players does it take to screw in a light bulb?"
----------
A. "..usually about five, but the bass player has to show them how first!"
Gotta another!
Q. "What's the quickest way to turn down a guitar player?"
----------
A. "Put a sheet of music in front of him!"
I love guitar player jokes.
bibby / pHluid / TW
bibby@juno.com (text only)
sfb@magicnet.net (for tunes!)
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--[4. The Use of Samples]-----------------------------------[Bojan Landekic]--
I was reading the MC5 (music contest 5, check out www.hornet.org)
newsletter when I came across this:
>- Two important issues: sample ripping and extended samples (i.e. drumloops,
> guitar riffs, etc.). Don't go overboard penalizing for ripped samples. A
> good judge will often spot an obvious sample rip (Purple Motion, Necros,
> Lizardking, etc. have distinctive samples). If the sample has been
> overused, feel free to reflect that negatively, but you should penalize
> little, if any, if a sample is used in a fashion unlike the original
> composer's.
Now this really bothers me, as ALL my samples are from Basehead.
I just noticed it now, and it's a pure coincidence, but they are all
from Basehead, so my song will be marked down tremendosly if judges
follow this rule. And why is it wrong to use other people's sample?
I mean why create another high quality sample, if what I need already
exists? No reason! But if the only reason one is using somebody else's
sample is because there's nothing else, not because it's a good sample,
THAN they should be penalized. I dunno, I just wish somebody would tell
me what's wrong with using other people's samples. I do create my own
samples, but only if I want something in particular or if a specific
"instrument" I have in mind doesn't exist. What am I supposed to do?
Make my own samples that sound the same as the ones I'm using now just
so I'm not penalized?????? (-:
> As far as extended samples go, if a sample set is overly reliant on loops,
> the entry should be marked down in this category. However, an extended
Another weird one. I'm probably doing something nobody else is, or maybe
everyone's already doing what I do with my drumloops, who knows, but I also
have a problem with this point. See I loop ALL my drum loops, except I loop
them at certain points. Hey you could use this for "IT tip of the week",
seeing as you guys don't have it any more (why not?).
Anyhow, since I use IT to it's full extent, I use NNAs as well as DTCs (if
you don't know what they are, NNAs control how the current instrument
behaves when an instrument is played in the same channel (continue,
fade, off, cut), and DTCs control how the current instrument behaves
when it is played in it's own channel (fade, off, continue)).
One effect I do with my drumloop is to ping-pong it all the way, set
DTC to FADE, set NNA to continue, set fade value (press F4) to 32, and
play the drumloop in the same channel at rows 00, 16, 32, 48 (or
something like that). In rows 16 and 48, I use the S72 effect to set
NNA to note fade for only THIS NOTE This gives me a small "backbeat"
in between 2 points of a pattern... Sounds groovy (-:
I've noticed not many ITs use the instruments to their full extent, so
here's a tip for this week. It deals with echoing a voice sample (or any
sample for that matter) in 1 physical channel, utilising as many virtual
channels as you want. But be ware, that the more channels you use, the
more CPU power any tracker takes to mix it in real time.... Keep that in
mind. The only time you would go overboard with this is if you are doing
a mix for a CD (in which case you would have payed your little fee to Jeff).
------[ Voice Echoing Using 1 Physical Channel ]---------
* Step 1: If your voice sample is not looped, skip this part:
Set the volume envelope, so that the volume is at fullest for the duration
of the speaking portion, and so that it fades down to silence during the
loop portion (ie... if you have a sample that says "I AM GOD" and you have
the word "GOD" set to loop, then make sure your volume envelope has
sufficiently long distance between ticks 0 and 1 to cover the saying of
"I AM GOD" once, tick x (being 2, or 3, or 4...etc) should be at volume
0!!
Volume Envelope:
I AM GOD GOD GOD GOD
v 100 +-------------+
o \
l +
u \
m \
e 0 +
0 1 2 3
tick number
(sorry for the bad ascii, but I hope you get how to set it, if not lemme
know)
* Step 2: Do this regardless of sample looping
For those who are unfamiliar with effects, here's a short ditty on them. The
S8x is used for panning (S80 being left, S88 being as most thought the center
and S8F being the left). S91 is the surround pan. Well, I like to use the
Xnn effect. the X00 is left, XFF is right, and X88 is more in the center
than S88 is. This is why we will be using the Xnn effect (you can use Snn,
it's your choice). Set NNA to continue, set DTC (duplicate type check) to
Disabled. Now track these in one channel:
00 C-5 01 64 X88 <--- Center pan
01 C-5 01 24 S91 <--- Surround
02 C-5 01 12 X00 <--- Left pan
03 C-5 01 12 XFF <--- Right pan
04 C-5 01 08 X30 <--- Center-Left Pan
05 C-5 01 08 XCF <--- Center-Right Pan
01 being the instrument you are using, replace it with the number of your
voice instrument's number. Okay, that gives you an awesome effect. But
to make it better, push all rows after the surround echo down 1 row so
that the left pan starts at row 03, right pan at 04..etc. Now you are saying
that uses up 6 virtual channels... Yup, true, but you don't have to use them
all. Think about it. Take out surround, center-left, center-right, andright
pan, erase those rows, and you are left with a center pan and a left pan in
one physical channel while using 2 virtual channels (FT2 users would have to
use 2 channels and not able to use those 2 channels until the sample is over)
00 C-5 01 64 X88 <--- Center pan
01 C-5 01 12 X00 <--- Left pan
Or you are saying you want more...? Heheh, just ADD extra lines like these
(but remember, not everybody has a P2-200, some like me are tracking on a
386, and that only allows for 40 channels to be mixed in real time, so be
careful how much you use):
06 C-5 01 08 X50 <--- Center-Left/2 Pan
07 C-5 01 08 XAF <--- Center-Right/2 Pan
08 C-5 01 08 X70 <--- Center-Left/3 Pan
09 C-5 01 08 X9F <--- Center-Right/3 Pan
...etc
It's really up to you how many "echos" you use. But remember, this
makes one thing easy. You want the same echo somewhere else? You
guessed it, just copy that one single block anywhere else and it'll
work. Hell you can even copy it to the channel along side it, and
offset it one row, but that's pointless (-:...A good thing to do is
to copy it to another place, and just change the values and volumes
a bit. Oh and the volumes I used above there, you can use others just
remember this: Main voice - 100%, surround - 30%, the rest should be
humming around the volume of surround, but lower. It all depends
what type of echo you want. The really cool thing about this, besides
the fact that you use 1 channel which makes it easy to see your music
while tracking, is the fact that after the rows with notes, you can
put more notes on that channel WITHOUT affecting the currently playing
instruments.... Cool eh? (ie. you can put a drum right after the voices
and it'll play the voices and the drum without a problem)
I hope I introducted you to a new way of thinking about instruments and
tracking. I also hope it will help you make more of your music sound
realistic. If I get good response from people, I could tell you a whole
lot more about other uses of NNAs that you never thought possible (or
just tracking in general). If you are still unclear, drop me a line at
fire@globalserve.net and I'll be sure to help you out. Oh and no, you
will not find my stuff on Hornet, as I have yet to finish a song I deem
good (also I'm waiting for the brand-spanking new rating system we heard
about in DemoNews to go online <grin>).... Anyway, JUST TRACK IT (-:...
See ya all after the MC5 deadline,
Bojan Landekic
fire@globalserve.net
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--[5. A Little Panning]----------------------------------------------[Airon]--
Ever sat there and smoked some brain cells over what panning data to put into
the command ? I'm talking Impulsetracker here now.
The panning command sits in the volume column ... so that means ... uhhm ...
from 0 to 64 ... damn! I wanted to have X38 in the volume column to free
space for a sample offset or delay command. Don't you hate having to
translate between the two datas of the Xyy command and that green stuff in
the volume column ? I do folks and here's your chart for easy reading :
VOLUME COLUMN PANNING
OUTER RING -
32 _
_ 32
80
30 - 78
88 - 34
28 - 70
90 - 36
26 - 68
98 - 38
24 - 60
A0 - 40
22 - 58
A8 - 42
20 - 50
B0 - 44
INNER RING - Xyy command PANNING
18 - 48
B8 - 46
16 - 40
C0 - 48
14 - 38
C8 - 50
12 - 30
D0 - 52
10 - 28
D8 - 54
08 - 20
E0 - 56
06 - 18
E8 - 58
04 - 10
F0 - 60
02 - 08
F8 - 62
00 - 00
FF - 64
This should ease the use of these two ways of panning with commands.
Cheerio from an English guy
Tony
(Airon / Phase^D musician, Phase^D Webmaster)
http://user.cs.tu-berlin.de/~airou/phd
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ViperMAX is the same level as AWE64 Gold (US$179), the suggested
retail price of ViperMAX is US$169 (pl. refer to unofficial web site), but
we can offer FOB Taiwan US$65/ea. based on minimum order of 100 pcs.
I represent a Canadian company with factory in Taiwan, and I am also
in charge of International business. Our products are all wavetable sound
cards, and we are standing at the the level as Roland or Yamaha, but we are
more famous in PC applicaitons. This can be proved from composers
worldwidely, they are composing PC digital music all based on our Gravis
UltraSound sound card. (http://www.gravis.com)
UltraSound Extreme is the same as ViperMAX, we use two model names
to distinguish between brand name and OEM products. ViperMAX is an OEM
product,.
Creative Lab started its business from FM sound card, and this kind
of sound card can be purchased FOB US$7 from Taiwan or HK now. Creative does
not have any good wavetable sound card in its product line, even AWE32 or
AWE64 is not good enough. AWE64 only provides 30 digital channels, but CL
claimed it is 32. AWE64 uses the same EMU8000 chip as AWE32, plus software
wavetable to generate another 32-voice. Yes, we also can make ViperMAX-128,
software wavetable is simple.
Most people are familiar with MIDI, a standard in computer music.
But ViperMAX is not only excellent in playing MIDI, it is also the best in
playing MOD. MOD music is very famous in Europe, it came from Amiga, and is
true digital audio, most Amiga-fans know about MOD music very well. MOD
musics sounds far more better than MIDI.
Over 5,000 rated MOD songs are downloadable from the world's largest
MOD web site : ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/music/songs
The following information could be interested to you. The best and
the excellent MOD composers from the world, such as :
Ng Pei Sin, Zane - Singapore,
Jason Chong, Mick Rippon - Australia,
Scirocco, Leviathan, basehead - USA,
Wave - Netherland,
Mellow-D - Finland,
Necros - USA,
Zodiak - Sweden,
Torture of Music - Norway & Czech.
We are bundling their MOD musics (over 105Mbyte) in new ViperMAX
Install CD. All these songs were rated ****+ or ***** on ftp.cdrom.com.
Also, many MOD Tracker (Fast Tracker, Impulse Tracker, Scream
Tracker...etc.) and Player (Inertia Player, Cubic Player...etc.) were also
included.
(Note : Tracker is a program which allow you to compose and playback MOD
file, while Player only can playback).
If you need the best sound card in the world, please do not hesitate
to contact us.
Thank You and
Best Regards,
James Hsu / Taipei, Taiwan
----------------------------------
This is a brief introduciton of our sound card. It can be said that
Sound Blaster is a standard in FM technology, and UltraSound is a standard
in wavetable technology. Our ViperMAX sound card has both features.
Synergy is a Canadian company with factory in Taiwan and is an
exclusive ODM manufacturer who designs the hardware and produces famous
UltraSound PnP wavetable sound cards for Advanced Gravis. Gravis is a public
company in Canada, its products are wavetable sound cards and joysticks.
UltraSound is becoming a market lead in wavetable technology, because game
companies and third parties all over the world are supporting it, but they
do not support Creative AWE32, neither do they support Turtle Beach. Why ?
because UltraSound had free SDK (Software Development Kit) available since
1992. It is the main reason that UltraSound is always standing at the first
place of wavetable sound card technology.
ViperMAX is the first UltraSound product which is Sound Blaster Pro
hardware compatible. To distinguish it between Gravis' previous
wavetable-only sound cards, ViperMAX provides better backward Sound Blaster
compatibility. We can say ViperMAX is the best and the easiest install sound
card in the world.
ViperMAX & UltraSound Advantages :
1. Native Game Supports :
ViperMAX wavetable mode - UltraSound, it has over 150 USA PC games
natively supported, while Creative AWE64 has few. UltraSound has released
its free SDK since 1992, so the game companies can easily build the driver
on it, but Creative did not have wavetable product until it purchased EMU in
1994, and lack of SDK support is one the main reason that only few games are
natively supporting AWE32 EMU. Games such as DOOM, Raptor, Pinball...etc.,
are all natively supporting UltraSound.
At this mement, PCI sound card does not provide very good DOS games
compatibility, so we remains it here.
2. Better MIDI :
ViperMAX is using RAM design. The 192 General MIDI instrument
patches are stored in hard disk, and need 9Mbytes space. When playing a MIDI
file, only patches of the instrument being played are downloaded to ViperMAX
on-board RAM. This design can maintain the original sound quality. If using
ROM design, 9Mbytes has to be minimized to 1Mbyte (or 2 Mbytes), sound
quality will be devided 1/9 of original, and the MIDI quality is fair and
not excellent.
Other wavetable sound cards, such as ESS, Crystal, Opti, Turtle
Beach, Dream...etc., if they were using ROM design, then their MIDI
performances are only fair.
By the way, play MIDI seems to be the only feature that these
wavetable sound cards can do, they do not have game support, nor MOD, nor
demos.
Again, PCI sound card is using DLS (Downloadable Sound), it means
MIDI patches are downloaded onto system RAM. But if 8Mbyte MIDI patches are
needed to create a better sound, it also means your Win95 will lose 8Mbyte
system RAM.
3. Superior MOD Performance :
MOD is a kind of digital music. UltraSound is the best sound card
which can play MOD. MOD came from Amiga, its history can go back to 1988.
Apple Macintosh also uses MOD as its music file. Amiga machine supports four
digital channels (or 4 DAC's, Digital to Analog Converter), and this is the
reason why most old MOD files are only four channels.
Sound Blaster sound cards support two digital channels, if playing
MOD, it usually needs a lot of CPU time to combine four channels to two
channels, sometimes even sacrifice sound quality. UltraSound supports 32
digital channels in hardware, apparently, it is the MOD composer's best
choice. New MOD files such as S3M, ULT, 669, XM, NST, FAR, MTM...etc., they
can support up to 32 channels, and the idea all came from UltraSound. Most
USA PC games, such as DOOM, Raptor... and European demo groups, such as
Future Crew, Sonic, EMF, Dust, Triton...etc. have been composing music using
MOD for a long time, and only UltraSound can help their jobs easily done.
Over 5,000 rated MOD songs can be found at the world's largest MOD
web site :
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/music/songs
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/music/songs/1995/xm/m/misthart.zip
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/music/songs/1996/xm/j/j-kgdsky.zip
4. Best Demo Supports :
There are many computer graphics & sound demo shows held in Europe
every year, such as Assembly in Finland, Party in Denmark, X'95 and X'96 in
Netherland, and The Scene in Singapore. UltraSound has the first place demo
supports from these shows, such as UNREAL2(ASM'93, Future Crew),
VERSES(ASM'94, EMF), Stars (ASM'95, Nooon), Untitled(Party III, '93, Dust),
Caero (Party V, '95, EMF), Pureness (The Scene'95, Waterlogic)...etc.. Some
demos might also support SB, but the sound quality is fair. All music from
these demos were generated by using MOD, and only UltraSound 32 digital
channels can easily make it. This is the reason why UltraSound is becoming a
new sound card standard in Demos Group.
More demos can be found at the world's largest demo web site :
http://www.cdrom.com/pub/demos/hornet/html/hornet.html
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/demos/
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/demos/1995/n/nooon_st.zip (ASM'95, nooon)
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/demos/1995/p/pureness.zip (The Scene,
Waterlogic)
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/demos/1995/f/ftj_ymca.zip (Party V,
EMF Caero)
ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/demos/1995/o/omc_chop.zip
5. Price/Performance :
Performance of ViperMAX is superior than AWE64 Value or the same as
AWE64 Gold, but its price is far below them. FOB Taiwan US$65/ea. based on
Q'ty of 1,000 pcs. ViperMAX has native game supports in wavetable, better
MIDI and superior MOD performance, furthermore, lots of demos are coming out
from Europe every year, ViperMAX is surely the best sound card in the world.
Your best choice is : --- ViperMAX ---
Information and applications of UltraSound can be found at worldwide
Web sites :
Advanced Gravis Computer :
http://www.gravis.com/
Hornet Demo Page : World's largest Demos and MODs site.
http://www.cdrom/pub/demos/hornet/html/hornet.html
Walnut Creek : The world's largest MOD, S3M, XM...etc. site. More than 5,000
rated songs inside.
http://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/music/
Walnut Creek : The world's largest Demo site. More than 1,000 rated demos
inside.
http://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/demos/demos/
MAZ Home Page : Very complete source of MODs, tools, trackers, etc.
http://www.th-zwickau.de/~maz/
Philistiniphony : MODs, tips, WAVs, samples, links.
http://www.ozemail.com.au/~barretts/
EtherReal Productions : MODs, links, nice MOD primer.
http://home.interlynx.net/~rwerner/ether/EtherReal.html
MODs : A distinctive collection of hand-picked MODs.
http://www.watson.org/mods/
MODspeak : MODs, lots of links to other MOD sites.
http://www.webkiosk.com/flatrich/modspek2.html
Aminet : An incredible number of MODs. Stored in Lharc format.
http://ftp.wustl.edu/~aminet/dirs/tree_mods.html
Five Musicians : Necros, Basehead, Mellow-D, Zodiak and Wave.
http://www.fm.org
Worldwidely, there are more than 500 web sites which are supporting
MOD music. For example, try search "MOD_Music" by using Yahoo, there will be
many matches.
Go to http://miso.wwa.com/~daf/modring.html to find another 178
MODring web sites.
Or goto http://www.webring.org/cgi-bin/webring?queue&ring=modring
directly.
Best Regards,
James Hsu
http://www.computex.com.tw/synergy
http://www.synergy.ca/pctoybox
http://www.gravis.com/extreme.htm
Unofficial site:
http://home.dti.net/domingue/extreme.html (primary)
http://www.interport.net/~carlos/extreme.html (mirror)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
]--[Closing]-----------------------------------------------------------------[
TraxWeekly is available via FTP from:
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/pub/demos/info/traxweek/1996/
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Contributions should be mailed as plain ascii text or filemailed
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TraxWeekly does not discriminate based on age, gender,
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The staff can be reached at the following:
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Copyright (c)1995,1996,1997 - TraxWeekly Publishing, All Rights Reserved.
]--[END]---------------------------------------------------------------------[
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