Apparently-To: john.smith@gravis.com


GUS Musician's Digest       Thu, 11 Nov 93  3:30         Volume 2: Issue  11  

Today's Topics:
                         A coupla questions.
                 Bank Switching and the Drum Channel
             Better Brass intruments & Re: bank swithing
                GUS Musician's Digest V2 #10 (2 msgs)
                      Pow Xmas tunes - no unzip

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.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 1993 13:04:11 -0400 (EST)
From: "Matthew M. Nordan" <mnordan@minerva.cis.yale.edu>
Subject: A coupla questions.

(1)  WHAT is the "GUS MAX" and WHERE can i get it.

(2)  WHEN will the new driver set be available.

And a couple of answers . . .

(1)  For the guy who can't get his keyboard to play in Recording Session until
     after the notes are recorded--have you connected your keyboard to the
     Gravis with Midi In, Out, and _THRU_?  You will not hear notes in real
     time until you connect thru to thru.

(2)  For the guy looking for a guitar patch . . . there's one on ftp.wustl.edu
     in the METAL.ZIP archive.  You'll need to edit the envelopes in PATCH.EXE
     or PED or something, at least i had to . . . 

                   Matthew M. Nordan  OOO OOO  
        mnordan@minerva.cis.yale.edu  OOOOOOO 
                                      OO O OO  Yale College heartily endorses
                                      OO   OO  every opinion expressed herein.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 09:04:40 EST
From: "Burns Fisher, VMS Engineering  10-Nov-1993 0906" <fisher@skylab.enet.dec.com>
Subject: Bank Switching and the Drum Channel

>From: ivan@molson.ho.att.com (Ivan Strom)
>Subject: Bank Switching and the Drum Channel
>
>Does anyone know how bank switching will work with drum patches from
>different banks?  If I want to augment the standard set with 2-3 drums
>from another bank, for example, could I create a separate track (or tracks)
>for the additional drums and put a bank switch command in that track only,
>associating that track, and the original track, both with channel 10.
>Is there any other technique to associate a bank switch with a note, rather
>than a channel?

Sorry, that won't work.  Tracks are purely an artifact of the sequencer (they 
may have the concept in a midi file...I don't remember).  But there is no such 
concept once they get onto the wire, or in the case of a sound card, to the 
driver.  What goes to the wire is "event, data, channel".  So the GUS driver 
won't know that your program change was only on one track.

Having said that, I am a bit confused about "who" it is that thinks channel 10 
is special and whether it is changable.  I know on a Roland D-110, channel 10 
default to the drum kit, but it can be changed.  It would be nice if you could 
do that with the GUS drivers so that you could either use ch 10 for non-drum 
sounds, or use another channel for a different drum bank.

Burns

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

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 14:21 MET
From: hst@mh.nl (Klaas Hemstra)
Subject: Re: Better Brass intruments & Re: bank swithing

>From: Phat H Tran <ptran@sciborg.uwaterloo.ca>
>Subject: Brass instruments
>
>Does anybody have better brass samples than the ones the current patches
>have?  I'd especially like to see a better brass hit.
>
>Phat. 
Yes i would like some better brass instruments. I play Trumpet (this
one is not completely unusable) which could of course be made better.
My brother plays Tuba and is not content either. My sister plays
Flugelhorn and can find a resembling sound. My other sister plays
soprano sax and is not really interested in Synths, but the ridiculous
Sax that comes out of most of them does not really sound anything like
a Sax. My other brother plays Tenor Sax and is not impressed either.
Of course this it is not fair to compare your own (wind) instrument
with a synthesizer, but the brass instruments could be improved a lot.
When is get my new Motherboard i will give it a try to make some
patches, i do own a number of CD's with Brass music.

Then the Bank switching thing:
>From: ivan@molson.ho.att.com (Ivan Strom)
>Subject: Bank Switching and the Drum Channel
>
>Does anyone know how bank switching will work with drum patches from
>different banks?  If I want to augment the standard set with 2-3 drums
>from another bank, for example, could I create a separate track (or tracks)
>for the additional drums and put a bank switch command in that track only,
>associating that track, and the original track, both with channel 10.
>Is there any other technique to associate a bank switch with a note, rather
>than a channel?

I have seen a number of messages about bank switching.
Everybody is guessing en giving suggestions.
I had the intention to start a discussion abouw possible ways of doing
back-swithcing, but have not had time to make the kick off.
Couldn't someone at Gravis post a description of the way they are
implementing back-switching at the moment ?? Maybe they could use a
few suggestions, but this way its difficult to provide meaningfull
ones. 

Klaas.

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

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 6:36:52 CST
From: cowles@hydra.convex.com (John Cowles)
Subject: Re: GUS Musician's Digest V2 #10

Ivan Strom writes:
> 
> Date: Mon, 8 Nov 93 13:51:06 EST
> From: ivan@molson.ho.att.com (Ivan Strom)
> Subject: Bank Switching and the Drum Channel
> 
> Does anyone know how bank switching will work with drum patches from
> different banks?  If I want to augment the standard set with 2-3 drums
> from another bank, for example, could I create a separate track (or tracks)
> for the additional drums and put a bank switch command in that track only,
> associating that track, and the original track, both with channel 10.
> Is there any other technique to associate a bank switch with a note, rather
> than a channel?
> 
> Gravis - any comments?

Cards such as the Roland SCC-1 implement this by allowing you to have two
different channels for drum sounds. You may select MELODY, PERC.1, or PERC.2
for each channel (using sysex). You may have only one of each of PERC.1 and
PERC.2. The default is PERC.1 on channel 10 and no PERC.2 - and then you use
patch changes to set the drum set that you want.

I have reason to believe that the Yamaha 'Come On Music' card is the same -
can anyone confirm this?

For now, you should have no problems, since there are many unused notes
in the drum-map. Just edit the ultrasnd.ini file and add the extra drum
voices using unused note values.

John

-- 
     John Cowles        cowles@hydra.convex.com   CompuServe: 72074,451
                        Convex Computer Corp.  214 497 4375
                        3000 Waterview Pkwy
                        Richardson, Tx. 75080

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

Date: Wed, 10 Nov 93 13:55:54 GMT
From: james@maths.exeter.ac.uk
Subject: Re: GUS Musician's Digest V2 #10

GUS Musician's Server wrote
>
>Subject: We need to get the FAQ into here...
>
>Morning all
>
>I think we need to get a FAQ in place as soon as possible.  I would hate to
>see the efforts put in place to filter out the 'how-do-I-get-the-GUS-to-work-
>with-the-latest-aardvark' questions from the gamesters, be undermined by a
>rash of more musically focussed pleas for help along the lines of
>I'm-running-out-of-my-1-meg-memory-when-I-include-program-changes-on-
>channel-10' 

The FAQ is nearly ready- its a 31k file so I wont be posting it to the digest
The people who wrote bits of it will be set a copy in a minute..

-- 
James Andrews, Computer Development Officer, Exeter University Maths Dept

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

Date: 10 Nov 93 08:09:54 EST
From: "Eric Bell, Howling Dog Systems" <71333.2166@CompuServe.COM>
Subject: Pow Xmas tunes - no unzip

I downloaded the Power Chords Christmas tunes, but they won't unzip. Can you
check them please?

Thanks

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

End of GUS Musician's Digest V2 #11
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