
  WAVEBLASTER Secrets
     by Daron Myrick

  Date Written: Aug 14-15, 1993.

The Wave Blaster distributed By Creative Labs is in actuality E-Mu
System's Inc. of Scotts Valley California 'Sound Engine' which was
created back in 1991 before Creative Labs thought of using the product
as a part of their sound card family. The chip that generates the actual
sound on the Sound Engine is also made by E-Mu Systems and is called the
Proteus Chip model XR. The only difference between the Proteus XR and
the origional Proteus chip found in the world famous Proteus rackmount
MIDI module line is that the XR model has extra ram for storing 192 more
presets for a total of 256 melodic presets and simultaniously 128
percussion presets instantly available in realtime on the Sound Engine
module (The Proteus 1 rackmount MIDI - module also comes in a XR version
and Proteus1/Proteus Orchestra version).  Of course the actual number of
presets possible is quite unlimited since presets can be built from an
audition editor/buffer and stored on disk then later uploaded to the
Sound Engine (Wave Blaster).

If you look closely on the Sound Engine (Wave Blaster) piggyback card
you will also notice a surface mounted Motorola 68000 CPU chip. The
Motorola 68000 CPU is the same CPU used as the heart in the Commadore
Amiga family, The Apple Macintosh family, The Radio Shack Model 16
(Which is'nt produced any more) and finaly the SEGA GENESIS video game.

This CPU chip is used as a "Smart" interface allowing communications
from the MIDI interface on the SB16/ASP to the Sound Engine (Wave
Blaster) using only one pin designated as 'MIDI IN' on the Sound
Engine's Header interface.  The other pins are used for ground
signals(Alot of them for reducing noise), +5 volts and left/right audio
output.

The Motorola 68000 CPU not only helps in communications with the host
system but it also loads in default General MIDI patches and parameters
from CPU ROM when the card is powered up or reset, loads up and
initializes the Proteus XR chip's registers and provides realtime
control of rest of the entire Sound Engine's (Wave Blaster's)
electronics.

You will also notice after inspecting the Sound Engine (Wave Blaster)
that there are several surface mounted medium size chips next to each
other on one of the cards edges. These chips are the 4 megabytes of
digitized audio sample ROM which contain over 256 digital audio samples
arranged as 2 megawords x 16 bit CD Quality samples. These samples are
of extremely good quality and include digital samples from just about
every musical instrument (including percussion, voice and more) that you
could think of allowing an entire orchestra through rock band inside
your computer.  All the sounds that the Sound Engine (Wave Blaster)
produces is made up of one or more of the basic 256 samples in ROM.
These Raw samples can then be modified by the user through software and
hardware (Especialy SYS-EX) commands.  Some of the sample modifiers
include (All realtime) sample reverse, chorus, flange,digital
delay,tuning,crossfading,linking with other samples, pitch and volume
modulation through 2 tottaly programmable LFO's and/or 2 envelope
(extended) ADSR controllers, 32 voice stereo panning, velocity
control,controller response/reactivity and many more sample and sound
performance programmable parameters all in hardware for speed and
distortionless performance.  Other than General MIDI, Sound Effects and
MT-32 presets/patches the Sound Engine's (Wave Blaster's) full
capabilities were not even touched on in the Creative Lab's Wave Blaster
Manual.

After I called Creative Lab's tech support asking how to program one of
the LFO's that they had one sentance on in the manual their top tech
support person told me that programming the Wave Blaster at all was
impossible and they gave me the impression that I would have to be stuck
with the same ole default sounds forever. I questioned and challenged
Creative Labs negative news since they themselves documented sparsly in
one short paragraph that in fact the card was programmable at least as
far as LFO's.  Only until I researched the card and it's origin back to
E-Mu Systems was I able to get info on the Wave Blaster and found out
directly from E-Mu Systems that the card's sound parameters,
patches,waves etc could indeed be tottaly programmable! When I heard
this I was extremely happy!  I requested the information and at first
they did'nt know I was using the Sound Engine (Wave Blaster) on the PC
so they told me to get Op Codes 'Edit One' Software to program the board
directly.  This would have been great if I was using the board on a Mac
or Atari since the Sound Engine is used in Mac and Atari systems also,
but I did'nt have one of those computers but a PC, and Op-Code does'nt
have a version of 'Edit One' for PC's that I or anyone else was aware
of.  After I called E-Mu back and expressed my failure at finding 'Edit
One' for the PC I asked if they knew of a program for the PC that could
program the Sound Engine (Wave Blaster) directly. E-Mu Systems promptly
told me that currently there is no software to program the Sound Engine
for the PC but in the future there should be many PC programs for
programming the Sound Engine since the card is just starting to be used
on PC platforms. They instead sent me for free the Sound Engine's user
and programming manuals so that I may (through a programming language or
MIDI music composition software) imbed SYS-EX commands and/or register
parameters to program the Sound Engine directly. The manual arrived
quickly and I suddenly was aware of the card's seemingly unlimited
abilities. Just out of one sample for example (one of the hand clap
samples) I was able to produce highly accousticly accurate stereo
thunder effects using the Sound Engine's (Wave Blaster's) built in on
chip stereo flange and partial random volume modulation. I was also able
to produce with the same handclap sample some rain effects and really
strange sounds that I couldn't even start to describe.  So as you can
see... the 256 samples on the Sound Engine can be modified so drasticly
that whole new tottaly new sounds can be created and played thus making
this card one of the most flexible sound modules I've ever ran across.

As far as sound quality the card is just as amazing, producing no hiss
at all, no noticable distortion (Even in realtime transposing),
wonderfully low frequency to high frequency response capable of
producing some very thick fat sounds like the MOOG series of
synthesizers used to produce.

On other sounds the frequency response was extremely bright almost to
the point of sounding metallic and raspy which is exactly what was
called for when instuments like brass were played.

The reverse and crossfade effects were very interesting making a reverse
and crossfaded piano or tubular bells sound extremely odd and martian
like. The strings and human voices are some of my most favorite
providing extremely realistic stereo orchestral and choir music.

One more note on the Sound Engine's capability is that all effects like
chorus/delay/flange, modulation etc is for EACH of the 32 voices instead
of just one chorus generator etc. for all the 32 channels grouped
together, thus making each of the card's 32 simultanious voices
completely definable and unique.

Currently there are several sound cards on the market that have the
Sound Engine's (Wave Blaster's) pin compatible header. This means that
several sound cards support the Sound Engine other than just the sound
cards made by Creative Labs.

Recently Media Visions has announced a new version of it's Pro-Audio
Spectrum 16 which has a built in KORG 'Waveguide' wavetable synthesis
chip.  Probably the first time that the term 'Waveguide' has been used
ever is in this text since one of the Media Visions Tech people leaked
information to me over 2 months before it's press release. Even in the
press release there was no reference to the actual 'Waveguide' name in
which it's technology is called that I know of. I might possibly be the
person responsible for the info being released to the press in the first
place since I talked to them only several days before the press release
asking more about the waveguide synthesizer on the new version of the
PAS-16. The lady that I talked to sounded surprised and asked me where I
found out the information from since it was supposed to be secret. No
one was supposed to know about the new card yet not even the press. I
told her that one of Media Vision's employees touched on the subject and
that I have known about it for about 2 months.  The lady asked me not to
let anyone know for at least a few days and suddenly within the next few
days after my call the press release was issued.  Media Visions and Korg
has been working together for some time to produce this new version of
the PAS-16 which will be a digitizing/sampling card with a new type of
technology built in wavetable synthesis to go into direct competition
with todays current PC sound cards. You will probably see this product
in better computer stores within this or next month. If I'm not mistaken
this card is called along the lines of Pro-Audio 16 model XL or
something like that.

Creative Lab's Sound Blaster 16/ASP Programming Kit is Scheduled to be
released this October 1993 according to an official press release by
Creative Labs. The programmers kit has been pushed back by over 5 months
so it AUGHT to be ready! Lets keep our fingers crossed and hope it
contains all information on the SB16/ASP instead of little code
fragments and register specific post it notes. Would be nice if they had
a complete programmer's manual for the ASP chip along with a complete
programmer manual of the SB16/ASP itself. I must be fantasizing since I
doubt they will release %100 of all info for the SB16/ASP. The ASP chip
by itself would just about need it's own separate programmer's kit
considering it's complexity.

ATI has started selling it's new Vesa Local Bus ATI Ultra Version XLR.
This new Video Card has the fastest all around speed scores for Windows
and DOS that are even faster than todays current speed winner the
Diamond Viper.  The new ATI card is completely downward compatible with
the older mach 32 and mach 8 chips. This card is currently only being
offered to current Gateway computer owners or new Gateway computer
buyers and is replacing the once award winning but slower ATI Ultra Pro
which Gateway used to include as a part of their higher end computer
packages.  The new ATI Ultra XLR does averything the ATI Ultra Pro did
including hardware .AVI file decompression, plus more at speeds a whole
lot faster.  The ATI Ultra XLR should be available to non Gateway
customers either later this year or early 1994.

Pardon my spelling, bad sentance structures and punctuation.  I must
admit that I'm a Tech not a writer or editor and that I have no idea as
to what I'm doing writing this text in the first place but I felt
compelled to give out information that might have not been had at all or
heard of too late unless I released it.

All products, trademarks and copyrights are the properties of their
respective owners.

This text's intention is to inform not to sway it's readers in any
direction.  I take no responsibility or liability in any matter
concerning this text.  This text's intention is meant in no ill attempt
or action.

Remember....You heard it first from me.

From: Daron Myrick of Dallas Texas.
