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| Friday 2nd April 1999
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| APS 1.5 Driver patch |
| This patch found on the Usenet will supposedly allow you to use the latest version 1.5 EMU APS drivers with your SBLive. Get it here. |
| Thursday 18th February 1999
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| DirectX 6.1 on DTM FTP |
| Grab your copy of DirectX 6.1 from the DTM FTP site. This is only a temporary file placement and will probably be removed after a few weeks. |
| Sunday 14th February 1999
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| DirectX 6.1 .. Does it improve MIDI under Windows? |
| As found on the Usenet, a post from a Martin
Puryear [email protected] which goes into some detail on the benifits offered to musicians by
DirectX 6.1 Read it here.
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| Running EMU APS drivers on your SB Live |
| There has been some talk regarding the use
of EMU APS drivers along with their extra features and nicer interface with the
Soundblaster Live. While it is possible to install the drivers, there is the issue
that the Live loses access to its analogue I/O ports. This page describes (in slightly hard to understand English) how to modify a Live Value to send the Digital output created by the EMU drivers to the normal analogue output of the card. Here is a short snippet from another post which my be of help to anyone attempting the modification of their SB Live full version. I've reproduced it as found with all typos. ============================================================ I id the modification on my Live! Full with great result. The analog out(rear) are quite low noice too.. -I soldered out 2 resistors from the Emu 10k1 pros. next to pin 8 and 9. -Vertically in the pads(on the 10k1 side of the pads) I mounted 2 resitors SMD(the round type) - on top of theese resitors I mounted the wires and soldered them to the right points(2nd and 3rd) on the DA-converter(1330) -warmed up the pads on the U9, and lifted the correct pins of their pads.. woila!!! Analog out... TIP: (Do not try this mod without the correct tools) :-) ====================================================== I will be trying this out my self soon and will write up a page with further details of the process. |
| Friday 5th February 1999
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| DirectX 6.1 released to the public |
| A small numerical increment obscures the significance of this update to Microsofts DirectX mulitmedia API. Check out this snippet from the official PR. Get the update here. |
| Saturday 31st October 1998 |
| SBLive driver updates coming in fast |
| The third major driver update for the Live is out and
available here.
This update add some unfortunate features such as Surroundsound .....
woopeee!! hrrmm.... I'm still hoping for some real driver updates to fix
the dodgy Soundfont support and possibly some routing abilities. View the shortlist of enhancements. |
| Little time to update DTM |
| I've been rather busy lately and have not had a lot of time to work on the DTM site. I have got two new pages set aside which will be up soon. The first is more additions for the Circuits and mods page and the second a list of Cakewalk Studioware Panels with thumbnails and zips available. (besides... Ren & Stimpy is on tv right now....... gotta go :)) |
Saturday 10th October 1998
Creative comments on SB Live specifications
This report has been
up for a while now, but I thought I'd add a link to it from here as it clarifies the
apparent discrepancies in user measurements including my own. I stand by my
measurements as figures comparable with measurements made in SOS magazine. Using the
same method, they obtain results for an Event Gina and an AWE 64 Gold which are slightly
better and worse respectively than the Live.
The measurements also reflect the most likely use of these cards which is recording via the line-in and recording the internal synth. The ability of the card to record itself is in my opinion irrelevant. The lack of 16bit duplex on the Awe makes that virtually impossible anyway and I doubt whether anyone would even try it.
The line-out to line-in method of measurement was used by another site referred to in the Creative report. It is normally a valid method, though as a Desktop Musician, I would generally do all my mixing and processing internally after recording and then write the master to either a CD or to DAT via the SPDIF output. None of these methods add noise the initial recording which is why the Line-out noise is of little relevance.
Friday 9th October 1998
Electronics section added
I've started off the new Mods and Electronics section with a diagram
showing how to add low-noise line-outs to a Yamaha DB50XG Daughterboard.
Latest AWE 32/64 drivers
Wednesday 7th October 1998
New SB Live drivers.
New Drivers for this card are available from
the DTM FTP. A shortlist of improvements and additions is
also online. Download
the1.7MB update.
Friday 11th September 1998
Read my write-up on the SB Live!
A lot of people are waiting to hear about
this card from musicians rather than game players before deciding to purchase it.
Read this man's opinion here.
First impressions of the EMU APS coming in.
EMU have released their version of a
soundcard based around the EMU 10k1 chip as used in the SB Live!. I have taken the
liberty to post the contents of a message I've just found on the Usenet in
comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech to this
page for DTM readers to check out.
Wednesday 2nd September 1998
User Info Page fixed
It's all ready to go now. I haven't been able
to get the layout any tidier than it now is and so it will have to do. Four users have
already entered their information and it would be nice if the other would do the same.
Add yourself.... and view the results.
FTP and Archive news
I have added a DirectX Control Panel Applet
to the FTP site. This allows you to view your DirectX drivers in great detail. Download it
now.
The first DTM List archive is up for August
98. Not much there for the first couple of weeks, but I'm sure it will improve.
SBLive! in my grubby little hands
I am now the owner of my very own SBLIVE! sound card. Must be just about
the first in the country here. I'll be writing my own review of this card in stages
beginning with first impressions. Check out the new Reviews page in the next day or two.
Tuesday 1st September 1998
User info pages updated
I'm trying to make the new User Info Page a
bit tidier. Also, it was missing a couple of fields which I'm hoping to have fixed now.
I'll let you know here when the form is fully functional.
FTP Site online
The Desktop Music FTP site is now accessible
via ftp.photographic.co.nz The site has
limitations on space however, so I will be keeping an eye on the content to ensure that
only worthwhile software is made available. The first file I've uploaded is HD Tach 2.52
This is probably the best hard disk benchmarking program and in this shareware
version it will give you a good indication of both the read burst speed as well as a graph
showing the continuous read speed all the way across the platters of your drive. The
registered version adds write benchmarking, only for blank drives. I'll post
the results of my drives to a new Benchmark
page and maybe we can compare various drives.
The mailing list now has just over 30 members
Friday 28th August 1998
SB Live! available in NewZealand
This is really only significant to me and
just a few others on the list who live in NZ, but it is news all the same. Check out
your favourite retailer or mine at Software Direct
in Wellngton. The price is typically steep when compared with the US figure, but
I've ordered one anyway. I'll do a write-up on it as soon as I get it installed.
Site News
The User Information Page is now up and
running (hopefully). New and existing users are asked to add their details and then browse the current list. I have also
been working in my spare time to improve the way in which the Java script navigation
controls work. Some users have reported faulty image loading.
Tuesday 25th August 1998
Page redesign
I have been messing around with some of the
DTM pages and have also completely redesigned the way the navigational buttons work within
the site. They are now swapping via Java Script instead of the Frontpage98 Hover
button Java applet. While this has several advantages, it does have one fairly major
sucky bit; apparently they don't work in Internet Explorer3 and below. I
presume this also means that they don't work in some older versions of Netscape either.
Time to update your browsers kids. In the meantime, the pages running the
Java Script should have static button images, so it should at least not hinder movement
around the site. If this proves not to be the case, please let me know.
Content slowly taking shape
I have begun to write an article on compression
which I will post in the Content section soon.
I will also format and post several other aricles I have written on the subject of
desktop music.
The list currently has 17 members.
Wednesday 20th August 1998
DTM
The mailing list is now functional and
currently has a grand total of four members.... hurrah!! Later on today I'll post a
notice in a few appropriate news groups in order to draw on a greater variety of
pc-musicians for the list.
Faulty page layout?
There seems to be a problem with the way the opening
page to this site displays on some browsers. I've created these pages with tables, but no
frames in order to try and keep the page appearance static regardless of how the
browser window is sized. I'm keen to hear from anyone who is having trouble with this. The
problem is that the button bar appears too far down the page and you have to scroll to
reach it. In fact, it should be in line with the bottom of the yellow bar on the left.
Please indicate what browser and screen resolution you are using if you reply. Thanks
Setting up the FTP site
I'm also accepting requests for files for the ftp
site at the moment. I'd appreciate any feedback on what files or type of program you would
like to see here. Some may be hard to find, others are essential downloads. I'm sure that
Soundfonts will be popular and I intend to make sure that only good quality and useful
banks are posted here for general download. My total web-space is about 150MB including
the FTP area so I have to be picky about what gets posted.
Tuesday 19th August 1998
DTM Launch
Told the Jammers today that I'd get this up and
running within a few hours so here we go. I'm posting this now and will only activate
those buttons that actually go somewhere from the front page.
There is much buzz about the new soundcard from Creative called the Soundblaster Live. I think it would be nice if mailing list members who have purchased one would let the others know how it's coming along.
SB Live review
Today I read the first review I know of about the SB
Live. Key points for me are the apparently awesome audio quality on the positive side, but
some kind of SPDIF copy-protection system on the downside.
See the review here http://www.pcaudioreview.com/
and be sure to have your cookies turned on if you normally disable
them or the site won't load. Look for the review under August 10.
First SB Live driver update
There is a small possibility that the latest drivers
may help with the problem and I'd recommend downloading the patch even if you are not
going to purchase the card immediately. This was posted in another mailing list and the
author implied urgency or at least haste in downloading the file.
Go and get it at http://ftp.ctlsg.creaf.com/files/Creative/drivers/sblive/sbldrv.zip
Saturday 15th August 1998
Finally getting around to doing a bit more work on
these pages. Today I'll be finishing off the Mailing List section which is currently
the most important part of this site. Subscriptions are still in beta so please report any
problems you are having with the list to me.
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