Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!att!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!Sullivan From: Sullivan@cup.portal.com (sullivan - segall) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: ECS: Enhanced Graphics, but what about sound? Message-ID: <21306@cup.portal.com> Date: 15 Aug 89 06:35:23 GMT References: <277@vuecon.econ.vu.nl> Organization: The Portal System (TM) Lines: 36 >OK, the new ECS offers new graphics modes, better blitter, etc. > >BUT: the four sound channels need some attention too. If you use them as >real stereo, you only have two. The Archimedes and Atari ST-E (is that >spelled ok?) will have eight. > Eeek. Statistic trivia. >In Europe, (70% sales), sound is very imporant attribute. People like >demos with good music, and also some composing/converting on their own. >This last one is sometimes the problem. If I have some synthesizers/ >keyboards I can make a nice loop and digitize that, but if you don't have >them you need standard instruments, and run out of channels very fast. > >Eight channels for the Amiga too! > >Maybe, these can be stereo too by assigning some value (-127 left, 0 both >127 right and all integers in between). > Okay, so write a driver for it. Why do you need 8 hardware channels. If you are inclined to have more of them, just add the wave forms. (Better yet, attach the existing channels end to end, and use the second to modify the envelope of the first. The actual hardware just adds the channels in analog. Since they represent a direct translation from the digital wave forms, you should be able to get better sound by adding them in software. That way, they also take up less space. (2 tracks versus 8. Naturally it would be harder to add instruments in real-time, though you could blit two instruments together at a time into a pad area before playing them. >Shields ON! >I am not an electronics expert. I do not know about reserved bytes is the >amiga audio.device, I do not know sound chip internals. >Shields OFF! > >Greetings, >