Klarinet Archive - Posting 000802.txt from 2001/06

From: "Mark Charette" <charette@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Need Sound Card advice...
Date: Sun, 24 Jun 2001 15:08:34 -0400

From: "William Wright" <Bilwright@-----.net>
> Is this the 'fault' of the generic sound card that came with my low-end
> Compaq, or is it the fault of my sound card's driver, or both?

Sound card's emulation scheme.

> If I
> want to move up, but I don't feel any compulsion to own
> state-of-the-art, what are the 'key words' that will point me in the
> proper direction?

Wavatable, user definable, modify, user sampling, user defined samples,
envelope modification

(not state-of-the-art at all ... but sufficiently complex to be
indistinguishable from magic - and fits into that $50 sound card I mentioned
previously ...)

> (Right now, the program says that it is using Microsoft's Midi-Mapper
> --- although I don't know if Midi-Mapper is actually the driver, or just
> an intermediary step in the process.)

There's lots of sounds available in the cards, that are blended together to
make a sound, that is mapped into 1 of 127 sound slots. The sounds may also
vary by "note" (which is how you get percussion - each instrument is mapped
to a note - or how you split a keyboard into 2 or more regions).

The Midi-Mapper does a generic 1-1 mapping of the generally accepted MIDI
instrument number-instrument name mapping, and assumes your card supports a
reasonably good emulation of the instrument. The more money you spend on the
card or box that produces the sound, or if you record enough samples and
then transform them by volume, speed, attack, etc. formulaically, you can
finally get a close approximation of the instrument you want. There's plenty
of patents around that show different levels and methods to make the
compression of the samples and the transformations applied to the samples to
make them sound "right". Acoustic instruments are _hard_ to do right!

Hie thee to a library and get some intro MIDI books to see what you might be
able to do.

mark C.

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Unsubscribe from Klarinet, e-mail: klarinet-unsubscribe@-----.org
Subscribe to the Digest: klarinet-digest-subscribe@-----.org
Additional commands: klarinet-help@-----.org
Other problems: klarinet-owner@-----.org