Turtle Beach plot thickens???
wk
California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
Has anyone heard anything to indicate any resurgence of this company...?
Thanks in advance for any info.
Walter Kneis
Seth Jackson
>Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
>California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
>in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
>as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
>Has anyone heard anything to indicate any resurgence of this company...?
In another newsgroup, comp.music.midi, I think, some guy has been
posting replies to TB product questions with a fairly authoritative
tone, and his .signature indicated that he is a TB employee.
He did mention something about forthcoming products. Sorry, I don't
have the details. Not a lot of detail was provided, but just the fact
that there was mention of new products would seem significant.
--
Seth Jackson
Kevin Andresen
>Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
>California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
>in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
>as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
False, false, false.
The Pinnacle will have, integrated on the main board, the new
Kurzweil MASS-IES (MASS(ies)?) chip set.
IES stands for Industry Effects & Sampling and the set will support
several formats of sample/patches including that of the original MASS
plus some K2000 (it is not a K2000).
I have no idea which sample/patches will be included.
It will also be much more GS-compatible than the MASS set (I
don't know if the GM set will be any better).
They still use Kurzweil playback technology so it will always
reflect Kurzweil strengths more than Roland strengths.
I think that it's important to know that the top-of-the-line
Tahiti/Monterey has been discontinued because Motorola stopped
making a critical chip and Turtle Beach ran out (sure, an
alternative scenario can be made from these facts).
>Has anyone heard anything to indicate any resurgence of this company...?
Look for the Pinnacle in late Q2 '96. I'll be looking.
Kevin Andresen
k...@world.std.com
GarthA
>I think that it's important to know that the top-of-the-line
>Tahiti/Monterey has been discontinued because Motorola stopped
>making a critical chip and Turtle Beach ran out (sure, an
>alternative scenario can be made from these facts).
But Motorola still manufacture DSP solutions , surely they can adapt
their firmware to a newer chip ?.
Till later,
Garth
st...@rosie.uh.edu
>wk <wkneis@.ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>>Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
>>California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>
>>The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
>>in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
>>as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
>
>
>posting replies to TB product questions with a fairly authoritative
>tone, and his .signature indicated that he is a TB employee.
>
>He did mention something about forthcoming products. Sorry, I don't
>have the details. Not a lot of detail was provided, but just the fact
>that there was mention of new products would seem significant.
>--
> Seth Jackson
>
ad. I was wondering how they were going to release a Pro version when they
still can't make any win '95 versions of their drivers.
R. David Fletcher
In Article<4couhc$d...@ixnews6.ix.netcom.com>, <wkneis@.ix.netcom.com> write:
> Path: interramp.com!interramp.com!psinntp!psinntp!howland.reston.ans.net!ix.netcom.com!netnews
> From: wk <wkneis@.ix.netcom.com>
> Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.misc,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.advocacy,comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.music
> Subject: Turtle Beach plot thickens???
> Date: 7 Jan 1996 17:05:48 GMT
> Organization: Netcom
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> X-NETCOM-Date: Sun Jan 07 9:05:48 AM PST 1996
> X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.22 (Windows; I; 16bit)
> Xref: interramp.com comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.tech:23806 comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.misc:15603 comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.advocacy:11111 comp.sys.ibm.pc.soundcard.music:11924
>
> Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
> California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>
> The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
> in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
> as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
>
> Has anyone heard anything to indicate any resurgence of this company...?
>
>
> Walter Kneis
>
basically scattered them to the breeze and run off with their technology.
Dave
Ted Wood
>Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
>California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>
>The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
>in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
>as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
Last words I heard were that they were in development of the Pinnacle (Monterey 2)
utilizing the Kurzweil chipset (same V.A.S.T. technology used in the K2000) with the
6 MG'er ROM block, with an option of digital I/O's (SPD-IF) available via a
daughterboard add-on, as well as samplestore capabilities.
The real question will be if it works with the Quad software which relies on the
existing Multisound (Classic, Tahiti, and Monterey) drivers for AD/DA.
I guess time will tell. The above certainly doesn't describe a ValueMedia
product????
Steve Johnson
Glad to hear a new sound card is on the way from TB, but will it have
SB and Windows '95 compatibility?
I hope someday someone makes a card that does it all.
wk
Tropez Plus in the February issue of Computer Shopper. They say that
they're due to receive and additional shipment from Turtle Beach next
month....which leads me to believe the TB may still be viable in it's new
incarnation.
Ken Wilson
>In article <4cpprj$b...@marina.cinenet.net>, spe...@cinenet.net (Seth Jackson) writes:
>>wk <wkneis@.ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>
>>>Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
>>>California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>>
>>>The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
>>>in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
>>>as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
>>
>>>Has anyone heard anything to indicate any resurgence of this company...?
>>
>>In another newsgroup, comp.music.midi, I think, some guy has been
>>posting replies to TB product questions with a fairly authoritative
>>tone, and his .signature indicated that he is a TB employee.
>>
>>He did mention something about forthcoming products. Sorry, I don't
>>have the details. Not a lot of detail was provided, but just the fact
>>that there was mention of new products would seem significant.
>>--
>> Seth Jackson
>>
>I saw an picture of the box for the Tropez Pro in the recent computability
>ad. I was wondering how they were going to release a Pro version when they
>still can't make any win '95 versions of their drivers.
Really I bought my Tropez shortly before the release of Win 95 and it
had good sounding midi etc in Win95 (although the drivers are basicly
Win 3 ) but midi in dos sessions is another story My Midi Volume is
around 40 -50% at full volume.
I found that unaceptable and waited and waited for the real drivers
that they hinted about.. I tried calling thier tech support numerous
times and got a recording saying call back in a couple of hours
( yea,right)
So then I bought a SB 32 pnp..
and My 200.00 Tropez hardly used at all sits in a box !!!!!
Does anyone know if they ever will write real drivers for Win 95 or
NT? I have a couple of machines and the NT drivers description looks
so bogus that I am using a very old 8 bit sound blaster regular 1.0
with it rather than a 200.00 in box Tropez.
you would think that they would write drivers.....
ken wilson
k...@pacifier.com
. |\/\/\/|
. | |
. | 0 0)
. C _)
. | ,___|
. | /
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pacifier Online Data Service Dialup SLIP/PPP User
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Wilson
yea but will they have real Win 95 drivers or expect those who use
Win 95 to regress to Win 3.1 or Dos to use thier soundcard..
(pissed off)
ken wilson
k...@pacifier.com
,
Richard Powell
merged. The rumors of their death are coming from the fact that they
seemed to disappear for a few weeks during the moving stage (from
York to Feemont CA). They are still alive and working on new
products.
Rich
David R. Jaglowski
: There are beta WIN95 drivers availabale for Tropez that work great.
Ok - I'll finally ask, since I've been waiting for two weeks. WHERE?
It's no on Beachcomber, it's not in their ftp or web site, and it's not on
the archive at ftp.hawaii.edu... so just where are these mysterious and
wonderous drivers? Oh, Compu$erve doesn't cut it as an answer - since I have
real internet access I fundamentally refuse to subscribe to one of the big
three very-little-value-added internet access suppliers...
Geesh
-Dave jaglowski
jagl...@engin.umich.edu
Bob Andres
Michael W. Daniels
and...@nettally.com (Bob Andres) wrote:
>There are beta WIN95 drivers availabale for Tropez that work great.
Where?
You do realize that, without a location from which these beta drivers can be
obtained, this statement is rather pointless, don't you?
Mike Daniels
Bill Matzkiw
>st...@Rosie.UH.EDU wrote:
>
>>In article <4cpprj$b...@marina.cinenet.net>, spe...@cinenet.net (Seth Jackson) writes:
>>>wk <wkneis@.ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>>Now that Turtle Beach is supposedly merged with ValueMedia and moved to
>>>>California, has anyone heard anything about pending new product releases?
>>>
>>>>The last I heard, they were discontinuing all new product development, but
>>>>in the latest edition of Keyboard Magazine, the TB Pinnacle is mentioned
>>>>as forthcoming, featuring the Kurzweil 6MB MASS chipset.
>>>
>>>>Has anyone heard anything to indicate any resurgence of this company...?
>>>
>>>In another newsgroup, comp.music.midi, I think, some guy has been
>>>posting replies to TB product questions with a fairly authoritative
>>>tone, and his .signature indicated that he is a TB employee.
>>>
>>>He did mention something about forthcoming products. Sorry, I don't
>>>have the details. Not a lot of detail was provided, but just the fact
>>>that there was mention of new products would seem significant.
>>>--
>>> Seth Jackson
>>>
>>I saw an picture of the box for the Tropez Pro in the recent computability
>>ad. I was wondering how they were going to release a Pro version when they
>>still can't make any win '95 versions of their drivers.
>
>Really I bought my Tropez shortly before the release of Win 95 and it
>had good sounding midi etc in Win95 (although the drivers are basicly
>Win 3 ) but midi in dos sessions is another story My Midi Volume is
>around 40 -50% at full volume.
> I found that unaceptable and waited and waited for the real drivers
>that they hinted about.. I tried calling thier tech support numerous
>times and got a recording saying call back in a couple of hours
>( yea,right)
> So then I bought a SB 32 pnp..
>and My 200.00 Tropez hardly used at all sits in a box !!!!!
> Does anyone know if they ever will write real drivers for Win 95 or
>NT? I have a couple of machines and the NT drivers description looks
>so bogus that I am using a very old 8 bit sound blaster regular 1.0
>with it rather than a 200.00 in box Tropez.
> you would think that they would write drivers.....
The reason is that both Turtle Beach and the Media Trix Audio Trix Pro
use the same chipset from Crystal and Crystal has said they are not
going to write Win 95 drivers for that chipset...thus the Soundcard
maker has to write them in-house (mediatrix has some working drivers
out now). Thus users are of TB products are stuck with Win 3.1
drivers....Check Media Trix's home page for more info.
Regards,
Bill
Ted Lee
>
> Bob Andres (and...@nettally.com) wrote:
> : There are beta WIN95 drivers availabale for Tropez that work great.
>
> It's no on Beachcomber, it's not in their ftp or web site, and it's not on
> the archive at ftp.hawaii.edu... so just where are these mysterious and
> wonderous drivers?
Have you tried the TURTLE BEACH FTP site yet? It's ftp.tbeach.com.
Look under /pub/tbeach/win95 and grab the file "trop95.zip." Hope this
helps...
- Ted
ted...@netcom.com
Ken Wilson
>There are beta WIN95 drivers availabale for Tropez that work great.
>>Really I bought my Tropez shortly before the release of Win 95 and it
>>had good sounding midi etc in Win95 (although the drivers are basicly
>>Win 3 ) but midi in dos sessions is another story My Midi Volume is
>>around 40 -50% at full volume.
Where? Turtle Beach ftp has the x.386 Win 3.1 drivers..
ken wilson
k...@pacifier.com
Kimmo Lahtinen
>Have you tried the TURTLE BEACH FTP site yet? It's ftp.tbeach.com.
>Look under /pub/tbeach/win95 and grab the file "trop95.zip." Hope this
>helps...
>
>- Ted
>ted...@netcom.com
I bought MonteCarlo to host TopWave 32, it is working (except TopWave
is overriding MC audio input), but there is a little odd problem.
MC needs a line DEVICE=VSNDSYS.386 in system.ini, but for some
odd reason it is disapearing every now and then. I really do not
understand what is going on.
Kimmo
--
--
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Kimmo Lahtinen =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
tel: +358-0-7581 322 Finnish Meteorological Institute
fax: +358-0-7581 396 Sahaajankatu 20 E
email: Kimmo.L...@fmi.fi 00810 HELSINKI, FINLAND
Craig Arnatt
or CLICK noises after the wav plays.
I have a GUS - classic with the new
WIN 95 drivers installed.
Micron Pentium 100 / 8 megs RAM
Seagate 1.08 GIG IDE running PMi mode 4
CONFIG:
device=C:\ULTRASND\ultrinit.sys ultrasnd=220,1,1,15,11
AUTO:
@LOADHIGH C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\SHARE.EXE /L:500 /F:5100
LH C:\DOSKEY
SET ULTRASND=220,1,1,5,7
C:\ULTRASND\ultrinit.exe
call C:\ULTRASND\sbos.bat
SET ULTRADIR=C:\ULTRASND
SET BLASTER=A220 I7 D1 T1
Stefan Skopnik
In article <4e4j1u$f...@ankka.csc.fi>, Kimmo.L...@fmi.fi says...
>
>I bought MonteCarlo to host TopWave 32, it is working (except TopWave
>is overriding MC audio input), but there is a little odd problem.
>MC needs a line DEVICE=VSNDSYS.386 in system.ini, but for some
>odd reason it is disapearing every now and then. I really do not
>understand what is going on.
JEEEEPPPPIIIIEEE, at least another poor soul with the same problem as
me!!!
YES I'm having exactly the same phenomen! NO I'm having NO idea what's
going on, guess it's Plug'n Play! YES, it's makeing me crasy, too,
changing my system.ini every day!!
Think it's a driver problem, but will we ever see an updated driver
from TB? I'm very pesimistic about that!
so, plleesssee, if you find a solution tell me, I would be very
greateful!
CU
Stefan
Ken Wilson
>CU
>Stefan
Simple you rename vsndsys.386 to sndsys.386 and modify the line in
system.ini to reflect the change
device=sndsys.386
it sounds simple but It works.......
send praise to
k...@pacifier.com
ken wilson
.
Charles Terry
from Hallsound Systems via the TBeach home page, either that or the
TBeach user groutp (I found the URLs via Yahoo).
Does anyone have any experience with their product? They have
a free evaluation copy there for FTP but its *.wri file says it
expired Novermber, 1995. They say the price is $60.
Does it work? Any feedback?
-charles terry
Lee Lorenz
>>
>> Bob Andres (and...@nettally.com) wrote:
>> : There are beta WIN95 drivers availabale for Tropez that work great.
>>
>> It's no on Beachcomber, it's not in their ftp or web site, and it's not on
>> the archive at ftp.hawaii.edu... so just where are these mysterious and
>> wonderous drivers?
>
>Look under /pub/tbeach/win95 and grab the file "trop95.zip." Hope this
>helps...
Not really... these files are just the Windows 3.1 drivers, laid out for a
proper installation (un-".Z"ed) using the Win95 Install Wizard... they are
16-bit drivers!
Hmmm... $220 for Tropez or $170 for SB AWE32 PnP...
I used to be a booster for Turtle Beach and the Tropez, now I feel my card is a
sorry reminder of just how far off a company can fall.
Lee
P.S. Anybody know if the SB AWA32 PnP requires any damn TSR drivers for DOS
operation? If GM works in DOS without a TSR driver, I'll be changing in a
heartbeat!
--
-------------Lee Lorenz: <llo...@tir.com> or <llo...@msn.com>-----------
Visit my Web Page: http://www.tir.com/~llorenz
For an idea of how off-balance I am: http://www.tir.com/~llorenz/rant.html
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Delcam-Novosibirsk
: P.S. Anybody know if the SB AWA32 PnP requires any damn TSR drivers for DOS
: operation? If GM works in DOS without a TSR driver,
DOS MIDI player (Creative's Play.exe) doesn't require any TSR - MIDI driver is
loaded as transient part. Drivers are required inly for record/play WAV's. But
Creative doesn't include Play.exe into new packages. Games like DOOM, Heretic etc.
also not require any TSRs.
Eugene
Daron Myrick
|heartbeat!
Under Win95, the latest AWE32-PNP drivers EMULATE MIDI devices like AWEUTIL did
but this time it works and works with protected mode programs too and itself is
a protected mode driver that uses no DOS(conventional)or UMB memory.
e...@efn.org
>>I saw an picture of the box for the Tropez Pro in the recent computability
>>ad. I was wondering how they were going to release a Pro version when they
>>still can't make any win '95 versions of their drivers.
>Really I bought my Tropez shortly before the release of Win 95 and it
>had good sounding midi etc in Win95 (although the drivers are basicly
>Win 3 ) but midi in dos sessions is another story My Midi Volume is
>around 40 -50% at full volume.
> I found that unaceptable and waited and waited for the real drivers
>that they hinted about.. I tried calling thier tech support numerous
>times and got a recording saying call back in a couple of hours
>( yea,right)
> So then I bought a SB 32 pnp..
>and My 200.00 Tropez hardly used at all sits in a box !!!!!
> Does anyone know if they ever will write real drivers for Win 95 or
>NT? I have a couple of machines and the NT drivers description looks
>so bogus that I am using a very old 8 bit sound blaster regular 1.0
>with it rather than a 200.00 in box Tropez.
> you would think that they would write drivers.....
I wonder if the Tropez Pro mentioned here is the very same thing as the Tropez
Plus that is on a 'hidden' web page on the Turtle Beach Site.
http://www.tbeach.com/products/tropplus.htm
* The Tropez Plus is supposed to have Win 95 plug n' play. (Woo Hoo!) *
If anyone has any information on HOW and WHERE and for HOW MUCH I could get
this, please e-mail e...@efn.org
Could someone please tell Turtle Beach to update their web site? I can't get
any response from them for either my sales questions or my complaints about
outdated information.
Warren Harris
(snip)
> I wonder if the Tropez Pro mentioned here is the very same thing as the Tropez
> Plus that is on a 'hidden' web page on the Turtle Beach Site.
> http://www.tbeach.com/products/tropplus.htm
> * The Tropez Plus is supposed to have Win 95 plug n' play. (Woo Hoo!) *
>
> If anyone has any information on HOW and WHERE and for HOW MUCH I could get
> this, please e-mail e...@efn.org
>
> Could someone please tell Turtle Beach to update their web site? I can't get
> any response from them for either my sales questions or my complaints about
> outdated information.
Since they've merged with Value Media, nuked most of the old staff,
discontinued the Tahiti and Monterey cards (and have never been known to have
great technical support in the past anyway) why should we expect a website
update anytime soon? ;-)
Sorry - couldn't resist. But seriously - I wouldn't get my hopes up for
updated info from TB given all of the above. If you can make what you've got
work for now, great. If you're considering buying a new card, either wait and
see what happens when they get back on track or go for something with good
support and a decent feature set.
--Warren
--
HARRIS CREATIVE GROUP - http://www.voiceone.com
----------------------------------------------------------------
Just the FAQs! PC-Based Digital Recording - the Video FAQ
3 hours VHS - on Audio Recording for the PC
===============================================
VOICE-OVER work / samples / distribution Via our Website!
===============================================
DIGITAL AUDIO WORKSTATIONS! - SAW, DAL, Sek'd, Sound Forge...
Gary Worsham
writes:
>e...@efn.org wrote:
>(snip)
>> I wonder if the Tropez Pro mentioned here is the very same thing as
the Tropez
>> Plus that is on a 'hidden' web page on the Turtle Beach Site.
>> http://www.tbeach.com/products/tropplus.htm
>> * The Tropez Plus is supposed to have Win 95 plug n' play. (Woo
Hoo!) *
>>
can't get
>> any response from them for either my sales questions or my
complaints about
>> outdated information.
>
[snip]
Please call Turtle Beach at 510-624-6200 or fax at 510-624-6291.
For Tech Support try
510-624-6265
510-624-6292
>Since they've merged with Value Media, nuked most of the old staff,
>discontinued the Tahiti and Monterey cards (and have never been known
to have
>great technical support in the past anyway) why should we expect a
website
>update anytime soon? ;-)
>
We are working on a Website update as we speak. Yes, there was a gap
there while the merger took place. Yes, there was a bit of a personnel
shakeup. However, Turtle Beach has a renewed commitment to improving
product quality, ease-of-use and tech support. Although not all of the
recent remarks have been supportive, it's nice to see that people are
interested. Keep the faith!
I will post a message from company president Marty Goldberg within a
day or two.
Gary Worsham
Trutle Beach Systems
Gary Worsham
little survey here to determine who wants what feature for what
purpose. We can either get a thread going or you can e-mail me.
Comment on the following:
SoundBlaster Pro compatibility
Plug n' Play
Windows 95 support
Windows NT support
OS/2 support
CP/M support
WaveBlaster header
On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch)
Mic input
CD-ROM interface (IDE)
On-board WaveTable synth
Full duplex
Digital I/O
And, anything else you think is important.
Thanks!
Gary Worsham
Erik Strack
>In article <31058F...@netcom.com>, ted...@netcom.com says...
>>Have you tried the TURTLE BEACH FTP site yet? It's ftp.tbeach.com.
>>Look under /pub/tbeach/win95 and grab the file "trop95.zip." Hope this
>>helps...
>>
>>- Ted
>>ted...@netcom.com
>I bought MonteCarlo to host TopWave 32, it is working (except TopWave
>is overriding MC audio input), but there is a little odd problem.
>MC needs a line DEVICE=VSNDSYS.386 in system.ini, but for some
>odd reason it is disapearing every now and then. I really do not
>understand what is going on.
I had the same problem when I used 16bit full-duplex drivers with Win
95. As someone else suggested, you could probably rename VSNDSYS.386
in system.ini If that bothers you, you may search the registry for
references to that file. Somewhere in the registry, I found
references to my file in system.ini, and I removed all of them. You
should save a copy of your registry or the associated parts before
attempting this!
I believe that win '95 puts something in the registry to alert it to
remove this file from your system.ini, because it thinks the driver is
outdated or something.
Hope I haven't confused you too much. :)
--- Erik
Steve Cannon
>CONFIG:
>device=C:\ULTRASND\ultrinit.sys ultrasnd=220,1,1,15,11
>AUTO:
Get the new Windows 95 drivers. Set the buffer size to the maximum.
This helps the popping considerably.
steve...@aol.com
Joseph Grace
Gary Worsham <gwor...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>Given the differences in today's sound card products, I'm doing a
>little survey here to determine who wants what feature for what
>purpose. We can either get a thread going or you can e-mail me.
>
>Comment on the following:
YES, absolutely:
OK:
NO:
>SoundBlaster Pro compatibility
>Plug n' Play
>Windows 95 support
>Windows NT support
Linux support (i.e., open specifications for Linux (et al.) drivers)
>OS/2 support
>CP/M support
>WaveBlaster header
>On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch)
>Mic input
>CD-ROM interface (IDE)
>On-board WaveTable synth (Why is this even a question these days?)
4+ MB HQ wave ROM
2+ MB RAM standard (and not premium priced)
>Full duplex
>Digital I/O
Digital Joystick port
PCI bus
No noise
Fairly priced ($200'ish, is that about right?)
Audio cable(s) (multi-headed?) for connecting to various CD-ROM drives (TEAC:-)
Test and verification software
Demo software
Audio applications software
Game software
and...
free (;-) upgrade from Tropez Plus (which I've been waiting for for *months*!-)
Cheers,
= Joe =
walter kneis
Well, I recently got the phone numbers listed above (I requested them
from a sales rep at Computability) to request some additional info on the
Tropez Plus card, which I'm interested (hesitantly) in buying. Selecting
"sales" from the recorded menu gave me: "SUPRISE!!!"...another recorded
message saying that TB no longer sells direct and giving phone numbers
for retailers.
If this is indicative of the kind of service to be expected in the future
from TB, than I'll have to look elsewhere for a new sound card. TB had
better do some major damage control, and do it fast!!!
I hope the "president's message" is worth the wait...
walter kneis
>
> walter kneis (wkn...@ix.netcom.com) wrote:
> > Selecting
> > "sales" from the recorded menu gave me: "SUPRISE!!!"...another recorded
> > message saying that TB no longer sells direct and giving phone numbers
> > for retailers.
>
>
> > If this is indicative of the kind of service to be expected in the future
> > from TB, than I'll have to look elsewhere for a new sound card. TB had
> > better do some major damage control, and do it fast!!!
>
> They offer an option to talk to tech support from the same number if
> people have questions about the products. Nothing seems out of the
> ordinary about this to me. Where is the damage?
>
> LarryDo you really want to be on hold for 30 minutes so you can ask a
question that a sales rep can answer in 30 seconds? Tech support lines
get backed up enough without handling calls from people who want a piece
of sales literature, or simply to find out about a current product.
Seth Jackson
>Given the differences in today's sound card products, I'm doing a
>little survey here to determine who wants what feature for what
>purpose. We can either get a thread going or you can e-mail me.
>Comment on the following:
>SoundBlaster Pro compatibility
I could care less about this. I want a card I can use for recording
music.
>Plug n' Play
>Windows 95 support
Would be nice, I suppose.
>Windows NT support
Don't care
>OS/2 support
>CP/M support
Don't care about either of those
>WaveBlaster header
>On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch)
Not sure.
>Mic input
Important.
>CD-ROM interface (IDE)
>On-board WaveTable synth
Very important. It would be acceptable, possibly even desireable to
have this as an optional feature. I know Turtle Beach would like us to
buy their own wavetable add-on, but it would sure be great if we could
choose a wavetable card from among a number of vendors. I guess this
means Waveblaster compatibility.
>Full duplex
Of critical importance. Without full duplex, a card is useless for
studio recording..
>Digital I/O
Yes, critical. High-quality, low-noise digital I/O, to be more
specific!
It would be nice if the card allowed for add-on sample RAM.
Oh, and an affordable price would be nice, too! ;^)
--
Seth Jackson
Seth Jackson's Songwriting Page: http://www.cinenet.net/users/speaker
The Online Home of "Country Notes" for Los Angeles area songwriters
Ken Wilson
>>Since they've merged with Value Media, nuked most of the old staff,
>>discontinued the Tahiti and Monterey cards (and have never been known
>to have
>>great technical support in the past anyway) why should we expect a
>website
>>update anytime soon? ;-)
>>
>We are working on a Website update as we speak. Yes, there was a gap
>there while the merger took place. Yes, there was a bit of a personnel
>shakeup. However, Turtle Beach has a renewed commitment to improving
>product quality, ease-of-use and tech support. Although not all of the
>recent remarks have been supportive, it's nice to see that people are
>interested. Keep the faith!
>I will post a message from company president Marty Goldberg within a
>day or two.
>Gary Worsham
>Trutle Beach Systems
Than May I be the first to ask that Turtle Beach supply us both with
Recent soundcard purchaces and mabey a little older but Expensive
soundcards: Real 32bit Win95 Drivers ( *.vxd)
and a commitment to such would im sure be appriciated by MANY..
Thank you.
Best reguards
Ken Wilson
k...@pacifier.com
Ken Wilson
k...@pacifier.com
Larry Riedel
Rob
>Given the differences in today's sound card products, I'm doing a
>little survey here to determine who wants what feature for what
>purpose. We can either get a thread going or you can e-mail me.
Either way :)
>Comment on the following:
On a scale of 1 to 10, 1 being who cares and 10 meaning I won't buy a sound
card without it....
>SoundBlaster Pro compatibility
5. I want SoundBlaster compatibility so I can play my older games. It
doesn't have to be Pro and it doesn't have to be 16, because my lover's
machine has my old SB16 if I really want to go slumming.
>Plug n' Play
2. I've been around long enough to be able to deal with IRQ's and DMA
channels, and I only got a Plug'n'Play BIOS a few weeks ago. Besides, what
I've been seeing leads me to believe that PnP means very little other than
"has Windows 95 drivers of at least minimal function".
>Windows 95 support
10. I'm not running it right now, but I was (long story) and I will again.
>Windows NT support
8. I'm not running it right now and if it becomes the universal de facto
standard, people will write drivers for it.
>OS/2 support
5. I love Warp but IBM didn't make things easy for multimedia hardware
vendors to write drivers, especially MIDI-wise. OS/2's lack of decent MIDI
support was what eventually got me to give up on it, in fact.
>CP/M support
1. I reluctantly sold my C-128 three years ago and haven't seen CP/M
since. Except in emulators ;)
>WaveBlaster header
3. Might be nice, but I would rather have a ROM patchset on board with the
ability to add RAM.
>On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch)
1. As long as it produces clean line-level output I'm happy.
>Mic input
10. Seems like an obvious feature to require in a sound card.
>CD-ROM interface (IDE)
5. I have two IDE interfaces on my motherboard, but if I ever want to give
the card to someone else (like my lover) who doesn't, I'd just as soon be
able to.
>On-board WaveTable synth
10. That's pretty well the main feature I'm shopping for.
>Full duplex
10. Its absence disqualifies all Creative Labs and Reveal cards to date,
which sucks because that's all the stores around me sell, but I have to
have it, and not the shitty-sounding pseudo-full-duplex you can get with
those new SB16/AWE32 drivers, but the real thing. (I guess I'd put up with
22KHz/8bit playback as long as I could get 44KHz/16bit recording, but I'd
prefer the flexibility for DAW experiments.)
>Digital I/O
1. I don't have a DAT deck and suspect I'll get a CD-R before I do.
Besides, all my outboard effects are analog.
>And, anything else you think is important.
You forgot sample RAM expandability (a 10 for me), real-time DSP effects (a
5 for me 'cause of my outboard stuff), and decent technical support (an 8
for me but realistically I know better than to expect to get it no matter
what I buy). And of course, reasonable price, a 9 in my book. When you
put it all together, the only card I can buy right now that comes close to
meeting these requirements is the Gravis Ultrasound PnP, though I hear the
Reveal WavExtreme card might be good too (if I could find one to look at -
my experience with them makes Gravis look like the kings of compatibility,
tho).
Rob
Eric Lew
>
>SoundBlaster Pro compatibility
>Plug n' Play
Would be nice
>Windows 95 support
For the future
>Windows NT support
Don't care
>OS/2 support
Don't care
>CP/M support
Ha ha!!!
>WaveBlaster header
Nice but not necessary
>On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch)
Not a requisite
>Mic input
Nice
>CD-ROM interface (IDE)
Don't care
>On-board WaveTable synth
Of utmost importance (and quality samples, please)
>Full duplex
Nice
>Digital I/O
Not necessary
>And, anything else you think is important.
Linux support
Eric
Craig Johnston
>>Comment on the following:
>>SoundBlaster Pro compatibility
Don't care. In an ideal world, this shouldn't be necessary -- manufacturers
should simply have to write a low level driver for their cards that inter-
acts with a standard sound API. Anything else is ugly. Hey, added bonus,
piece of crap cards from companies that only get by because they are the
"standard" would have to stand on their own merits.
>>Plug n' Play
Don't care. If it costs me anything significant in terms of price or
performance, no. Isn't plain old PCI simple enough? If you don't have to
mess with jumpers or DMA channels, and can look at and set irqs in the CMOS
PCI configuration menu, a monkey should be able to do it. PCI seems
adequate here, without adding PNP.
But it's a cool buzzword -- if it sells more of em and brings down the
price, sign me up.
>>Windows 95 support
Please, explicitly leave this out. You should just put a big picture of
a hand giving the reader the bird in the manual section under Win95 support.
>>Windows NT support
Sure, before the Win95 support, please. If people are gonna run MS,
let's at least endorse the real OS of the bunch.
>>OS/2 support
Yes, let's throw some crumbs to the non-MS folks, why don't we?
>>CP/M support
YES!!
>>WaveBlaster header
Have no clue what this is, I imagine I can do without.
>>On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch)
Nah, crappy sound, why bother. I'll use a real amp. This costs money and
sucks, that's the sort of thing to leave out.
>>Mic input
Yes, please.
>>CD-ROM interface (IDE)
No. This has no place on a sound card.
Not to mention IDE devices are major ugly kludges to start with.
As above, this costs money and sucks.
>>On-board WaveTable synth
For sure. Ram-based samples, please.
>>Full duplex
Yes. A half-duplex sound card is crippled.
>>Digital I/O
Would be nice -- by no means a sine qua non.
>>And, anything else you think is important.
On-board programmable DSP. Freely available programming info. PCI based.
The above 3 are _mandatory_. Nobody gets my money until they put out a card
with these 3 features.
And, oh yeah.. it should sound good. Bad audio makes me puke.
I'd say FreeBSD drivers, but I don't expect a company to write these, and
if nobody else does, I will. Just release programming info.
#include <mini_rant>
Companies that think they benefit by not doing so are moronic.
Anyone who matters can reverse-engineer drivers. I will never buy anything
from a company that I am aware makes a practice of not releasing programming
info.
--
craig johnston
c...@tower.stc.housing.washington.edu (hey, it's ethernet.)
"The unexamined life should be terminated with extreme prejudice." --me
Gaddi Shlasky
SoundBlaster Pro compatibility 4
Plug n' Play 2
Windows 95 support 5
Windows NT support 1
OS/2 support 1
CP/M support 1
WaveBlaster header 4
On-board power amp(2-4 W/ch) 1
Mic input 3
CD-ROM interface (IDE) 2
On-board WaveTable synth 5 (of the highest quality and versatility, that including
patch set and effects)
Full duplex 5
Digital I/O 4
Gaddi
Gunnar Bj|rgum
: Given the differences in today's sound card products, I'm doing a
: little survey here to determine who wants what feature for what
: purpose. We can either get a thread going or you can e-mail me.
: Comment on the following:
My evaluation(1=don't care, 10=must have)
: SoundBlaster Pro compatibility 8
: Plug n' Play 3
: Windows 95 support 10
: Windows NT support 5
: OS/2 support 5
: CP/M support 1
: WaveBlaster header Wave Blaster connector ? :1
: On-board power amp (2-4 W/ch) 2
: Mic input 9
: CD-ROM interface (IDE) 3
: On-board WaveTable synth 10 (Including sample RAM)
: Full duplex 9
: Digital I/O 3
:
: And, anything else you think is important.
Programmable DSP (9), XG compatibility (5), 16 bit stereo 44.1 kHz AD/DA(10),
Linux drivers (6), PCI to load sample ram fast (3), nice configuration
software (8).
Does a soundcard like this exist at all ?
--
Gunnar Bj{\o}rgum : : (bjo...@stud.unit.no)
Electronics student at the : <>< : Snail-Mail:
Norwegian Institute of Technology (NTH) : :{\O}ystein M{\o}ylasveg 6
Norway : : N-7031 Trondheim
--------------- http://www.stud.unit.no/~bjorgum <- (In Norwegian)----------
This .sig is printed on recycled electronics.
Timothy Kelly
What the soundcard actually sounds like.
And is there software to edit the sounds with.
The rest, who cares.
Theres a junkyard mt of soundcards out there with " looks great on
paper or in the ads, but sounds like dogfood."
Installation software thats smart enough to find a free IRQ and DMA
and set itself up.
Theres a long list of soundcard companys including Turtle Beach that
went under because their cards were too hard to install and use for the
soundcard newbie.
One reason Creative sells more soundcards than everyone put together
is that their setup and testing and toubleshooting software works.
Putting in a Sb is a nobrainer, same for Roland cards.
Happy Soundcards
Timothy Kelly
MidiVox
--
MidiVox-Worlds 1st Voice to Midi Converter. Real Time. No Delays.
Hum a Bass, Croon a Sax, Scat a Horn, Scream a Guitar, Rap some
Drums, Sing a Cello.
Become a Human Sequencer, Human Vocoder, Human Breath Controller.
AES "Best in Show." EM "Editors Choice." " MidiVox Roars."
Keyboard.
Kevin Leung
also a DB50XG. MY problem is that my system
goes into reboot when I run the Diagnose from
CL. The program would stall when checking the
high DMA (default 5) <it also has a problem with
DMA 7.> and then the whole system goes into
reboot automaticly. <My motherboard does not
have a PnP BIOS.> After reboot, the system
doesn't recognize my VLB EIDE controller. But
the system would be okay when I do a hard boot.
Anybody know what's the problem? Are there any
other high DMAs I can try out.
Another problem. I can't get the sound card to
toggle between the DB50XG and the SB16 MIDI
synth during MIDI playback.
Kevin
Daron Myrick
|
|Plug n' Play 5 Be there or be square! (Beats Jumpers and manual install).
|Windows 95 support 5 Be there or be square!
|Windows NT support 5 Be there or get bitched at.
|OS/2 support 5 Be there or get bitched at.
|CP/M support 1 You have to be joking, right? Why didn't you ask about Linux support since it's one step below OS/2 in popularity?
|WaveBlaster header 5 Be there or be square!
|On-board power amp(2-4 W/ch) 1 Onboard Power amps are never good enough.
|Mic input 5 Never use it but it's a must in case I do. (I.E. Be there or be square!).
|CD-ROM interface (IDE) 1 Rather redundant with today's motherboards isn't it?
|On-board WaveTable synth 5 Be there or be shot in the head! No hardware tricks or shortcuts, excellent samples/patches and great flexibility.
|Full duplex 5 Be there or be square damnit!
|Digital I/O 5 No Digital I/O option=No taking a card seriously.
Lora Crouse
>Hi,
> What the soundcard actually sounds like.
How about what the soundcard looks like ;)
I just LOVE the red board color of the GUS over the oh-so-usual green
expansion cards.
Mike Overlin
wrote:
>Another problem. I can't get the sound card to
>toggle between the DB50XG and the SB16 MIDI
>synth during MIDI playback.
>
>
> Kevin
What software are you playing midi files from? In Media Player, it is
not possible to toggle between devices while it is running.
____________________________________________________
Mike Overlin
XG Evangelist
Yamaha Corporation of America
Visit our XG forums on Compuserve and MSN.
Developer site http://www.ysba.com
____________________________________________________
Timothy Kelly
writes:
All three of my soundcards are that microchip green.
I would prefer purple.
Maybe a color organ soundcard that would change colors as the notes
played.
craig...@rexam.com
Craig
>I just got a Sound Blaster 16 Value IDE PnP and
>also a DB50XG. MY problem is that my system
>goes into reboot when I run the Diagnose from
>CL. The program would stall when checking the
>high DMA (default 5) <it also has a problem with
>DMA 7.> and then the whole system goes into
>reboot automaticly. <My motherboard does not
>have a PnP BIOS.> After reboot, the system
>doesn't recognize my VLB EIDE controller. But
>the system would be okay when I do a hard boot.
>Anybody know what's the problem? Are there any
>other high DMAs I can try out.
>Another problem. I can't get the sound card to