From: ai456@yfn.ysu.edu (Paul S. Troutman)
Subject: Re: Soundblaster
Reply-To: ai456@yfn.ysu.edu (Paul S. Troutman)
Organization: St. Elizabeth Hospital, Youngstown, OH
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1993 06:16:52 GMT


In a previous article, industry@convex.csd.uwm.edu (Mark A Bialik) says:

>Hello,
>
>My friend and I are disk jockeys at a local station.  We would like to cut
>promos at home with our computers and synths.  We need a device that will
>allow us to play tones and samples with the synth, and do cd playback,
>cassette, and microphone processing.  We have an audio mixer, so this
>shouldn't be a problem.  In the end, we hope to produce our thirty second
>spots and save them on disk, then record the disk back to cassette.  Being
>amateurs in this area, we don't know a heck of a lot about what's out
>there.  A few people recommended something called Soundblaster.  Can anyone
>tell me the pros and cons, and what exactly you can do with this thing?  Of
>course, we'd like to saty under $200.  Any other recommendations?
>
>Thanks,
>Mark
>
>P.S. We have a 286/16 and 386DX/33 with Windows 3.1
>
>
>-- 
>Mark A. Bialik  AT&T: (414)271-1619   USMail: 1864 Cambridge #3
>Department of Political Science               Milwaukee, WI  53202
>University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
>InterNET: industry@convex.csd.uwm.edu (or) industry@csd4.csd.uwm.edu
>

Well, there are a few versions of the SoundBlaster card, the old models
(SB 1.0, 1.5, and 2.0 - all 8-bit, all record / playback in mono, have FM 11
voice synth., can support MIDI with an box sold seperately that plugs into
the joystick port of the card, and they have a top sampling rate of 22Khz -
if you have the computing power). 

Then, the new model - the SoundBlaster PRO (16-Bit, records / playsback in 
stereo DSC, has 22-voice FM synthesizers - using a YAMAHA synth. chipset 
(sorry, can't remember the numbers), is MPC (Multi-Media) compatable, has a 
built-in CD-ROM interface (for Matsushita type drive only), Digital and Analog
mixers, built-in MIDI and interface cable, MIDI seqencer, and a top sampling
rate of 44Khz if you have the computer power. Plus all software and utils.
 
Assuming you want stereo, I will talk about the SoundBlaster PRO. A S.B. 
PRO can ussally be had for around $149-$172. (the price varys greatly from 
store to store...) but, it should fall right into your price range of $200. 
there are only a few Shareware / Public Domian programs out currently that 
have studio support for the S.B. PRO (I.E. recording, ect.) But, the best
so far is a program called BLASTER-MASTER (Version 5.5), which has full 
support for graphics-based editing. 

Here are some of the features of BLASTER-MASTER V5.5: 
 oEGA/VGA, Mouse support (point and click)
 oCut, Paste, Loop, Mute, Reverse, Pitch changing, Echoing, Speed changing,  
  Sampling rate changing, and file format conversion of digitized sound blocks.
 oReal-time scope mode while digitzing (like watching an ossiliscope)

Only one drawback to the program - if you don't register you can only record and
playback blocks of 25 seconds.   

But with all of these features, you should be able to do want you want to. 
If not, there are other SoundBlaster applications... I will tell you more 
about them later.

I hope this helped.
-- 
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth,rec.music.maker.synth,comp.music