From: mccreary@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (MCCREARY SEAN)
Subject: Re: Turtle Beach Multisound
Keywords: Price
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Distribution: usa
Date: Fri, 31 Jul 1992 05:09:20 GMT

There have been a few queries for info about the Multisound, so I figured I
should supply some more info.  First of all, I only bought the card a few
days ago, so these are primarily first impressions.  Keep this in mind
while reading:

The board requires that you have a 386 (25 MHz recommended) with VGA
graphics, a fast (and large!) hard disk for direct-to-disk recording, 1.44
Meg floppy drive, 2MB RAM (to run Windows in enhanced mode?) and Windows 3.1
or 3.0 with MME (MME not included!).  The manual says you need only have a
40 Meg HD, but that seems ridiculously small if you want to do any
CD-quality recording.  Also, the card uses a full length 16-bit slot, and
32k of upper RAM for the DSP (default is D000-D800, can use B000-B800).
Thankfully, the card will use one of the extended interrupts (default is 10). 

The hardware seems to be of a very high quality.  In addition to a Proteus
1/XR on board, the card also has a Motorola 56001 DSP.  Electronic Musician
(Aug. '92) claims the clock for this chip is 40 MHz, but I can't verify
this.  All the manual states in this regard is that the DSP runs at 20
MIPS.  The A/D is 16 bit, 64x oversampled while the D/A is 18 bit, 64X
oversampled.  The manual also states that the D/A has an 8x interpolating
filter.  The audio specifications are given in three places, and have
different values in all three.  You can read EM and the back of the box
yourself, so I will give the stats listed in the manual.

    Frequency Resp.     DC->19 kHz +0/-0.2 dB
                        DC->20 kHz +0/-2 dB
    S/N                 -89 dBV (A-weighted)
                        -85 dbV (unweighted)
    THD                 < 0.005% (A-weighted)
                        < 0.006% (unweighted)
    IM Distortion       0.01%
    Phase Response      +/- 0.5 degree
    Stereo Crosstalk    @100 Hz  -98 dBV (This is much higher than listed
                                          on the back of the box!)
                        @1 kHz   -76 dBV
                        @10 kHz  -58 dBV

Well, all I can say is that whatever the numbers, the output seems most
musical.  I have done some sampling off CDs, and the results are
indistinguishable from the original.  In short, the output quality is most
musical.  The sampling rates are limited to 44.1 kHz, 22.05 kHz and 11.025
kHz.  I don't know if this is a hardware limitation, but I hope that the
narrow range of available rates is only a software oversight.  The card has
two inputs and one output, and also a 9-pin DIN connector for an external
box with MIDI in, out and thru ($24 extra).  This interface is not MPU-401
compatible.

On the other hand, the software is a sorry sight to behold.  The
installation routine works fairly well, but not well enough for a novice to
use easily.  The diagnostics program will not run as installed, since the
installation script neglects to copy one of the necessary files during the
installation process.  If something was wrong with the card, this would be
nearly impossible to correct in a telephone consultation with a novice.  In
addition the customer would have to pay for the call, since customer support
is not a toll-free call.  It is worth re-emphasizing that you must be sure
to remove ALL sound drivers BEFORE attempting to install the driver.  To be
fair, this is stated in the manual and in an extra sheet included in the
package, but instructions on how to do this properly are not given except
in a readme file in the disk (not acceptable for a Windows software
package!).  Anyway, I had to install the driver three times before I got
this right.  The driver works well, but the absence of any recording
software limits the card's usefulness out of the box.  Attempting to record
using the Sound Recorder applet included with Windows 3.1 yields mono
samples, and recorded only from the right-hand channel of a stereo source.
This is most disappointing, since you would expect STEREO samples from a
card capable of stereo recording, and mono from both channels mixed
together if you specify a mono recording.  This is most definitely a bug in
Microsoft's code.  All is not lost however, since Turtle Beach did include
plain-DOS programs that allow recording (in stereo but not mono) and
playback from DOS outside of Windows (not a DOS session inside Windows).
Note that these programs will only record from the main input of the card
(which is the better one anyway).  The manual does mention these programs,
but they must be installed manually.  The batch files that are referred to
in the manual are also incorrectly written.  The playback batch files are
chiefly at fault here, one of which will call itself endlessly if executed
by an unwary user.  The basic intention of the files was easy to fathom,
however, and I was able to rewrite the offending batch files and get the
utilities to work.  Basically, there are three separate versions of the
programs, one for each sampling rate.  All that is necessary is to copy the
required playback or recording files to a generic filename to make them
function properly (if any users out there need help with this, I can post
the fixed batch files).  If playback is attempted for a file recorded at a
different rate than the program expects, the program simply plays the
samples at the wrong speed.  In spite of this, the files are true .wav
files, and can be edited with the Sound Recorder applet.  This all leads me
to believe that the DOS utilities have been poorly tested, and may be
unstable.  In fact, the utilities that work at 11.025 kHz often leave the
Multisound emitting a whine of various pitches, which can only be stopped
by resetting the computer or starting Windows.  The most annoying aspect of
this all is that the only way to change the recording levels is with the
Windows Record Prep applet.  Needless to say, this involves a lot of
terminating and restarting Windows.

The package also includes a few other applets, all of which work, but which
just don't have much inherent utility.  The aforementioned Record Prep is a
dual VU-meter simulation that allows the recording levels of the card to be
set.  Be sure to save the level settings, or they will not be transmitted
to the DOS recording utilities!  These levels can also be set from the
Mixer applet, which allows the output levels of the various sound sources to
be set as well.  A facsimilie of the Proteus front panel is also included,
which is more cute than useful.  For those of you who have seen a Proteus
(or own one), imagine trying to do anything with it WITHOUT READING THE
MANUAL.  I sure as hell can't do anything with it.  The one innovation in
this program is the addition of a basic librarian function.  However, only
three banks are allowed, two of which are presets.  The Proteus 1/XR
factory presets are one set, and a General MIDI setup is the other.  Even
if I could program my own patches, this would not be very helpful.  I plan
on using the sys-ex librarian built in to Cakewalk for Windows for managing
my patches.  Other than the diagnostics utility, the only other applet
included is a so-called 'MIDI patch-bay'.  This is only useful if the
external MIDI box is used, and can allow the internal Proteus to respond to
the external MIDI data stream like a normal Proteus.  However, this
disconnects it from the internal Windows data stream, which seems to not be
very useful.  The main advantage to having an internal Proteus in the first
place is that the Proteus is given its own data stream of 16 MIDI channels,
leaving the 16 channels output by a secondary MIDI card untouched.  This is
in fact possible, as I have verified with Cakewalk and my external setup,
and saves me the expense of buying another, fancier MIDI interface (I have
a Music Quest PC-MIDI card).

The documentation also needs a bit of work.  Included is a rather slim
37-page manual.  It is unclear in places, and incorrect in others.
Thankfully, it is not really necessary for the use of the included Windows
applets, and it wouldn't help in the areas it might actually be needed
(i.e. using the DOS utilities).  Over a quarter of the manual is dedicated
to an introduction on digital recording, and while moderately useful this
is not the most important use for the user manual.  Lacking is any
technical documentation, especially how to program the on-board DSP.  It
most likely uses its memory-mapped segment as the interface to the chip,
but I would have appreciated more info in this.  Most unforgivably, no
documentation is included for the Proteus at all!  The manual is available
for $11 extra, but I can hardly believe that any user would not want this.
Including the manual with the package to begin with would be much more
convenient.

I have a 20 Mhz 386DX with 2MB RAM, and a Quantum 120 Meg HD.  With this
configuration I can only edit sounds shorter than 14 seconds when recorded
at 44.1 kHz in stereo, due to memory limitations in Windows.  Additionally,
I fear this is not quite fast enough for sustained hard-disk recording.
The only time I have attempted to record a long sample (at 44.1 kHz), the
DOS utility reported errors in the recording.  Further experiments are
necessary, but I would have to recommend a faster system to anyone
interested in using the card for this purpose.

To sum things up, this is a package with very good hardware and
beta-version software.  A version of Turtle Beach's sound editing software
is promised with registration, but my package included no registration
card.  I have yet to contact Turtle Beach about this, but another post in
this thread suggests that the software is not yet available anyway.  The
software can only get better, and I am sure it will.  The addition of
proper recording and editing software could make the package a viable
hard-disk recording system at a very reasonable price.  The only other
thing missing is a graphic editor-librarian for the Proteus. Since Turtle
Beach also publishes one of these in their Oview series, it is possible
that this kind of software may be forthcoming.  I certainly hope so.

Well, I seem to have rambled on quite a bit.  I apologize if anyone finds
this post long-winded, but I felt an honest and thorough reporting would be
helpful to others on the net.  Anyway, thanks for reading it!
-- 
Science, like Nature/ Must also be tamed/ With a view towards its preservation
Given the same/ State of integrity/ It will surely serve us well -- Neil Peart
Sean McCreary   University of Colorado at Boulder   mccreary@ucsu.colorado.edu