Ensoniq SoundscapeDB

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SoundscapeDB

The SoundscapeDB is an Ensoniq-designed and produced MIDI daughtercard designed to interface with the "Waveblaster" pin header available on many older sound cards. It was released in 1994.

Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers.

MIDI electronic musical instrument industry specification

MIDI is a technical standard that describes a communications protocol, digital interface, and electrical connectors that connect a wide variety of electronic musical instruments, computers, and related audio devices for playing, editing and recording music. A single MIDI link through a MIDI cable can carry up to sixteen channels of information, each of which can be routed to a separate device or instrument. This could be sixteen different digital instruments, for example.

Creative Wave Blaster

The Wave Blaster was an add-on MIDI-synthesizer for Creative Sound Blaster 16 and Sound Blaster AWE32 family of PC soundcards. It was a sample-based synthesis General MIDI compliant synthesizer. For General MIDI scores, the Wave Blaster's wavetable-engine produced more realistic instrumental music than the SB16's onboard Yamaha-OPL3.

During the early 1990s, Creative Labs created the Waveblaster connector for their Sound Blaster 16 sound cards. This connector would be for their sample-based synthesis upgrade daughtercard, which they also called the Waveblaster. Other sound card manufacturers took advantage of this and put the connector on their cards as well, and many manufacturers also began developing their own upgrade daughtercards.

Sound Blaster 16

The Sound Blaster 16 is a series of sound cards by Creative Technology. They are add-on boards for PCs with an ISA or PCI slot.

Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments instead of fundamental waveforms such as sine and saw waves used in other types of synthesis.

Ensoniq's daughterboard (DB), the SoundscapeDB, is basically a Soundscape S-2000 with the digital sound reproduction section removed. It was simply the MIDI synthesizer (sample-based synthesizer) of the full Soundscape. The DB contained an Ensoniq OTTOR2 synthesizer chip, a Motorola 68EC000 controller, and a 2 MB patch set ROM. Ensoniq switched to a "revised and improved" 1 MB ROM patch set in a cost-cutting move on a later revision of the board.

Ensoniq Soundscape S-2000

Soundscape S-2000 was Ensoniq's first direct foray into the PC sound card market. The card arrived on the market in 1994. It is a full-length ISA digital audio and sample-based synthesis device, equipped with a 2 MiB Ensoniq-built ROM-based patch set. Some OEM versions of the card feature a smaller 1 MiB patch set. It was praised for its then-high quality music synthesis and sound output, high compatibility and good software support.

Ensoniq ES-5506 OTTO

The Ensoniq ES-5506 "OTTO" was a chip used in implementations of sample-based synthesis. Musical instruments and PC sound cards were the most popular applications.

The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix mega is a multiplier of 1000000 (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes of information. This definition has been incorporated into the International System of Quantities.

Specifications

Polyphony

In music, polyphony is one type of musical texture, where a texture is, generally speaking, the way that melodic, rhythmic, and harmonic aspects of a musical composition are combined to shape the overall sound and quality of the work. In particular, polyphony consists of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, which is called homophony.

General MIDI or GM is a standardized specification for electronic musical instruments that respond to MIDI messages. GM was developed by the American MIDI Manufacturers Association (MMA) and the Japan MIDI Standards Committee (JMSC) and first published in 1991. The official specification is available in English from the MMA, bound together with the MIDI 1.0 specification, and in Japanese from the Association of Musical Electronic Industry (AMEI).

Packard Bell is a Dutch-based computer manufacturing subsidiary of Acer. The brand name originally belonged to an American radio set manufacturer, Packard Bell, founded by Herbert "Herb" A. Bell and Leon S. Packard in 1933. Some websites use 1926 as the founding date when Herbert Bell was an executive with Jackson Bell Company, Los Angeles, California. In 1986, Israeli investors bought the brand from Teledyne, in order to name their newly formed personal computer manufacturing company producing discount computers in the United States and Canada. In the late 1990s Packard Bell became a subsidiary of NEC. In 2000, Packard Bell stopped its North American operations whilst expanding overseas and becoming a leading brand in the European PC markets. In 2008 it was acquired by the Taiwanese consumer electronic firm Acer in the aftermath of its takeover of Gateway, Inc. Gateway products are now sold in the Americas and Asia, while Packard Bell products are sold in Africa, Europe and the Middle East.

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The Korg M1 is a 16-voice, 8-part multitimbral sample-based synthesizer and music workstation, manufactured by Korg from 1988 to 1995. The M1 features a MIDI sequencer and a wide palette of available sounds, allowing for the production of complete musical arrangements. Outselling the Yamaha DX7 and Roland D-50, the M1 became the top-selling digital synthesizer of its time.

Gravis Ultrasound

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Ensoniq MR61

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Ensoniq Soundscape OPUS

The Ensoniq Soundscape OPUS (SS-3016-NCD) is a Gateway 2000 OEM sound card, and possibly was used by other OEMs, but was never sold to Ensoniq's customers directly. It was a Soundscape-like board, using the Ensoniq "OPUS" multimedia sound chip that only was used on these OEM boards. It had a 1MB patch set ROM chip, resulting in a lesser MIDI quality compared to the Soundscape and Soundscape ELITE. The "OPUS" cards again carry the Motorola 68EC000 CPU. The variety of CD-ROM interfaces have been removed. Otherwise, however, the card is simply a cost-reduced Soundscape-compatible board with similar capabilities.

Ensoniq Soundscape Elite

The Soundscape ELITE was Ensoniq's high-end ISA PC sound card offering. It offers the highest MIDI quality of any PC sound card Ensoniq produced. The board is an evolution of the company's previous Soundscape S-2000. The Soundscape ELITE was launched in March 1995.

Ensoniq AudioPCI

The Ensoniq AudioPCI is a PCI-based sound card released in 1997. It was Ensoniq's last sound card product before they were acquired by Creative Technology. The card represented a shift in Ensoniq's market positioning. Whereas the Soundscape line had been made up primarily of low-volume high-end products full of features, the AudioPCI was designed to be a very simple, low-cost product to appeal to system OEMs and thus hopefully sell in mass quantities.

Sound Blaster Live! is a PCI add-on sound card from Creative Technology Limited for PCs. Moving from ISA to PCI allowed the card to dispense with onboard memory, storing digital samples in the computer's main memory and then accessing them in real time over the bus. This allowed for a much wider selection of, and longer playing, samples. It also included higher quality sound output at all levels, quadrophonic output, and a new MIDI synthesizer with 64 sampled voices. The Live! was introduced in August 1998 and variations on the design remained Creative's primary sound card line into the 2000s.

The Sound Blaster AWE32 is an ISA sound card from Creative Technology. It is an expansion board for PCs and is part of the Sound Blaster family of products. The Sound Blaster AWE32, introduced in March 1994, was a near full-length ISA sound card, measuring 14 inches (356 mm) in length, due to the number of features included.

The Ensoniq TS-10 was a synthesizer / music workstation introduced by Ensoniq in 1993. It featured synthesis, user sample playback, sequencer, effects and performance facilities in a 61-key package. Another version, with 76 weighted keys, but otherwise identical features except polyphonic aftertouch, was offered as the TS-12.

References

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