Sound Blaster AWE32
Encyclopedia
Sound Blaster
AWE32 is an ISA
sound card
from Creative Technology
. It is an expansion board for PCs
. 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 Sound Blaster AWE32 included two distinct audio sections; one being the Creative digital audio section with their audio codec and optional CSP/ASP chip socket, and the second being the E-mu MIDI synthesizer section. The synthesizer section consisted of the EMU8000 synthesizer and effects processor chip, 1 MiB
EMU8011 sample ROM, and a variable amount of RAM (none on the SB32, 512 KiB on the AWE32; RAM was expandable to 28 MiB
on both cards). These chips comprised a powerful and flexible sample-based synthesis
system, based on E-mu's high-end sampler systems such as the E-mu Emulator III and E-mu Proteus
. The effects processor generated various effects (i.e. reverb
and chorus
) and environments
on MIDI output, similar to the later EAX
standard on Live! and newer cards. It can also add effects to the output from the Yamaha OPL-3's FM synthesis. The AWE32 was the first sampler to support E-Mu's SoundFont
standard, which allowed users to build custom sound sets using their own samples, the samples included in ROM, or both. The card included software for building custom SoundFonts. All of Creative's subsequent cards, other than the Sound Blaster PCI64/128 series, support SoundFonts.
On the initial release, Creative promoted the EMU8000 as a waveguide
physical modelling synthesis
engine, due to its ability to work with delay line
s. The option was used mostly as an effect engine for chorus and flanging
effects. Actual physical modeling instruments were not popular on the AWE, although some support exists in the SoundFont
format.
The AWE32 didn't use its MPU-401
port to access the EMU8000—Creative decided to expose the EMU8000's registers directly, through three sets of non-standard ports, and interpret MIDI commands in software on the host CPU. As with the Gravis Ultrasound
, software designers had to write special AWE32 support into their programs. To support older software, the AWE32 featured OPL-3 FM synthesis, and came with the AWEUTIL program which attempted to provide GM/MT-32/GS
redirection to the native AWE hardware; however, AWEUTIL wasn't compatible with all programs or motherboards due to its use of the non-maskable interrupt
(a featured that was omitted or disabled on many clone
boards), and it used a lot of precious DOS conventional memory
. Also, if a game used DOS 32-bit protected mode
through a non-DPMI compliant DOS extender
, then the MPU-401 emulation would not function and the EMU8000 would not be used unless directly supported by the software. This did not affect the Creative Wave Blaster
daughterboard
header. AWE32's usage in Windows was simplified by the fact that Windows 3.1x
had drivers which made the OPL3 and the EMU8000 appear like any another MIDI peripheral, on their own MIDI interfaces.
The Creative digital audio section was basically an entire Sound Blaster 16
, and as such, was compatible with Creative's earlier sound cards, including Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 2.0, and the original Sound Blaster (minus the C/MS audio chips.) Its specifications included 16-bit 44.1 kHz AD/DA conversion with real-time on-board compression / decompression and the Yamaha OPL3 FM synthesizer chip. However, compatibility was not always perfect and there were situations where various bugs could arise in games. Many of the Sound Blaster AWE32 cards had codecs which supported bass, treble, and gain adjustments through Creative's included mixer software. There were many variants and revisions of the AWE32, however, and not all of them use the same digital audio chipset and features do vary. For example, the Sound Blaster AWE32 boards that utilize the VIBRA chip do not have bass and treble adjustments, but usually noticeably better signal-to-noise ratio.
/Sony
/Mitsumi
CD-ROM
interface (to support proprietary non-ATAPI CD-ROM drives), the Wave Blaster header and two 30-pin SIMM
slots to increase sample memory. Later Sound Blaster AWE32 revisions replaced the proprietary CD-ROM interfaces with the ATAPI interface. The Sound Blaster AWE32 supported up to 28 MB of additional SIMM memory. A maximum of 32 MB could be added to the Sound Blaster AWE32 but the synthesizer could not address all of it (4MB of the EMU8000's address space was reserved for sample ROM).
The Sound Blaster 32 (SB32) was a value-oriented offering from Creative, announced on June 6, 1995, designed to fit below the AWE32 Value in the lineup. The SB32 lacked onboard RAM
, the Wave Blaster
header, and the CSP socket. The boards also used the Vibra digital audio chip which lacked adjustments for bass, treble, and gain. The SB32 had the same MIDI capabilities as the AWE32, and had the same 30-pin SIMM
RAM expansion capability. The board was also fully compatible with the AWE32 option in software and used the same Windows drivers. Once the SB32 was outfitted with 30-pin SIMMs, its sampler section performed identically to the AWE32's.
Some Sound Blaster 32 PnP with onboard 512kB RAM was sold as AWE32 OEM in Dell computers.
Sound Blaster
The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
AWE32 is an ISA
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
sound card
Sound card
A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
from Creative Technology
Creative Technology
Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singapore-based global company headquartered in Jurong East, Singapore. The principal activities of the company and its subsidiaries consist of the design, manufacture and distribution of digitized sound and video boards, computers and related multimedia, and personal...
. It is an expansion board for PCs
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
. 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.
MIDI capability
MIB
MIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...
EMU8011 sample ROM, and a variable amount of RAM (none on the SB32, 512 KiB on the AWE32; RAM was expandable to 28 MiB
MIB
MIB may refer to any of several concepts:* Master of International Business, a postgraduate business degree* Melayu Islam Beraja, the adopted national philosophy of Brunei* Motion induced blindness, a visual illusion in peripheral vision...
on both cards). These chips comprised a powerful and flexible sample-based synthesis
Sample-based synthesis
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 the saw waves...
system, based on E-mu's high-end sampler systems such as the E-mu Emulator III and E-mu Proteus
E-mu Proteus
The E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured in the late twentieth century.-History:E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable Emulator sampler, and subsequently pioneered sample-based synthesis technology with the Proteus...
. The effects processor generated various effects (i.e. reverb
Reverberation
Reverberation is the persistence of sound in a particular space after the original sound is removed. A reverberation, or reverb, is created when a sound is produced in an enclosed space causing a large number of echoes to build up and then slowly decay as the sound is absorbed by the walls and air...
and chorus
Chorus effect
In music, a chorus effect occurs when individual sounds with roughly the same timbre and nearly the same pitch converge and are perceived as one...
) and environments
Room acoustics
Room acoustics describes how sound behaves in an enclosed space.The way that sound behaves in a room can be broken up into roughly four different frequency zones:...
on MIDI output, similar to the later EAX
Environmental audio extensions
The environmental audio extensions are a number of digital signal processing presets for audio, present in Creative Technology's later Sound Blaster sound cards and the Creative NOMAD/Creative ZEN product lines...
standard on Live! and newer cards. It can also add effects to the output from the Yamaha OPL-3's FM synthesis. The AWE32 was the first sampler to support E-Mu's SoundFont
SoundFont
SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology designed to bridge the gap between recorded and synthesized audio, especially for the purposes of computer music composition...
standard, which allowed users to build custom sound sets using their own samples, the samples included in ROM, or both. The card included software for building custom SoundFonts. All of Creative's subsequent cards, other than the Sound Blaster PCI64/128 series, support SoundFonts.
On the initial release, Creative promoted the EMU8000 as a waveguide
Digital waveguide synthesis
Digital waveguide synthesis is the synthesis of audio using a digital waveguide. Digital waveguides are efficient computational models for physical media through which acoustic waves propagate...
physical modelling synthesis
Physical modelling synthesis
In sound synthesis, physical modelling synthesis refers to methods in which the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed by using a mathematical model, being a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a physical source of sound, usually a musical instrument...
engine, due to its ability to work with delay line
Delay line
Delay line may refer to:* Propagation delay, the length of time taken for something to reach its destination* Analog delay line, used to delay a signal...
s. The option was used mostly as an effect engine for chorus and flanging
Flanging
Flanging is an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, with one signal delayed by a small and gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a swept comb filter effect: peaks and notches are produced in the resultant frequency spectrum,...
effects. Actual physical modeling instruments were not popular on the AWE, although some support exists in the SoundFont
SoundFont
SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology designed to bridge the gap between recorded and synthesized audio, especially for the purposes of computer music composition...
format.
The AWE32 didn't use its MPU-401
MPU-401
The MPU-401, where MPU stands for MIDI Processing Unit, was an important but now obsolete interface for connecting MIDI-equipped electronic music hardware to Personal Computers...
port to access the EMU8000—Creative decided to expose the EMU8000's registers directly, through three sets of non-standard ports, and interpret MIDI commands in software on the host CPU. As with the Gravis Ultrasound
Gravis Ultrasound
Gravis UltraSound or GUS is a sound card for the IBM PC compatible system platform, made by Canada-based Advanced Gravis Computer Technology Ltd...
, software designers had to write special AWE32 support into their programs. To support older software, the AWE32 featured OPL-3 FM synthesis, and came with the AWEUTIL program which attempted to provide GM/MT-32/GS
Roland GS
Roland GS, or just GS, sometimes expanded as General Standard or General Sound, is an extension of General MIDI specification. It requires that all GS-compatible equipment must meet a certain set of features and it documents interpretations of some MIDI commands and bytes sequences, thus defining...
redirection to the native AWE hardware; however, AWEUTIL wasn't compatible with all programs or motherboards due to its use of the non-maskable interrupt
Non-Maskable interrupt
A non-maskable interrupt is a computer processor interrupt that cannot be ignored by standard interrupt masking techniques in the system. It is typically used to signal attention for non-recoverable hardware errors...
(a featured that was omitted or disabled on many clone
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
boards), and it used a lot of precious DOS conventional memory
Conventional memory
In DOS memory management, conventional memory, also called base memory, is the first 640 kilobytes of the memory on IBM PC or compatible systems. It is the read-write memory usable by the operating system and application programs...
. Also, if a game used DOS 32-bit protected mode
Protected mode
In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units...
through a non-DPMI compliant DOS extender
DOS extender
A DOS extender is a computer software program which enables software to run under a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode....
, then the MPU-401 emulation would not function and the EMU8000 would not be used unless directly supported by the software. This did not affect the Creative Wave Blaster
Creative Wave Blaster
The Wave Blaster was an add-on MIDI-synthesizer for Creative Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE32, and AWE64 family of PC soundcards. It was a sample-based synthesis General MIDI compliant synthesizer...
daughterboard
Daughterboard
A daughterboard, daughtercard or piggyback board is a circuit board meant to be an extension or "daughter" of a motherboard , or occasionally of another card...
header. AWE32's usage in Windows was simplified by the fact that Windows 3.1x
Windows 3.1x
Windows 3.1x is a series of 16-bit operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers. The series began with Windows 3.1, which was first sold during March 1992 as a successor to Windows 3.0...
had drivers which made the OPL3 and the EMU8000 appear like any another MIDI peripheral, on their own MIDI interfaces.
The Creative digital audio section was basically an entire Sound Blaster 16
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.-Sound Blaster 16:Sound Blaster 16 , the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced 16-bit digital audio sampling to the Sound Blaster line...
, and as such, was compatible with Creative's earlier sound cards, including Sound Blaster Pro, Sound Blaster 2.0, and the original Sound Blaster (minus the C/MS audio chips.) Its specifications included 16-bit 44.1 kHz AD/DA conversion with real-time on-board compression / decompression and the Yamaha OPL3 FM synthesizer chip. However, compatibility was not always perfect and there were situations where various bugs could arise in games. Many of the Sound Blaster AWE32 cards had codecs which supported bass, treble, and gain adjustments through Creative's included mixer software. There were many variants and revisions of the AWE32, however, and not all of them use the same digital audio chipset and features do vary. For example, the Sound Blaster AWE32 boards that utilize the VIBRA chip do not have bass and treble adjustments, but usually noticeably better signal-to-noise ratio.
Sound Blaster AWE32 Value
The Sound Blaster AWE32 Value was another value-oriented offering. It lacked SIMM slots but featured 512kB onboard RAM and an ASP chip socket.CD-ROM Interfaces
Also on AWE32 was a PanasonicPanasonic
Panasonic is an international brand name for Japanese electric products manufacturer Panasonic Corporation, which was formerly known as Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd...
/Sony
Sony
, commonly referred to as Sony, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan and the world's fifth largest media conglomerate measured by revenues....
/Mitsumi
Mitsumi
is a Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronic components, founded in 1954.-Products:One of the company's most noticeable product lines are video game console controllers...
CD-ROM
CD-ROM
A CD-ROM is a pre-pressed compact disc that contains data accessible to, but not writable by, a computer for data storage and music playback. The 1985 “Yellow Book” standard developed by Sony and Philips adapted the format to hold any form of binary data....
interface (to support proprietary non-ATAPI CD-ROM drives), the Wave Blaster header and two 30-pin SIMM
SIMM
A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...
slots to increase sample memory. Later Sound Blaster AWE32 revisions replaced the proprietary CD-ROM interfaces with the ATAPI interface. The Sound Blaster AWE32 supported up to 28 MB of additional SIMM memory. A maximum of 32 MB could be added to the Sound Blaster AWE32 but the synthesizer could not address all of it (4MB of the EMU8000's address space was reserved for sample ROM).
Sound Blaster AWE32 Model Numbers
The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster AWE32:- CT27**: CT2760
- CT36**: CT3601, CT3602, CT3603, CT3607, CT3631, CT3630, CT3631, CT3632, CT3636, CT3360, CT3660, CT3661, CT3662, CT3665, CT3666, CT3670, CT3680
- CT37**: CT3780
- CT39**: CT3900, CT3910, CT3919, CT3940, CT3960, CT3980, CT3990, CT3991, CT3999
- CT43**: CT4331, CT4332
Sound Blaster 32
Ram
-Animals:*Ram, an uncastrated male sheep*Ram cichlid, a species of freshwater fish endemic to Colombia and Venezuela-Military:*Battering ram*Ramming, a military tactic in which one vehicle runs into another...
, the Wave Blaster
Creative Wave Blaster
The Wave Blaster was an add-on MIDI-synthesizer for Creative Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster AWE32, and AWE64 family of PC soundcards. It was a sample-based synthesis General MIDI compliant synthesizer...
header, and the CSP socket. The boards also used the Vibra digital audio chip which lacked adjustments for bass, treble, and gain. The SB32 had the same MIDI capabilities as the AWE32, and had the same 30-pin SIMM
SIMM
A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...
RAM expansion capability. The board was also fully compatible with the AWE32 option in software and used the same Windows drivers. Once the SB32 was outfitted with 30-pin SIMMs, its sampler section performed identically to the AWE32's.
Some Sound Blaster 32 PnP with onboard 512kB RAM was sold as AWE32 OEM in Dell computers.
Sound Blaster 32 Model Numbers
The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster 32:- CT36**: CT3600, CT3604, CT3605, CT3620, CT3630, CT3640, CT3671, CT3672
- CT39**: CT3930, CT3991, CT3999
- CT43**: CT4330, CT4335, CT4335