The Sound Blaster AWE32 is an

ISA Isa or ISA may refer to: Places * Isa, Amur Oblast, Russia * Isa, Kagoshima, Japan * Isa, Nigeria * Isa District, Kagoshima, former district in Japan * Isa Town, middle class town located in Bahrain * Mount Isa, Queensland, Australia * Mount ...

sound card A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal expansion card that provides input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under the control of computer programs. The term ''sound card'' is also applied to external audio i ...

from

Creative Technology Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singaporean multinational technology company headquartered with overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin, and Silicon Valley (where in the US it is known as Creative Labs). The principal activities of the comp ...

. It is an expansion board for PCs and is part of the

Sound Blaster Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards designed by Singaporean technology company Creative Technology (known in the US as Creative Labs). Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system ...

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.

Sound Blaster AWE32

Backward compatibility

The AWE32's digital audio section was basically an entire

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 (June 1992), the successor to the Sound Blaster Pro, introduced CD-quality ...

, and as such, was compatible with Creative's earlier Sound Blaster 2.0 (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 The OPL (FM Operator Type-L) series are a family of sound chips developed by Yamaha. The OPL series are low-cost sound chips providing FM synthesis for use in computing, music and video game applications. Internal operation The internal operation ...

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 that supported bass, treble, and gain adjustments through Creative's included mixer software. There were many variants and revisions of the AWE32, however, with numerous variations in audio chipset, amplifier selection and design, and supported features. For example, the Sound Blaster AWE32 boards that utilize the VIBRA chip do not have bass and treble adjustments.

MIDI capability

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 E-mu Systems was a software synthesizer, audio interface, MIDI interface, and MIDI keyboard manufacturer. Founded in 1971 as a synthesizer maker, E-mu was a pioneer in samplers, sample-based drum machines and low-cost digital sampling music ...

MIDI synthesizer section. The synthesizer section consisted of the EMU8000 synthesizer and effects processor chip, 1 MB EMU8011 sample ROM, and a variable amount of RAM (none on the SB32, 512 KB on the AWE32; RAM was expandable to 28 MB on both cards). These chips comprised a powerful and flexible

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 ...

system, based on E-mu's high-end sampler systems such as the

E-mu Emulator III The Emulator is a series of digital sampling synthesizers using floppy disk storage, manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1981 until 2002. Though not the first commercial sampler, the Emulator was among the first to find wide use among ordinary mu ...

and

E-mu Proteus The E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems in the late twentieth century. History E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable Emulator sampler, and ...

. The effects processor generated various effects (i.e.

reverb Reverberation (also known as reverb), in acoustics, is a persistence of sound, after a sound is produced. Reverberation is created when a sound or signal is reflected causing numerous reflections to build up and then decay as the sound is abso ...

and chorus) and

environments Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, all living and non-living things occurring naturally * Biophysical environment, the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism or ...

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 OPL3's FM synthesis. The AWE32 was the first sampler to support E-Mu's

SoundFont SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology that uses sample-based synthesis to play MIDI files. It was first used on the Sound Blaster AWE32 sound card for its General MIDI support. SoundF ...

standard, which allowed users to build custom sound sets using their own samples, the samples included in ROM, or both. The card was sold with 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 A waveguide is a structure that guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound, with minimal loss of energy by restricting the transmission of energy to one direction. Without the physical constraint of a waveguide, wave intensities de ...

physical modelling synthesis Physical modelling synthesis refers to sound synthesis methods in which the waveform of the sound to be generated is computed using a mathematical model, a set of equations and algorithms to simulate a physical source of sound, usually a musical i ...

engine, due to its ability to work with delay lines. The option was used mostly as an effect engine for chorus and

flanging Flanging is an audio effect produced by mixing two identical signals together, one signal delayed by a small and (usually) gradually changing period, usually smaller than 20 milliseconds. This produces a swept comb filter effect: peaks and not ...

effects. Actual physical modeling instruments were not popular on the AWE, although some support exists in the

format. The AWE32 didn't use its

MPU-401 The MPU-401, where ''MPU'' stands for MIDI Processing Unit, is an important but now obsolete interface for connecting MIDI-equipped electronic music hardware to personal computers. It was designed by Roland Corporation, which also co-authored the ...

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 In computing, a non-maskable interrupt (NMI) is a hardware interrupt that standard interrupt-masking techniques in the system cannot ignore. It typically occurs to signal attention for non-recoverable hardware errors. Some NMIs may be masked, but ...

(a feature that was omitted or disabled on many clone boards), and it used a lot of precious DOS

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 directly addressable by the processor for use by the operating system ...

. Also, if a game used DOS 32-bit

protected mode In computing, protected mode, also called protected virtual address mode, is an operational mode of x86-compatible central processing units (CPUs). It allows system software to use features such as virtual memory, paging and safe multi-tasking ...

through a non- DPMI compliant

DOS extender A DOS extender is a computer software program running under DOS that enables software to run in a protected mode environment even though the host operating system is only capable of operating in real mode. DOS extenders were initially developed ...

, 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 In computing, an expansion card (also called an expansion board, adapter card, peripheral card or accessory card) is a printed circuit board that can be inserted into an electrical connector, or expansion slot (also referred to as a bus slo ...

header. AWE32's usage in Windows was simplified by the fact that

Windows 3.1x Windows 3.1 is a major release of Microsoft Windows. It was released to manufacturing on April 6, 1992, as a successor to Windows 3.0. Like its predecessors, the Windows 3.1 series ran as a shell on top of MS-DOS. Codenamed Janus, Windows ...

had drivers which made the OPL3 and the EMU8000 appear like any other MIDI peripheral, on their own MIDI interfaces.

CD-ROM interfaces

Also on ''AWE32'' was a

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb s ...

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professional ...

Mitsumi was a Japanese manufacturer of consumer electronic components, founded in 1954. The company was listed on the Tokyo Stock Exchange, was constituent of the Nikkei 225 stock index and provided its products through its subsidiaries in Asia, Eu ...

CD-ROM A CD-ROM (, compact disc read-only memory) is a type of read-only memory consisting of a pre-pressed optical compact disc that contains data. Computers can read—but not write or erase—CD-ROMs. Some CDs, called enhanced CDs, hold both compute ...

interface (to support proprietary non-

ATAPI ATA Packet Interface (ATAPI) is a protocol that has been added to Parallel ATA and Serial ATA so that a greater variety of devices can be connected to a computer than with the ATA command set alone. It carries SCSI commands and responses through t ...

CD-ROM drives), the Wave Blaster header and two 30-pin

SIMM A SIMM (single in-line memory module) is a type of memory module containing random-access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the early 2000s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module (DIMM), the most predominant form of memory ...

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).

Model numbers

The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster AWE32: * CT27**: CT2760, CT2760 Rev3(issues with wavetable db reported) * CT36**: CT3601, CT3602, CT3603, CT3607, CT3630, CT3631, CT3632, CT3636, CT3660, CT3661, CT3662, CT3665, CT3666, CT3670, CT3680 * CT37**: CT3780 * CT39**: CT3900, CT3910, CT3919, CT3940, CT3960, CT3980, CT3990, CT3991, CT3999 * CT43**: CT4330, CT4331, CT4332

Sound Blaster 32

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 Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * Raj ...

, the Wave Blaster header, and the CSP socket. The boards also used ViBRA integrated audio chips, which lacked adjustments for bass, treble, and gain (except ViBRA CT2502). The SB32 had the same

MIDI MIDI (; Musical Instrument Digital Interface) 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 rel ...

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. OPL-3 support varied among the models: the CT3930 came with a Yamaha YMF262 OPL-3 FM synthesis chip, whereas most models feature CQM synthesis either integrated into the ViBRA chip or via an external CT1978 chip. The majority of Sound Blaster 32 cards used ''TDA1517'' amplifiers. Some Sound Blaster 32 PnP with onboard 512kB RAM was sold as AWE32 OEM in Dell computers.

Model numbers

The following model numbers were assigned to the Sound Blaster 32: * CT36**: CT3600, CT3604, CT3605, CT3620, CT3640, CT3670, CT3671, CT3672, CT3681, CT3690 * CT39**: CT3930 * CT43**: CT4335, CT4336

Sound Blaster AWE32 Value

The Sound Blaster AWE32 Value was another value-oriented offering. It lacked SIMM slots and the ASP processor, but featured 512kB onboard RAM and an (empty) ASP chip socket.

References

External links

"Programming the Soundblaster AWE-32"
{{Sound Blaster Creative Technology products Sound cards IBM PC compatibles Computer-related introductions in 1994