OK time to move on....
I just finished reading the 1st real review of the SBL and the guy was creaming with what he heard. I'll post it below I was also reading that the SBL has 8 chans of 3D but can also add on top more 2d chans that pan so it will sound 3D as well all in CD quality sound... so this card is most likey as fast as CL is telling us, and the hard core A3D people don't sound like there bashing the card so much now. Maybe its just me but i'm really starting to see the 1st hints that this card will be a BIG HIT, the buzz the last few day about this card has gone from 0 3 weeks ago to a main topic in many chat/news rooms also a good sign.
Can things be looking up for CREAF??? Its been so long I forgot what good news from CREAF is like.
OK heres the Pre-Review and then the review.
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SBLive! Product Launch in Singapore! 7th August 19:24 pm
This is incredible. You want to know what the sound card industry's most awaited product launch was like? You've got to hear it straight from the horse's mouth (sorry Clarence!)! 6th August was the date. Creative Resource (International Business Park) was the place. SoundBlaster Live! was the baby!
I've can only reproduce a snippet here, please roll over to Clarence's article from here! It's a long but terribly wonderful read!!!! (Many thanks to Clarence for notifying me!) :
The bulk portion of the demonstration was focused on how well the SBLive! can enhance what you do. The SBLive! isn't limited to future applications. In the past, you had to wait eons after a launch of a hot new product (for example, the 3D graphics card) before applications begin to appear with support for the product.
This is what sets the SBLive! apart. It enhances what you have now, as well as give the software developers a very powerful sound platform, for them to develop even more realistic sound reproduction in future.
"Now" you ask? "But the software I have now doesn't support any form of 3D sound?"
That's where you're wrong! The card can take any input source, be it a movie on DVD, VHS or VCD, your voice, MIDI music, WAV audio and whatever you have, and put in in an environment. That's it, an environment. You can have the freedom to place an orchestra in a sewer pipe (with weird echo effects) or a real concert hall (with very nice reverbs).
And in future, you'll be seeing many more developers jumping onto the bandwagon to enhance the audio experience on the PC. Already more than 100 developers are interested to include support for Environmental Audio in their products. In fact, many developers have found it very easy to add surround code and information to their existing products using EAX, in a matter of a day or two!
I'm drooling at my keyboard as I typed these... sheesh. Am I going to have to junk my A3D card for this anytime soon?
I was the most impressed when a violinist came out, plugged his electric violin and played. It sounded normal and "dry", just like when you hear a violin being played beside you. But when they cranked up the Concert Hall effect I was TOTALLY knocked off my feet! Damn! The violin sounded so good, like it was played in a large concert hall with the revebration still ringing in my ears even after the last note ended. Very cool!
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Review
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Sound Blaster Live! Asia Pacifc Product Launch
Date: Thursday, 6th August 1998
Time: 9am
Place: Creative Resource @ International Business Park, Singapore
There was an air of mystery as the press and members of the industry gathered at the lobby of Creative Technology's HQ. Breakfast was served and everyone waited and finally, we were ushered into the auditorium where Chairman and CEO of Creative, Mr Sim Wong Hoo, began to speak about the SBLive!.
With the launch, Creative has introduced three important items, which might very well shape the future of the sound card industry:
Environmental Audio
EAX (Environmental Audio Extensions)
The SBLive! Product Line
You will see Creative pushing these in their marketing effort, not only to consumers, but to developers as well as computer manufacturers and the OEM market.
Mr Sim recounted his experience when he was in the States with Mr David Rossum, Chief Scientist of E-MU who would later go on to spearhead and develop the EMU10K1 chip in the SBLive! card. He recalled amicably that they were walking along and talking about how to bring out the next generation in PC audio, when there was piped-in music from a speaker in the ceiling and they just walked by. After they left the room and went into another place, they heard some music which made them turn their heads simultaneously towards the source of the sound. It was a someone playing a piano - live. That was the kind of sound he wanted on the next Sound Blaster, Mr Sim said, not the one like the piped-in music they heard earlier. It sounded like speakers. What they wanted was live.
The resonating sound of the piano was awe inspiring and it was this experience Mr Sim and Mr Rossum had, which led to the development of the SBLive!. Their goal? To enable PC users to experience sound which is so real, they'd think that it was right in front of them. Sound is no more flat, no more 2D, no more 2-channels.
The PC audio market was pretty stagnant in 1996 and 1997 after moving on to wavetable sound and 16-bit audio. All of these cards did not provide any realism when it comes to putting you in an environment. The 3D video market has boomed in the past 2 years and made games more realistic, but the sound card market wasn't doing much catching up.
Engineers around the globe in Creative and its subsidiaries (E-MU, Ensoniq, Cambridge) were brought into this project which went on for 2 years, beginning in 1996. And today, SBLive! is finally launched.
The Demo
And what everybody was waiting for. Mr Kevin Shepherdson, resident musician at Creative, proceeded to demo the SBLive!. And boy was it good!
The bulk portion of the demonstration was focused on how well the SBLive! can enhance what you do. The SBLive! isn't limited to future applications. In the past, you had to wait eons after a launch of a hot new product (for example, the 3D graphics card) before applications begin to appear with support for the product.
This is what sets the SBLive! apart. It enhances what you have now, as well as give the software developers a very powerful sound platform, for them to develop even more realistic sound reproduction in future.
"Now" you ask? "But the software I have now doesn't support any form of 3D sound?"
That's where you're wrong! The card can take any input source, be it a movie on DVD, VHS or VCD, your voice, MIDI music, WAV audio and whatever you have, and put in in an environment. That's it, an environment. You can have the freedom to place an orchestra in a sewer pipe (with weird echo effects) or a real concert hall (with very nice reverbs).
And in future, you'll be seeing many more developers jumping onto the bandwagon to enhance the audio experience on the PC. Already more than 100 developers are interested to include support for Environmental Audio in their products. In fact, many developers have found it very easy to add surround code and information to their existing products using EAX, in a matter of a day or two!
Media Player
A very cool looking media player was demonstrated. It can take sound from any of the sources like MIDI, wave, line-in, mic-in, etc. and you click on the Environmental Audio button at the corner of the player to add ambience to the sound, or should I say, to put the sound in an environment. :)
You can change the Environmental Audio presets to things like Room, which has a little less reverb, to a Concert Hall, which has tons of reverb. The ambience it added to the music was amazing.
Music Synthesis
For the polyphony-hungry musicians who keep running out of voices on their 32-voice synthesizers, the SBLive! has 256 voices, of which 64 is provided in hardware by the EMU10K1 and 192 supplied by Creative's PCI Wavetable Synthesis.
They were showing this program with a "voice meter" and you can toggle several parts (piano, bass, drums, guitar, rhythm guitar, brass, percussion, backup, solo and orchestra) in a MIDI file on and off, adding polyphony until it hits the maximum.
Of course, SoundFont is still supported. Now with better effects processing found in more expensive equipment, musicians can take their music to a higher level. With the digital output, you can expect clean recordings.
3D Sound
A interesting Western-inspired demo called Slam Dunk was shown. With 4 people duking it out at four corners of the theater. "Take that!" and a gunshot went from one corner of the room to the other. "Uhhhhh" and the person fell to the ground. This would definitely be great for games.
Another program had sounds like a bee or tiger, and you can drag the icons around you and the sound would be automatically panned among the 4 speakers. Fun!
You can even put the different input sounds at different locations in 3D space, which attests to the flexibility of the routing capabilities of the mixer in the EMU10K1. You can have the CD audio to you far far away on your left, then put the MIDI music behind you, while you can place the microphone to your right.
Textures. Yes! Textures! Not in 3D cards, but sound as well!
An orchestra piece was played with no effects. Very dry, no reverbs and it sounded like it was recorded in a "dead" room like a recording studio.
There were 2 parameters which could be changed, each to varying degrees:
Texture (soft, medium, hard)
Size (small, medium, large)
Selecting a soft wall texture in a small room made the sound cold and just slightly reveberant. Selecting a hard texture with a large size yielded a picture of Taj Mahal with the orchestra sounding very grand.
This demo was more subtle, and showed that the SBLive! was capable of producing intricate details which can affect the sound. Like how the type of walls can affect the sound that is being played in a room.
Sounds from games have been unrealistic as far as the environment is concerned. You only hear wave files being played across the left or right speakers. Now, gamers can know which environment and scenario they are in, just by hearing how their footsteps sound.
Effects Processing
The SBLive! comes with 9 preset effects (reverb, chorus, flanger, echo, pitch shifter, distortion, auto wah, ring modulator and vocal morpher) which can be applied to any sound piped through the SBLive!. Since the EMU10K1 is programmable, you can modify parameters to create the effect that you want.
For example, for the reverb effect, you can modify the decay time, high frequency cutoff, diffusion, density, early reflections, and tons of other parameters to get the desired result. Great for those who like to tweak.
I was the most impressed when a violinist came out, plugged his electric violin and played. It sounded normal and "dry", just like when you hear a violin being played beside you. But when they cranked up the Concert Hall effect I was TOTALLY knocked off my feet! Damn! The violin sounded so good, like it was played in a large concert hall with the revebration still ringing in my ears even after the last note ended. Very cool!
They also tried a wah effect on the electric violin, which made it sound like one of those weird, electronically generated instruments in techno tracks.
Now you don't have to buy those expensive rack-mount effects processing units costing above $1,000. Its inside the SBLive!. :)
Vocal Effects - sound like a Chipmunk!
With the 8-point interpolation of the EMU10K1, you can increase the pitch of a sound, without affecting the tempo. Most professional equipment only feature up to 6-point interpolation. There is a karaoke function which lets you increase or decrease the key to suit your vocal range. The 8-point interpolation is put to good use here, sounding less "robotic", unlike the cheap sound processors used in karaoke LD and VCR players to provide pitch shifting.
Kevin played a singing voice in a sewer environment, and Mr Sim wanted it to be in a bathroom, so he got it! The guy was singing in a bathroom with all those weird effects you get when you sing in the bathroom. :)
To demonstrate an effect called "Microphone - God-like", Mr Sim was asked to speak into a microphone connected to the mic-in of the SBLive! and he said in a deep, resonating voice: "BBUUYYY SSOOOUUNNDD BLLAASSSTEERRR LLIIVEEE!", to the amusement of the crowd.
The Computer Keyboard is also a Music Keyboard!
A software called Keytar (a pun on "guitar") is bundled with the card. They asked to programmer on stage to demo it! Don't ask me how they did it but they had this guitar sling strapped onto a computer keyboard! And this guy just played it like it was a guitar. The key presses on his keyboard was routed to the SBLive!'s MIDI synthesizer which produced the guitar sounds. He also sang a few phrases into the microphone which was enhanced by the effects of the SBLive!.
Quake 2 - no it doesn't support 3D sound, but.....
Yes! What we'd all love. Good old Quake. And how can it be enhanced eith SBLive!, you might ask? Even though Quake 2 didn't have built in support for EAX, you can nevertheless change the environmental settings to "Game 3D - Quake 2" and viola. Quake 2 sounded much more real. The sound of the shotgun rung through the 4-speakers and then echoed inside the room.
The SBLive! includes 15 preset environmental settings for games like World Cup 98, MotorHead and Jedi Knight, with more to be added later.
Unreal
The most spectacular 3D game yet! There is a special edition of Unreal bundled with the card and it makes use of 4-speaker positional audio in the SBLive!. Together with the 3D Blaster Voodoo 2, Unreal was more "real"!
Kevin loaded up a level with a waterfall and keyed in the cheat code "ghost" (he always does that, he said) to enable him to fly. He moved towards the waterfall and you could hear how the sound actually pans around the four speakers when you are facing the waterfall, or when its behind you.
The Hardware To Make It All Come True
Of course, there was mention about things like 100dB (yes, 100dB!), gold connectors, 1000+MIPS and lots of technical stuff which really amazed me. Jump to my hardware specifications page for the SBLive!.
In Closing
But of course, what I am saying here is immaterial. What you have to do is to go down and listen for yourself. Creative has launched a marketing campaign which is 2 times larger than what they've done for their previous Sound Blasters. So expect to see a demo at your neighbourhood in the coming months! And the magazines would be filled with ads, Creative assured.
hardware.s-one.net.sg
sunflower.singnet.com.sg
Adam- |
