SOUND BLASTER MCV LATEST INFORMATION ==================================== This file contains information that is not available during the printing of the manual. Please read all the sections before you proceed with any installation procedure . This file contains the following sections: 1. Hard Disk Installation 2. Set Sound Environment 3. PLAYCMF Music Player 4. MIDI Files 5. Maximum Sampling Rates For Packed Voice Files 6. Corrections in User Reference Manual 7. Trouble Shooting For Installing Windows 3.1 Drivers 1. HARD DISK INSTALLATION This section is for user having a CD ROM drive. If you have an audio CD disc in your CD ROM drive, please remove it first before you start to install the Sound Blaster MCV software. 2. SET SOUND ENVIRONMENT To help certain Sound Blaster MCV software, such as VOXKIT and FMORGAN, to locate their driver, you must enter following line at DOS prompt: (assuming that your Sound Blaster MCV software is installed in Drive C:) SET SOUND=C:\SB If your Sound Blaster MCV software is installed in other drive, just change "C:" in the line to other drive name. The installation program will add this line in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file. Refer to your DOS manual for more information on using the "SET" command. 3. PLAYCMF MUSIC PLAYER PLAYCMF.EXE is a FM music player program that plays ".CMF" music files. Before running PLAYCMF.EXE, you must first load Sound Blaster MCV's FM Music Driver - SBFMDRV.COM. SBFMDRV.COM is a memory resident driver that is found in the root directory of the FM Intelligent Organ Disk. It is copied to the \SB sub-directory. Usage: PLAYCMF music-filename [/Q] [/S="command-line"] Where: "music-file" is the .CMF file to play /Q : set quiet screen mode /S : execute the DOS command-line specified. You may play a music in the background and use the "/S=" paramter to "Shell" to execute another program. We enclosed some .CMF songs for you as samplers. Watch out for more .CMF songs, Sing-Alongs and other applications that are coming on the way. 4. MIDI FILES When playing MIDI files with MMJBOX, a warning message in a dialog box may appear. The message is only an indication of whether the MIDI file conforms to Microsoft MIDI standard. Even if the file conforms to the standard, the message may still appear if the code defined by Microsoft is not indicated in the MIDI file. Please ignore the message if the MIDI files created conforms to the standard. For more information on how to indicate the code in your MIDI files, refer to the "Microsoft Windows Software Developer Kit". For a start, you can try out the MMJBOX application with the MIDI file CANYON.MID which can be found in your Windows directory. We enclosed some MIDI files for you as samples in the sub-directory \SB\MIDI. These MIDI files are created to support the MIDI MAPPER and they comply fully to the Multimedia PC rules. When you use MMJBOX in WINDOWS 3.1 to play these files, make sure that your MIDI MAPPER is set to either the SBMCV EXT FM or SBMCV BASIC FM. Using it with SBMCV ALL FM will cause the song to sound "cluttered". Refer to the manual for more information on MIDI file format and MIDI Mapper. 5. MAXIMUM SAMPLING RATES FOR PACKED VOICE FILES Sound Blaster MCV implements some compression schemes for voice files. These allow space-savings of 2, 3 or 4 times, depending on the scheme used ( 2:1, 3:1 or 4:1 compression, respectively ). This diversity in compression schemes results in different maximum sampling rates for each scheme. The valid sampling rates are as follows: 8-bit (uncompressed) 4 KHz - 44.1 KHz 2:1 compression 4 KHz - 12 KHz 3:1 compression 4 KHz - 13 KHz 4:1 compression 4 KHz - 11 KHz As a result of these limits, you cannot pack voice files that have sampling rates outside these bounds. Attempting to do so will cause the VOXKIT program to generate a "file cannot be packed" error. 6. CORRECTIONS IN USER REFERENCE MANUAL a: In Appendix D (page 71 - 72), there are some corrections in the Adapter Description File. All 6 occurences of "0338h-0339h" should be replaced by "0388h-0389h". b: In the chapter "TALKING PARROT" (page 22) Line 12 should read : "voices with VEDIT.EXE and save into ....". c: On page 3, the line "USA Technical Support Line ....." should read: "USA Technical Support Line: (408) 982 6622 7. TROUBLE SHOOTING FOR INSTALLING WINDOWS 3.1 DRIVERS If you are having problems installing the drivers, here are some things to check before you call Technical Support. a. If you installed Windows 3.1 using the "Express Installation," Windows scanned your hard disk for programs to be installed. As a result, older versions of the Jukebox were installed if they were on your hard disk at the time of installation. Please remove these icons. To do this, click on the icon once to select it, then press the delete key. Windows will ask you for confirmation. Repeat for each icon. b. Open the Driver applet in Control panel. You should at least have the following driver names in the Installed Drivers list: Creative Sound Blaster *** MIDI Synthesizer Creative Sound Blaster *** Wave and MIDI MIDI Mapper Timer [MCI] CD Audio ;this is only for owners of CD-ROM drives [MCI] MIDI Sequencer [MCI] Sound where *** correspond to the type of card you are haveing. If one or more of these drivers do not exist, you must install the driver(s) using the Driver applet in Control Panel (See the Windows manual for more details). c. Check your SYSTEM.INI by choosing RUN from the File menu of the Program Manager, and typing SYSEDIT in the command line box. Examine the [drivers] and [sndblst.drv] sections. They should look something like this: [drivers] Timer=timer.drv Midimapper=midimap.drv MIDI=sbfm.drv Wave=sbmcvsnd.drv MIDI1=sbmcvsnd.drv [sndblst.drv] port=220 int=7 dmachannel=1 d. Check your WIN.INI by choosing RUN from the File menu of the Program Manager, and typing SYSEDIT in the command line box. Search for the [SoundBlaster] section. If they exist, delete the whole section. They should look something like this: [SoundBlaster] Port=220 Int=7 DMA=1 e. If Windows refuses to install a device driver or you get the error message "Device not found" when playing a Wave or MIDI file or a CD, be sure you have the following settings in the [mci] section of SYSTEM.INI [mci] WaveAudio=mciwave.drv Sequencer=mciseq.drv CDAudio=mcicda.drv ;this is only for owners of CD-ROM drives If one or more of these do not exist, you must install the driver(s) using the Driver applet in Control Panel (See the Windows manual for instructions). Do not type in the entries into the SYSTEM.INI because the files have to be installed into your SYSTEM directory by Windows. f. If you have installed "Wired for Sound Pro", check in your WIN.INI file for the [Sound API] section. Please ensure that "Device=4" is listed and not "Device=3, 2 or 1". They should look something like this: [Sound API] Device=4 ********* End of README *********