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he most sophisticated synthesizer they supported sierra chose to use most of the mt 32 s custom features and unconventional instrument patches producing background sound effects e g chirping birds clopping horse hooves etc before the sound blaster brought digital audio playback to the pc many game companies also supported the mt 32 but supported the adlib card as an alternative because of the latter s higher market base the adoption of the mt 32 led the way for the creation of the mpu 401 roland sound canvas and general midi standards as the most common means of playing in game music until the mid 1990s feature evolution edit this section does not cite any sources please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources unsourced material may be challenged and removed may 2024 learn how and when to remove this message early isa bus sound cards were half duplex meaning they could not record and play digitized sound simultaneously later isa cards like the soundblaster awe series and plug and play soundblaster clones supported simultaneous recording and playback but at the expense of using up two irq and dma channels instead of one conventional pci bus cards generally do not have these limitations and are mostly full duplex sound cards have evolved in terms of digital audio sampling rate starting from 8 bit 11025 hz to 32 bit 192 khz that the latest solutions support along the way some cards started offering wavetable synthesis which provides superior midi synthesis quality relative to the earlier yamaha opl based solutions which use fm synthesis some higher end cards such as sound blaster awe32 sound blaster awe64 and sound blaster live introduced their own ram and processor for user definable sound samples and midi instruments as well as to offload audio processing from the cpu later the integrated audio ac 97 and later hd audio prefers the use of a software midi synthesizer for example microsoft gs wavetable sw synth in microsoft windows with some exceptions d for years sound cards most notably the sound blaster series and their compatibles had only one or two channels of digital sound early games and mod players needing more channels than a card could support had to resort to mixing multiple channels in software even today the tendency is still to mix multiple sound streams in software except in products specifically intended for gamers or professional musicians crippling of features edit main article crippleware as of 2024 sound cards are not commonly programmed with the audio loopback systems commonly called stereo mix wave out mix mono mix or what u hear which previously allowed users to digitally record output otherwise only accessible to speakers lenovo and other manufacturers fail to implement the feature in hardware while other manufacturers disable the driver from supporting it in some cases loopback can be reinstated with driver updates 12 alternatively software such as virtual audio cable can be purchased to enable the functionality according to microsoft the functionality was hidden by default in windows vista to reduce user confusion but is still available as long as the underlying sound card drivers and hardware support it 13 ultimately the user can use the analog loophole and connect the line out directly to the line in on the sound card however in laptops manufacturers have gradually moved from providing 3 separate jacks with trs connectors usually for line in line out headphone out and microphone into just a single combo jack with trrs connector that combines inputs and outputs outputs edit the number of physical sound channels has also increased the first sound card solutions were mono stereo sound was introduced in the early 1980s and quadraphonic sound came in 1989 this was shortly followed by 5 1 channel audio the latest sound cards support up to 8 audio channels for the 7 1 speaker setup 14 a few early sound cards had sufficient power to drive unpowered speakers directly for example two watts per channel with the popularity of amplified speakers sound cards no longer have a power stage though in many cases they can adequately drive headphones 15 professional sound cards edit main article audio interface a pair of professional rackmount audio interfaces professional sound cards are sound cards optimized for high fidelity low latency multichannel sound recording sound playback and or gaming their drivers usually follow the audio stream input output protocol for use with professional sound engineering and music software e professional audio interfaces often have industry standard inputs in addition to analogue audio in this case adat tdif and s pdif professional sound cards are usually described as audio interfaces and sometimes have the form of external rack mountable units using usb firewire or an optical interface to offer sufficient data rates the emphasis in these products is in general on multiple input and output connectors direct hardware support for multiple input and output sound channels as well as higher sampling rates and fidelity as compared to the usual consumer sound card 16 on the other hand certain features of consumer sound cards such as support for 3d audio hardware acceleration in video games or real time ambiance effects are secondary nonexistent or even undesirable in professional audio interfaces citation needed the typical consumer grade sound card is intended for generic home office and entertainment purposes with an emphasis on playback and casual use rather than catering to the needs of audio professionals in general consumer grade sound cards impose several restrictions and inconveniences that would be unacceptable to an audio professional consumer sound cards are also limited in the effective sampling rates and bit depths they can actually manage and have lower numbers of less flexible input channels 17 professional studio recording use typically requires more than the two channels that consumer sound cards provide and more accessible connectors unlike the variable mixture of internal and sometimes virtual and external connectors found in consumer grade sound cards citation needed sound devices other than expansion cards edit integrated sound hardware on pc motherboards edit in 1984 the first ibm pcjr had a rudimentary 3 voice sound synthesis chip the sn76489 which was capable of generating three square wave tones with variable amplitude and a pseudo white noise channel that could generate primitive percussion sounds the tandy 1000 initially a clone of the pcjr duplicated this functionality with the tandy 1000 tl sl rl models adding digital sound recording and playback capabilities many games during the 1980s that supported the pcjr s video standard described as tandy compatible tandy graphics or tga also supported pcjr tandy 1000 audio in the late 1990s many computer manufacturers began to replace plug in sound cards with an audio codec chip a combined audio ad da converter integrated into the motherboard many of these used intel s ac 97 specification others used inexpensive acr slot accessory cards from around 2001 many motherboards incorporated full featured sound cards usually in the form of a custom chipset providing something akin to full sound blaster compatibility and relatively enough quality sound however the sound blaster compatibility features were dropped when ac 97 was superseded by intel s hd audio standard which was released in 2004 again specified the use of a codec chip and slowly gained acceptance as of 2011 most motherboards have returned to using a codec chip albeit an hd audio compatible one and the requirement for sound blaster compatibility has been relegated to history some lower cost integrated sound cards may create some sound distortion as their electromagnetic shielding circuits may be cost down integrated sound on other platforms edit many home computers have their own motherboard integrated sound devices commodore 64 amiga pc 88 fm 7 fm towns sharp x1 x68000 bbc micro electron archimedes atari 8 bit computers atari st atari falcon amstrad cpc later revisions of the zx spectrum msx 18 mac and apple iigs workstations from sun silicon graphics and next do as well in some cases most notably in those of the macintosh iigs amiga c64 sgi indigo x68000 msx falcon archimedes fm 7 and fm towns they provide very advanced capabilities as of the time of manufacture in others they are only minimal capabilities some of these platforms have also had sound cards designed for their bus architectures that cannot be used in a standard pc several japanese computer platforms including the msx x1 x68000 fm towns and fm 7 have built in fm synthesis sound from yamaha by the mid 1980s by 1989 the fm towns computer platform featured built in pcm sample based sound and supported the cd rom format 18 the custom sound chip on amiga named paula has four digital sound channels 2 for the left speaker and 2 for the right with 8 bit resolution f for each channel and a 6 bit volume control per channel sound playback on the amiga was done by reading directly from the chip ram without using the main cpu most arcade video games have integrated sound chips in the 1980s it was common to have a separate microprocessor for handling communication with the sound chip sound cards on other platforms edit melodik sound card with the ay 3 8912 chip for the didaktik zx spectrum with fuller soundbox turbo sound board manufactured by nedopc revision a the earliest known sound card used by computers was the gooch synthetic woodwind a music device for plato terminals and is widely hailed as the precursor to sound cards and midi it was invented in 1972 certain early arcade machines made use of sound cards to achieve playback of complex audio waveforms and digital music despite already being equipped with onboard audio an example of a sound card used in arcade machines is the digital compression system card used in games from midway such as mortal kombat ii on the midway t unit hardware the t unit hardware already has an onboard opm ym2151 fm chip coupled with an oki msm6295 dac but said game uses an added on dcs card instead 19 the card is also used in the arcade version of midway and aerosmith s revolution x for complex looping music and speech playback g msx computers while equipped with built in sound capabilities also relied on sound cards to produce better quality audio there were sound cards called msx music and msx audio for the system which used opll and opl1 chipsets respectively the moonsound created by sunrise swiss uses an opl4 sound chip the apple ii computers which did not have sound capabilities beyond rapidly clicking a speaker until the iigs could use plug in sound cards from a variety of manufacturers the first in 1978 was alf s apple music synthesizer with 3 voices two or three cards could be used to create 6 or 9 voices in stereo later alf created the apple music ii a 9 voice model the most widely supported card however was the mockingboard sweet micro systems sold the mockingboard in various models early mockingboard models ranged from 3 voices in mono while some later designs had 6 voices in stereo some software supported use of two mockingboard cards which allowed 12 voice music and sound a 12 voice single card clone of the mockingboard called the phasor was made by applied engineering the zx spectrum that initially only had a beeper had some sound cards made for it examples include turbosound 20 other examples are the fuller box 21 22 and zon x 81 23 24 the commodore 64 while having an integrated sid sound interface device chip also had sound cards made for it for example the sound expander which added an opl fm synthesizer contrary to popular belief the pc 98 series of computers do not have any integrated sound and their default configuration is a pc speaker driven by a timer like their ibm pc cousins sound cards were made for the c bus expansion slots that these computers had most of which used yamaha s fm and psg chips and made by nec themselves although aftermarket clones can also be purchased and creative did release a c bus version of the sound blaster line of sound cards for the platform external sound devices edit devices such as the covox speech thing could be attached to the parallel port of an ibm pc and fed 6 or 8 bit pcm sample data to produce audio also many types of professional sound cards take the form of an external firewire or usb unit usually for convenience and improved fidelity sound cards using the pc card interface were available before laptops and notebook computers routinely had onboard sound most of these units were designed for mobile djs providing separate outputs to allow both playback and monitoring from one system however some also target mobile gamers usb sound cards edit usb sound card usb sound cards are external devices that plug into the computer via usb they are often used in studios and on stage by electronic musicians including live pa performers and djs djs who use dj software typically use sound cards integrated into dj controllers or specialized dj sound cards dj sound cards sometimes have inputs with phono preamplifiers to allow turntables to be connected to the computer to control the software s playback of music files with vinyl emulation the usb specification defines a standard interface the usb audio device class allowing a single driver to work with the various usb sound devices and interfaces on the market mac os x windows and linux support this standard however some usb sound cards do not conform to the standard and require proprietary drivers from the manufacturer cards meeting the older usb 1 1 specification are capable of high quality sound with a limited number of channels but usb 2 0 or later are more capable with their higher bandwidths uses edit the main function of a sound card is to play audio usually music with varying formats monophonic stereophonic various multiple speaker setups and degrees of control the source may be a cd or dvd a file streamed audio or any external source connected to a sound card input audio may be recorded sometimes sound card hardware and drivers do not support recording a source that is being played non sound uses edit sound cards can be used to generate output arbitrary electrical waveforms as any digital waveform played by the soundcard is converted to the desired output within the bounds of its capabilities in other words sound cards are consumer grade arbitrary waveform generators a number of free and commercial software allow sound cards to act like function generators by generating desired waveforms from functions 25 there are also online services that generate audio files for any desired waveforms playable through a sound card sound cards can also be used to record electrical waveforms in the same way it records an analog audio input the recording can be displayed by special or general purpose audio editing software acting as an oscilloscope or further t...
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