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Soundfonts
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. SoundFont is a trademark, registered trademark of Creative Technology, Creative Technology, Ltd., and the exclusive license for re-formatting and managing historical SoundFont content has been acquired by Digital Sound Factory. Starting in the late 2010s, the derived term ''soundfont'' has gradually gained online colloquial status to refer to chiptune – specifically the soundscape of a console's sound chip. Any video game console that utilizes sequenced audio is often referred as having "the [console] soundfont", similar to the usage of wikt:Coke#Noun, Coke to refer to any soft drink. Additionally, it can also refer to a video game's audio data that specifically uses Video game music#Early digital synthesis and sampling, reusable digital samples. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Creative Labs
Creative Technology Ltd., or Creative Labs Pte Ltd., is a Singaporean multinational electronics company mainly dealing with audio technologies and products such as speakers, headphones, sound cards and other digital media. Founded by Sim Wong Hoo, Creative was highly influential in the advancement of PC audio in the 1990s following the introduction of its Sound Blaster card and technologies; the company continues to develop Sound Blaster products including embedding them within partnered mainboard manufacturers and laptops. The company also has overseas offices in Shanghai, Tokyo, Dublin and the Silicon Valley. Creative Technology has been listed on the Singapore Exchange (SGX) since 1994. History 1981–1996 Creative Technology was founded in 1981 by childhood friends and Ngee Ann Polytechnic schoolmates Sim Wong Hoo and Ng Kai Wa. Originally a computer repair shop in Pearl's Centre in Chinatown, the company eventually developed an add-on memory board for the Apple II ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audio Software
Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound * Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum * Digital audio, representation of sound in a form processed and/or stored by computers or digital electronics *Audio, audible content (media) in audio production and publishing * Semantic audio, extraction of symbols or meaning from audio * Stereophonic audio, method of sound reproduction that creates an illusion of multi-directional audible perspective * Audio equipment Entertainment * AUDIO (group), an American R&B band of 5 brothers formerly known as TNT Boyz and as B5 * ''Audio'' (album), an album by the Blue Man Group * ''Audio'' (magazine), a magazine published from 1947 to 2000 * Audio (musician), British drum and bass artist * "Audio" (song), a song by LSD *"Audios", a song by Black Eyed Peas from ''Elevation'' Computing * HTML audio, identified by the tag See ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Audio Codecs
An audio codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream (a codec) that encodes or decodes audio. In software, an audio codec is a computer program implementing an algorithm that compresses and decompresses digital audio data according to a given audio file or streaming media audio coding format. The objective of the algorithm is to represent the high-fidelity audio signal with a minimum number of bits while retaining quality. This can effectively reduce the storage space and the bandwidth required for transmission of the stored audio file. Most software codecs are implemented as libraries which interface to one or more multimedia players. Most modern audio compression algorithms are based on modified discrete cosine transform (MDCT) coding and linear predictive coding (LPC). In hardware, audio codec refers to a single device that encodes analog audio as digital signals and decodes digital back into analog. In other words, it cont ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mac OS
Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. in a succession of two major series. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the classic Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded Mac OS in 1997, was pre-installed on every Macintosh until 2002 and offered on Macintosh clones shortly in the 1990s. It was noted for its ease of use, and also criticized for its lack of modern technologies compared to its competitors. The current Mac operating system is macOS, originally named Mac OS X until 2012 and then OS X until 2016. It was developed between 1997 and 2001 after Apple's purchase of NeXT. It brought an entirely new architecture based on NeXTSTEP, a Unix system, that eliminated many of the technical challenges that the classic Mac OS faced, such as problems with memory management. The current macOS is pre-installed with every Mac and receives a major update annually. It is the basis of Apple's current syst ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Windows
Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sectors of the computing industry – Windows (unqualified) for a consumer or corporate workstation, Windows Server for a Server (computing), server and Windows IoT for an embedded system. Windows is sold as either a consumer retail product or licensed to Original equipment manufacturer, third-party hardware manufacturers who sell products Software bundles, bundled with Windows. The first version of Windows, Windows 1.0, was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs). The name "Windows" is a reference to the windowing system in GUIs. The 1990 release of Windows 3.0 catapulted its market success and led to various other product families ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Linux
Linux ( ) is a family of open source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an kernel (operating system), operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically package manager, packaged as a Linux distribution (distro), which includes the kernel and supporting system software and library (computing), libraries—most of which are provided by third parties—to create a complete operating system, designed as a clone of Unix and released under the copyleft GPL license. List of Linux distributions, Thousands of Linux distributions exist, many based directly or indirectly on other distributions; popular Linux distributions include Debian, Fedora Linux, Linux Mint, Arch Linux, and Ubuntu, while commercial distributions include Red Hat Enterprise Linux, SUSE Linux Enterprise, and ChromeOS. Linux distributions are frequently used in server platforms. Many Linux distributions use the word "Linux" in their name, but the Free ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Yamaha XG
Yamaha XG (Extended General MIDI) is an extension to the General MIDI standard, created by Yamaha Corporation, Yamaha. It is similar in purpose to the Roland GS standard. Features Relative to General MIDI, XG gained popularity by increasing the number of available instruments from 128 to 480 with an additional 11 drum kits and introduced a large set of standard controllers and parameters that composers could employ to achieve greater subtlety and realism in their compositions. The XG also has a synthesizer that provides a 32/64 note polyphonic feature which is shared through the supported 16 MIDI channels. XG has a wide range of sounds to form such complex chords and produces a wide variety of lower synthesizer sounds to choose from. A subset known as "XGlite" is featured in most of Yamaha's lower-end electronic keyboard products such as the List of Yamaha products, PSR/PortaTone line. It features a reduced set of 361 instruments (381 in some models) and greatly simplified ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roland GS
Roland GS, or just GS, sometimes expanded as General Standard or General Sound, is a 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 instrument tones, controllers for sound effects, etc. In addition to the simpler General MIDI standard, GS defines 98 additional tone instruments, 15 more percussion instruments, 8 more drum kits, 3 effects (reverb/chorus/variation) and some other features. The Roland SC-55 was the first synthesizer to support the GS standard. History The GS extensions were first introduced and implemented on Roland Sound Canvas series modules, starting with the Roland SC-55 in 1991. The first model supported 317 instruments, 16 simultaneous melodic voices, 8 percussion voices and a compatibility mode for Roland MT-32 (although it only emulated it and lacked programmability of original MT-32) and gained explosive popularity ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vibrato
Vibrato (Italian language, Italian, from past participle of "wikt:vibrare, vibrare", to vibrate) is a musical effect consisting of a regular, pulsating change of pitch (music), pitch. It is used to add expression to vocal and instrumental music. Vibrato is typically characterized in terms of two factors: the amount of pitch variation ("extent of vibrato") and the speed with which the pitch is varied ("rate of vibrato"). In singing, it can occur spontaneously through variations in the larynx. The vibrato of a string instrument and wind instrument is an imitation of that vocal function. Vibrato can also be reproduced mechanically (Leslie speaker) or electronically as an Audio signal processing, audio effect close to Chorus (audio effect), chorus. Terminology History Descriptions of what would now be characterised as vibrato go back to the 16th century. However, no evidence exists of authors using the term vibrato before the 19th century. Instead, authors used various descrip ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pulse-code Modulation
Pulse-code modulation (PCM) is a method used to digitally represent analog signals. It is the standard form of digital audio in computers, compact discs, digital telephony and other digital audio applications. In a PCM stream, the amplitude of the analog signal is sampled at uniform intervals, and each sample is quantized to the nearest value within a range of digital steps. Alec Reeves, Claude Shannon, Barney Oliver and John R. Pierce are credited with its invention. Linear pulse-code modulation (LPCM) is a specific type of PCM in which the quantization levels are linearly uniform. This is in contrast to PCM encodings in which quantization levels vary as a function of amplitude (as with the A-law algorithm or the μ-law algorithm). Though ''PCM'' is a more general term, it is often used to describe data encoded as LPCM. A PCM stream has two basic properties that determine the stream's fidelity to the original analog signal: the sampling rate, which is the number of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Read-only Memory
Read-only memory (ROM) is a type of non-volatile memory used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be electronically modified after the manufacture of the memory device. Read-only memory is useful for storing software that is rarely changed during the life of the system, also known as firmware. Software applications, such as video games, for programmable devices can be distributed as ROM cartridge, plug-in cartridges containing ROM. Strictly speaking, ''read-only memory'' refers to hard-wired memory, such as diode matrix or a #Solid-state ROM, mask ROM integrated circuit (IC), that cannot be electronically changed after manufacture. Although discrete circuits can be altered in principle, through the addition of Jump wire, bodge wires and the removal or replacement of components, ICs cannot. Correction of errors, or updates to the software, require new devices to be manufactured and to replace the installed device. Floating-gate ROM semiconductor ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
