The SoundscapeDB is an

Ensoniq Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid-1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally Sampler (musical instrument), samplers and synthesizers. Company history In spring 1983, former MO ...

-designed and produced

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 re ...

daughtercard 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 ...

designed to interface with the "

Waveblaster The Wave Blaster was an add-on MIDI-synthesizer for Creative Sound Blaster 16 and Sound Blaster AWE32 family of PC soundcards. It was a sample-based synthesis General MIDI compliant synthesizer. For General MIDI scores, the Wave Blaster's wa ...

" pin header available on many older sound cards. It was released in 1994. During the early 1990s, Creative Labs created the Waveblaster connector for their Sound Blaster 16 sound cards. This connector would be for their

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 i ...

upgrade daughtercard, which they also called the Waveblaster. Other sound card manufacturers took advantage of this and put the connector on their cards as well, and many manufacturers also began developing their own upgrade daughtercards. Ensoniq's daughterboard (DB), the SoundscapeDB, is basically a Soundscape S-2000 with the digital sound reproduction section removed. It was simply the MIDI synthesizer (

sample-based synthesizer 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 i ...

) of the full Soundscape. The DB contained an Ensoniq OTTOR2 synthesizer chip, a Motorola 68EC000 controller, and a 2 MB patch set ROM. Ensoniq switched to a "revised and improved" 1 MB ROM patch set in a

cost-cutting Cost reduction is the process used by companies to reduce their costs and increase their profits. Depending on a company’s services or products, the strategies can vary. Every decision in the product development process affects cost: design i ...

move on a later revision of the board.

Specifications

* 1 MB or 2 MB (depending on revision) compressed patch set

ROM Rom, or ROM may refer to: Biomechanics and medicine * Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient * Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac * R ...

* 32 Simultaneous Voices, 32 Note

Polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, h ...

, 16 Channels * 128 General MIDI Instruments, 61 Drum Programs * Full Soundscape

CD Quality The compact disc (CD) is a digital optical disc data storage format that was co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. In August 1982, the first compact disc was manufactured. It was then released in Octo ...

Sound * SoundscapeDB is compatible with sound boards equipped with 26-pin expansion connector. Including: ** Creative Labs, Inc. - Sound Blaster 16, Sound Blaster 16 BASIC, Sound Blaster 16 ASP, Sound Blaster 16 SCSI-2, AWE32 ** AZTECH Labs, Inc. - Sound Galaxy NX Pro 16, Sound Galaxy Pro 16 Extra ** Also compatible with many REVEAL and Packard Bell multimedia products.

References

* Ensoniq Corp. Soundscape S-2000 Manual, Ensoniq, 1994.
''Ensoniq Corp. Web Site''
by Ensoniq Corp., Multimedia Division Product Information and Support Pages, 1998, retrieved December 25, 2005

by Ensoniq Corp., Multimedia Division Product Information and Support Pages, 1997, retrieved December 27, 2005 * Prince, Bobby. "In Search Of The Ultimate... Wavetable Daughtercard." ''Computer Gaming World'' Dec. 1994: p.156-164. {{Creative Technology Sound cards