Creative Labs Soundblaster AWE32

The latest SoundBlaster from Creative Labs benefits from Emu synthesis power. Steven Helstrip checks it out and finds a PC soundcard with a bit more class...

There have been many developments in the PC arena this year, but none quite so interesting as the Advanced WaveEffects 32 (AWE32). Up until now, Creative Labs have been associated mainly with the games industry and have set many standards there; however, the AWE32 is a card with more class, superseding its many predecessors, and will probably find a home in the PCs of many home recording enthusiasts.

By taking on board the EMU8000 synthesiser chip, the AWE32 provides full General MIDI and GS compatibility, support for Emu's SoundFont technology, a custom DSP to allow digital effects including reverb, chorus and QSound to be applied to samples, and extensive tools for editing them, all for little more than £200.

Not surprisingly, the hardware is a full‑length 16‑bit AT card and is supplied with eight high‑density disks of utilities and applications to take advantage of its potential, many of which are highly processor intensive; I would recommend at least a 486SX/25 with 8Mb RAM minimum to use them effectively. A fast hard drive is also important because the system records direct to disk, not into RAM.

The card has three CD‑ROM interfaces, to support Mitsumi, Panasonic and Sony drives, as well as a CD audio input. Other audio sources are input via two mini stereo jack connectors on the back plate, for line and mic. The only downfall I can see is the lack of a digital I/O port, limiting the card's use within a professional environment.

Samples for the GM synth are stored in 1Mb of ROM, which may give you some indication of their quality; a further 28Mb of RAM can be added with standard SIMMs, allowing you to download 'SoundFonts' or user definable samples to be accessed through MIDI software.

The installation process gave me no problems, kindly setting up my CD‑ROM drive, Windows drivers and applications with the minimum of fuss, and providing the option to leave out any application not required. There is a wide range of software included in the bundle, and not all of it is aimed solely at the musician. For example, there's a voice recognition package, a text‑to‑speech system and HSC Interactive — a multimedia authoring tool. The AWE32 tries to address all aspects of digital music production and, apart from the comprehensive sample editing tools, Cakewalk Apprentice, a cut‑down version of its older brother Cakewalk Professional, is included as part of the package.

Ensemble AV

EnsembleAV is made up of three rack components and resembles a home hi‑fi system. From here you can play .Wav files, MIDI files, and audio CDs; it's gimmicky but looks flash. Any component can be hidden from view and playlists are easily assembled for each. To make you feel more at home, there's also a 'floating' remote handset, so you can operate the system from the comfort of your favourite word processor or spreadsheet.

EnsembleAV has the facility to record samples directly from CD and sync to the start point of a selected track. Samples can be recorded in an 8‑ or 16‑bit linear format at a selectable 44.1KHz, 22.05KHz or 11.025KHz sampling rate, in mono or stereo. The AWE32 also employs several compression techniques, including CCITT A‑Law and ADPCM, which reduce a sample to 4‑bit without losing too much quality.

Samples can also be recorded within Soundo'LE, or from within the WaveStudio. Soundo'LE is a small, 'pocket‑sized' recorder which, as the name suggests, is an OLE (Object Linking and Embedding) application. This allows samples, among other things, to be dragged into other applications for editing without the need to load duplicate files.

The Mixer

The mixer, in effect, is a primitive 12‑channel console which can be called up at any point to set recording levels, input gain and pan position for each audio source, whilst the DSP provides control over treble and bass settings. If you like flashing lights, you'll be pleased to see there's a spectrum analyser; it responds to the audio signal around 300ms too late, but it looks good. Honest.

Editing Samples

WaveStudio has been vastly improved since earlier releases and now allows samples too large to load into RAM to be 'virtualised'. This means that a sample, which could be anything up to 40Mb in size for a typical 3‑minute, 30‑second track, can be drawn graphically on screen to be edited. When a file has been loaded, two waveforms are drawn: a preview, which displays the whole sample, and a waveform, which can be zoomed into, allowing accurate cuts to be made.

Using the tools from the 'Special' menu, it is easy to create a fade in/out, alter the phase of a channel, add echo, swap channels and insert silences to name just a few possibilities. The AWE32, just like every other card in its class, is only capable of playing two channels of wave audio, but using the paste/mix facility, it is possible to mix two stereo tracks into one stereo pair. It is tricky to synchronise two tracks in this way, but given time and a lot of patience, it can be done. I was quite surprised to find so many useable features in such a low‑cost package, and at the same time find them reliable and easy to use.

The GM Synth

The synthesizer is based on the EMU8000 chip providing 32‑note polyphony with 16‑part multitimbrality and is accessible through any Windows‑ or DOS‑based sequencer. As with other low‑cost GM modules, don't expect your ears to orgasm when you hear the demo, because it just doesn't happen, especially in this case.

The sounds are very weak, some more than others. The pianos, organs and woodwind instruments are among the best of the crop, leaving strings, basses and percussion requiring a lot of attention. The harpsichord resembles a banjo more than anything else, and the timbales have been done away with all together, replaced with timpani as a poor substitute. Taking the cost of the unit into account, however, you can hardly grumble.

There are three banks of sounds to choose from within the AWE32 control panel: General MIDI, GS and MT32 emulation. The preset banks only determine the way in which instruments and drum kits are mapped out; a further 128 user banks allow you to download samples to be accessed via Emu's SoundFont technology.

To maintain backwards compatibility with earlier SoundBlaster products, Yamaha's OPL3 FM synthesizer has also been incorporated, and can be addressed as a separate synthesizer.

Soundfonts

SoundFonts are what Emu have named their collection of over 6Gb of samples, which will become available (at a price) to the end user. To take advantage of this technology, it is necessary to install extra RAM on the sound card, up to a maximum of 28Mb, with SIMMs. When I reviewed the AWE32, I only had access to Alpha software, limiting me to downloading only two samples from a primitive DOS‑based utility. Creative Labs are currently developing the Windows equivalent, which will not limit its use to just two samples, and which is expected to be available around the end of June.

Only mono, 16‑bit, 44.1kHz samples can be downloaded to RAM. Once samples, or SoundFonts, have been downloaded to the card, they can be played via a MIDI keyboard or sequencer as a new bank of sounds. The software under development will make it possible to create keyboard splits and layers, to provide the functionality of a fully‑specified sampler boasting 32‑voice polyphony and the ability to apply effects.

In the review kit supplied, there were several banks of SoundFonts, including Ethnic sounds and Special Effects consisting mainly of barking dogs and breaking glass. At this stage, samples are played back in their entirety, and simple parameters such as sustain and release time cannot be applied.

Conclusion

The AWE32 takes care of many aspects of audio production, bringing very affordable direct to disk recording, sampling, digital editing and GM/GS synthesis to the PC. The card's biggest potential lies in the SoundFont technology, and given Creative's track record, will most likely become a standard in the PC market place, leading to more advanced and powerful software from developers before the year is out. When the software becomes available, check it out.