Gravis UltraSound (GUS)

The PC sound card of the 1990s tracker scene: a wavetable card with its own sample RAM and hardware voices, which is why tracker changelogs list "GUS" as a feature, why ST3's panning command is a GUS command, and why 1995 songs were sized to the card's memory. Everything below is what the wiki's sources say about it; the card's own documentation is not ingested.

In the trackers#

• Version logs: scream-tracker-3 3.01 beta (1994-04-18) — "S3M format, 16 channels, GUS, Adlib"; fasttracker-2 2.00 (November 1994) — "32ch, Multisample, Envelopes, GUS, XM format"; the leaked FT2 2.08 (1997) had "broken GUS support" (source: s-tracker-history-notes).
• ST3's S8x is a 16-step GUS hardware pan (ST 3.2, GUS only; S80 left, S88 middle, S8F right), played correctly only by 3.2+ on a GUS — Sound Blaster Pro owners entered it blind and checked in a player (sources: s-st3-manual, s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips; see stereo-panning).
• impulse-tracker: a GUS plays 32 channels (an AWE32 30); quality rises as active channels drop — 14 channels give 44.1 kHz with 16-bit interpolation; 16 pan positions against 256 on Interwave/AWE32; Ctrl-G reloads the GUS samples (source: s-it-manual). The manual's "64 channels at 45454Hz" for the SB16 against "32 channels at 19kHz" for the GUS compares CPU software mixing with the card's hardware limit (source: s-tw044-impulse-tracker-trivia); trixter's correction of the idea that several streams could be uploaded to multiply channels: the data cannot reach the GF1 fast enough even with DMA, the CPU still mixes everything ("not even a Pentium is that fast"), and the GUS MAX's 48 kHz part is a daughterboard that bypasses the GF1 and behaves like a plain stereo DAC (source: s-tw044-hornet-ratings).
• Pulse's perfect-loop method starts by turning the GUS loop off and reloading the sample so the whole waveform is present; Nacho Segura warns that some Gravis patches misbehave in chords (source: s-it-hints; see sample-looping).
• Users: Chuck Biscuits could not use FastTracker 1 once he had a GUS; ST3 3.20/3.21 crashed on his GUS MAX but ran on an old v2.2 GUS (source: s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits); Zapper began composing seriously on "ProTracker 4 GUS" after buying the card around 1992 (source: s-tw027-interview-zapper; see protracker). More owners from the traxweekly interviews: thehacker bought one in August 1993 before he knew a scene existed, and Popcorn (April 1995) called it "the soundcard to have if you are involved in the PC demo / music scene. At least for the moment" (source: s-tw005-interview-thehacker); leinad's was "sponsored by Gravis", but his Amiga 500 gave "a lot better sampling quality" (source: s-tw002-interview-leinad); ryan-cramer returned his first GUS because "nothing seemed to really work with it", used a Sound Blaster Pro, bought a GUS again and owned two (MAX and standard) by 1995 (source: s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer); big-jim's ladder was Logitech Soundman 8-bit → SB16 → 512 KB GUS (source: s-tw013-interview-big-jim); acidfrog ran a GUS MAX in a 386DX40 with a mixer, CD player, tape deck and turntable feeding it (source: s-tw044-interview-acidfrog; see recording-samples); deus-ex got "flack" in 1995 Toronto for using a GUS with FastTracker (source: s-tw034-interview-deus-ex); zinc owned "just an ACE" and lived near Gravis's headquarters (source: s-tw060-interview-fisherman); clef was buying a GUS PnP in April 1996 so that making his own samples became possible, meanwhile running IT on an SB16 (source: s-tw055-interview-clef); Cosmic/RR had a "Gravis Ultrasound V2.4 with 16bit daugtherboard" (source: s-tw090-interview-cosmic); mental-floss's live rig cross-faded one PC with a GUS Classic against the main one with "a GUS PnP/8 megs" (source: s-tw119-interview-mental-floss; see live-tracking).
• Not everyone had one: lord-pegasus went PC speaker → Sound Blaster 1.0 → SB16, "why no gus? I dunno" (source: s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus); master-of-darkness started on a donated SB16 in February 1995 (source: s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness); zalt had no card at all in his IBM PS/2 — "all soundcards are really expensive" for it — and went "to friends' places with Gravis" (source: s-tw040-interview-zalt); vegas used a Pro Audio Spectrum 16 (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas); claim's cheap Sound Blaster Pro clone made ST3 "either mono or stereo with swapping" and drove him to FT2 (source: s-tw015-interview-claim; see stereo-panning).
• The AWE32 alternative: blaze-runner's chain was FT2 (configured as an SB16) → AWEplay, which drives the AWE32 natively with reverb and chorus → the card's digital out → DAT; "the GUS users laugh at the AWE … they also have to hear the AWE32 used by someone who knows it"; X-Tracker (D-Lusion) supported the AWE32 natively (source: s-tw008-interview-blaze-runner). balrog (January 1996) would replace the GUS with a card with "a fast programmable DSP, loads of mem and digital outs (sounds like the AWE32)" (source: s-tw042-interview-balrog).
• A mid-1996 objection relayed by kal-zakath was that IT's NNAs "reduce GUS sound quality"; vegas could not judge it on his PAS16 (source: s-tw062-interview-vegas) — the manual's own figures supply the mechanism, since on a GUS the playback rate falls as active channels rise (source: s-it-manual; see new-note-actions).
• Jason Diamond's 1995 tracker wish list began with "GUS and SB support" (source: s-tw032-tracker-survey); MOD4WIN's native GUS support under NT (1996) is on Maz's list of the scene's "revolutionary" moments, and by 1997 Gravis had "closed their soundcard division" (source: s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate).

Memory and song size#

• basehead's songs averaged about 512 KB "cuz i have a 512 GUS"; his larger songs were made on a Sound Blaster Pro with software mixing (source: s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position).
• perisoft's card had 1024 KB "that thinks it has 512" (source: s-tw011-interview-perisoft); zinc (May 1996): "the GUS PnP has a hardware limit of 8megs!" (source: s-tw060-interview-fisherman) — the "GUS PnP/8 megs" of Mental Floss's 1998 rig above; khyron (1997) would put no tracked music on a label demo CD because "working with a 1 meg GUS doesn't leave much room for all 44.1k samples (i've done MIDI stuff with 18 megs used up on my K2000 before)" (source: s-tw111-interview-khyron; see commercial-tracking).
• A GUS ACE "can't sample, it has no recording abilities", so vicious bought sample CDs (source: s-tw031-interview-vicious; see recording-samples).
• Purple Haze (1996): modules should play on a stock SB16 / SB32 / PAS or a 1 MB GUS, or the listeners blame the tracker (source: s-tw070-realism-debate; see realism-in-tracked-music).
• Necros: doubling a track on both sides wastes channels and muddies non-GUS mixes (source: s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips).
• GUS .pat patches were a legitimate sample source — the "Second Reality" marcato strings are marcato.pat (source: s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate; see sample-ripping); openmpt still loads GUS PAT samples (source: s-openmpt-manual-samples).

Audio quality#

Cowboy (1996) measured the GUS as the card with the least distortion in playback and recording — S/N 72 dB at 50 Hz to 81 dB at 8.5 kHz — with the AWE32 "a CLOSE second" (source: s-tw066-sound-recording; see recording-samples).

History#

Popcorn got "a modem and a Gravis Ultrasound" for his 15th birthday and was on the Internet from December 1994 (source: s-tw011-how-to-enhance-your-music-collection); Ganja Man dates the PC's first 8- and 16-channel demos to "pre-GUS infiltration" (source: s-tw064-potted-tracking-history).

Related#

impulse-tracker · scream-tracker-3 · fasttracker-2 · protracker · stereo-panning · sample-looping · recording-samples · tracker-scene-history · trixter · new-note-actions · live-tracking · commercial-tracking · traxweekly

Sources#

s-tracker-history-notes · s-st3-manual · s-it-manual · s-it-hints · s-tw044-impulse-tracker-trivia · s-tw044-hornet-ratings · s-tw003-interview-chuck-biscuits · s-tw027-interview-zapper · s-tw027-interview-basehead-lotus-position · s-tw070-realism-debate · s-tw012-advanced-tracking-tips · s-tw024-sample-ripping-debate · s-tw066-sound-recording · s-tw011-how-to-enhance-your-music-collection · s-tw064-potted-tracking-history · s-tw032-tracker-survey · s-tw114-commercial-tracking-debate · s-openmpt-manual-samples · s-tw005-interview-thehacker · s-tw002-interview-leinad · s-tw007-interview-ryan-cramer · s-tw013-interview-big-jim · s-tw044-interview-acidfrog · s-tw034-interview-deus-ex · s-tw060-interview-fisherman · s-tw055-interview-clef · s-tw090-interview-cosmic · s-tw119-interview-mental-floss · s-tw018-interview-lord-pegasus · s-tw027-faces-in-the-crowd-master-of-darkness · s-tw040-interview-zalt · s-tw062-interview-vegas · s-tw015-interview-claim · s-tw008-interview-blaze-runner · s-tw042-interview-balrog · s-tw011-interview-perisoft · s-tw111-interview-khyron · s-tw031-interview-vicious