Eddie's sound engine features unique, rich sound with lots of bells and whistles:

A/D converter and reading from Ensoniq® data register not implemented.

The n-sonic sound engine offers GS sound through the Mac speaker. The custom sound mixer is capable of combining up to 32 channels into one (mono) or two (stereo) sound channels in a fraction of the time the Mac toolbox would be able to:

Active Channels Sound Manager 3.1 n-sonic proprietaryn-sonic w/ voice cancelation (@ optimum)
17%7%7%
750%23%16%
15n/a35%22%
32n/a55%34%

Your mileage may vary.

Note: the Ensoniq can play 32 voices only with significant loss of sound quality (hiss) unless the software maps oscillators to output channels in a very special way. The GS Toolbox therefore only supports 15 simultanous voices. The n-sonic sound component always plays all 32 channels at maximum quality. Why bother with less?

If you're ready for the real challenge, connect your Mac to a Dolby Surround Pro Logic amplifier, lean back and enjoy. With n-sonic and SonicScape-3D, GS software can now address up to 4 distinct output channels (left, right, rear, center) instead of only two (left and right). Even though the GS supports up to 8 channels, third party sound hardware never supported more than 2 (delivering stereo output). With n-sonic software emulation things have changed for the better!

Note: in order to make use of SonicScape-3D, GS software must be capable of addressing channels 1 thru 4. If your music software supports only stereo output, sounds will play only left&right. Eddie's Rear Channel Automapping is capable of dynamically redirecting certain voices to the rear channel.

SonicSense makes your CPU smile

is Eddie's CPU saver because it shuts down sound emulation when GS software does not make use of the sound hardware. SonicSense operates in three modes:

Quick sleep reduces sound emulation overhead as much as possible. When sound is turned on again, the n-sonic recovers immediately.

When being in deep sleep mode, the n-sonic is shut down completely which means that sound emulation eats zero CPU resources. When sound is turned on again, the n-sonic is back at work within microseconds.

Further Information

For more info on the n-sonic sound engine, contact Henrik Gudat of Synergetix and Fast Eddie Labs.

Legalese

n-sonic Copyright 1996 by Fast Eddie Labs and Synergetix. Written by Henrik Gudat. Specifications are subject to change without notice. Mac, Apple II, GS, Ensoniq, Dolby Surround Pro Logic are (registered) trademarks of their respective holders.