The Gravis UltraSound Classic: A Childhood Dream Come True

For many gamers and audiophiles, the Gravis UltraSound is a nostalgic dream come true. This 16-bit ISA board was released in the early 1990s and relied on a somewhat messy software emulation method to pull it off. Despite its limitations, the UltraSound sold decently enough that game developers and Gravis continued to support the card, with around a couple of hundred compatible games and multiple card revisions hitting the market over the next several years.

Our journey begins with the Gravis UltraSound Classic itself, a 16-bit ISA board with a pleasant bright red PCB. The red color scheme was a notable feature of the ATi and Gravis product lines back then, and it's clear that this particular model had been well-loved by its previous owner. The card is accompanied by a plastic package filled with all sorts of paperwork, including a Gravis product registration card, which referred to their distributor in Washington state for US sales.

The packaging also includes ads for related products, such as the Gravis Analog Pro and PC GamePad, as well as games, adapters, and GUS memory upgrade kits. The included documentation booklets are filled with hundreds of pages of instruction manual goodness, covering everything from setting up the card to using the included software, tweaking your PC to achieve ultra-sound quality, and more.

The bundle includes five high-density 3.5" floppy disks containing drivers, demos, MIDI patches, and programs for playing back and recording digital audio, including UltraSound Studio 8. The package also includes an additional component ordered from Gravis, the GUS Software Development Kit version 2.01. This suggests that whoever bought this originally had larger intentions than just gaming.

Let's take a closer look at the card itself. Admire all those connectors, interfaces, and ports - there's the DIP sockets for RAM expansion, a 4-pin compact disc audio interface, and lengthy headers for adding either a CD-ROM controller or a daughterboard for stereo 16-bit recording. At the heart of the GUS is the GF1 chip designed in cooperation with Forte Technologies. It's based on an older Ensoniq chipset, the ES5506 OTTO, most often used in the Ensoniq VFX line of synthesizers from the late 80s.

The I/O panel features mic and audio inputs, a joystick/MIDI interface, line out, and amplified out ports. The previous owner has noted these for us, which is certainly helpful. Installing the UltraSound Classic is quite simple - just take out the Sound Blaster card we had installed, snap the UltraSound Classic in its place, plug in some speakers, and we're ready to go with the software.

I'll be using the 2.04 disks that it came with, which provides a helpful installation menu letting you choose which features of the nearly 17 megabytes of software you'd like to install. Or, I tried to at least - seems the floppy disk didn't quite agree. I was also sent this collection of 2.06 disks and well, those turned out to be even worse. DOS couldn't even get a directory reading.

Thankfully there are plenty of archives online so I wrote my own disks and all was well. After it's installed you'll reach the GUS setup utility to make sure everything's working, with a variety of features being adjusted through software instead of jumpers on the card itself, and if it's working you'll hear plenty of bombastic sound effects.

Finally, you're free to test out the software that it came with, including an incredibly basic MOD player with various sample tracks, like this one from the game Star Control II. You can also test out some MIDI playback capabilities using the included MIDI player and sample files. It's also an example of the card's lack of hardware reverb and chorus effects - you're not gonna have the kind of room-filling, wet MIDI renditions you'd get on a Roland MT-32 or a Sound Canvas.

Finally, there's UltraSound Studio, an incredibly simple and rather clunky audio recording and editing program. Still, I would've found this plenty impressive in 1992, with the ability to quickly record, cut, and mix audio clips together.

This is a test of the Gravis UltraSound Classic's microphone recording capability - it's a simple but effective setup that showcases the card's capabilities.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enGreetings and welcome to an LGR thing! Andtoday’s thing is a legend of ‘90s personalcomputing hardware, the Gravis UltraSound.Affectionately known as the GUS, the UltraSoundwas introduced to the market in late 1992by Advanced Gravis Computer Technology ata listed price of $199.95. And no, the namehas nothing to do with diagnostic sonography,and everything to do with providing MS-DOSand Windows 3.1-based computers with “ultra”levels of sound capability. Specifically,the Gravis UltraSound is a sound card thatnot only provides up to 16-bit, 44.1 kHz stereosound and mixes up to 32 sound channels, butit does so using some impressive sample-basedmusic synthesis, commonly known as “wavetable synthesis.” In other words, insteadof music in games sounding like this......you could havemusic that sounded like this!Not only that,but in some situations the GUS was a cheaperoption than similarly-specced competitors,making it an appealing upgrade option fora time. However, its reputation as a reasonably-pricedwavetable sound card is absolutely not thecase decades later, with classic Sound Blastersremaining relatively cheap and a loose UltraSoundcommonly selling for anywhere from two tofour hundred dollars at the time of this recording.As such I owe a massive thank you to thoseof you who donated all the Gravis productsyou’ll be seeing throughout this video.I’ve been wanting to make this episode eversince I started LGR, so truly, thank you,this would not have happened without yourgenerosity. That being said, there must bea reason for the UltraSound’s continuallyrising price tag and avid fan base, so let’sdive into the history of the card, unbox thisoriginal GUS Classic, and set it up with theLGR Woodgrain 486 and see how it performs.Advanced Gravis Computer Technology was aCanadian company formed in 1982 based in Burnaby,British Columbia. And throughout their firstdecade on the market, computer peripheralswere their bread and butter, largely consistingof input devices for the Apple II, Macintosh,and IBM PC-compatible machines. Things likethe Advanced Gravis Joystick, the AdvancedGravis Super Mouse, and a fascinating combinationdevice, the Gravis MouseStick. But their realclaim to fame, and the first time I heardof Gravis personally, was the legendary GravisGamePad. Introduced in 1991 for the Macintosh,Amiga, Atari ST, and PC platforms, the 4-buttonGamePad was a godsend for computer gamerswho wanted a console-like controller to gowith the increasing number of console-likecomputer games. Especially platformers likePrince of Persia, Commander Keen, Zool, andJazz Jackrabbit, not to mention the growingpopularity of fighters like Mortal Kombatand Street Fighter II which were even moreideal with a controller. And with the GravisGamePad being such an early console-stylegamepad for home computer systems, it soldlike crazy, making Gravis the world’s largestproducer of PC game controllers for a time.But ‘91 was a huge year for Gravis for anotherreason, and that was the Gravis UltraSound,stepping into the limelight with a press releasefrom the 1991 Fall Comdex show in Las Vegas,claiming that it was “the ultimate all-digitalsound solution for IBM PCs. Gravis UltraSoundmatches or exceeds all other PC sound products.”After several delays and lots of hype, itfinally hit the Canadian market in Octoberof 1992, with the US and elsewhere followingin the coming months. It was met with itsfair share of praise, largely due to its hardware-drivenwavetable synthesis, outputting at frequenciesup to 44kHz. And with many sound card ownersupgrading from AdLib and Sound Blaster cardsthat could only play FM synthesized musicwith far fewer instrument channels, movingto the Gravis UltraSound for just under $200was an easy sell. In fact, the GUS could bedownright affordable by comparison. For instance,the Sound Blaster 16 was $349 when it launchedin 1992. And that didn’t even have dedicatedwavetable synthesis, for that you needed tobuy an additional daughterboard upgrade. Andthen by June of 1994, the wavetable-focusedAWE32 was $265, with the original Gravis UltraSoundhaving dropped to $129 by then. Hardware reviewersdirected some well-earned praise towards theGUS, pointing out how impressive its 32-voicewavetable audio could be, but also pointingout drawbacks like a lack of games designedto take advantage of it in its first coupleyears on the market. There was also its subparSound Blaster and FM synth support, makingcompatibility with existing PC games a choredue to it relying on a somewhat messy softwareemulation method to pull it off. Still, theUltraSound sold decently enough that gamedevelopers and Gravis continued to supportthe card, with around a couple hundred compatiblegames and multiple card revisions hittingthe market over the next several years. Speakingof which, let’s go ahead and take a closerlook, starting with this Gravis UltraSoundClassic. And man is this a childhood dreamcome true, just having one of these in mypossession is honestly a bit surreal. Firstup we get the card itself, a 16-bit ISA boardwith a pleasant bright red PCB. Ahh I lovecrimson-colored boards, though it seems likeit was mostly ATi and Gravis that went withred back then. Guess it’s a Canadian thing.Next is a plastic package filled with allsorts of paperwork including a Gravis productregistration card, and this one being soldin the US it referred you to their distributorin Washington state. Next are a couple ofads for related products, like the GravisAnalog Pro and PC GamePad, as well as games,adapters, and the GUS memory upgrade kits.Aw yeah, this was back when you could easilyupgrade the RAM to your sound card and itwas awesome. Then you get several documentationbooklets, with hundreds of pages of instructionmanual goodness covering everything from thesetup of the card, to using the includingsoftware, to tweaking your PC in order toattain sound that is as “ultra” as possible.And while there were multiple bundles availableover time this one came with five high density3.5” floppy disks containing drivers, demos,MIDI patches, and programs for playing backand recording digital audio, including UltraSoundStudio 8. Mine also came with this additionalpackage ordered from Gravis, containing theGUS Software Development Kit version 2.01.So whoever bought this originally had largerintentions than just gaming. Let’s get backthe card itself and admire all those connectors,interfaces, and ports, oh my. From left toright we have DIP sockets for RAM expansion,a 4-pin compact disc audio interface, andsome lengthy headers for adding either a CD-ROMcontroller or a daughterboard for stereo 16-bitrecording. And at the heart of the GUS isa chip known as the GF1, designed in cooperationwith Forte Technologies. It’s based on anolder Ensoniq chipset, the ES5506 OTTO, mostoften used in the Ensoniq VFX line of synthesizersfrom the late 80s. Then on the I/O panel youcan see we have mic and audio inputs, a joystick/MIDIinterface, line out, and amplified out ports,as the previous owner so thoughtfully notedfor us. Getting it installed is quite simple,and we’ll be using the venerable LGR Woodgrain486 running at 66MHz for this one. Just gottatake out the Sound Blaster card I had installed,snap the UltraSound Classic in its place,plug in some speakers and we’re ready togo with the software. I’ll be using the2.04 disks that it came with, which providesa helpful installation menu letting you choosewhich features of the nearly 17 megabytesof software you’d like to install.Or, I tried to at least. Seems the floppydisk didn’t quite agree. I was also sentthis collection of 2.06 disks and well, thoseturned out to be even worse. DOS couldn’teven get a directory reading. Thankfully thereare plenty of archives online so I wrote myown disks and all was well. After it’s installedyou’ll reach the GUS setup utility to makesure everything’s working, with a varietyof features being adjusted through softwareinstead of jumpers on the card itself, andif it’s working you’ll hearplenty of bombastic sound effects.Finally you’re free to test out thesoftware that it came with, including an incrediblybasic MOD player with various sample tracks,like this one from the game Star Control II.You can also test out some MIDI playback capabilitiesusing the included MIDI player and samplefiles. It’s also an example of the card’slack of hardware reverb and chorus effects,so you’re not gonna have the kind of room-filling,wet MIDI renditions you’d get on, say,a Roland MT-32 or a Sound Canvas.Finally, there’s UltraSound Studio, an incredibly simpleand rather clunkyaudio recording and editing program. Still,I would’ve found this plenty impressivein 1992, with the ability to quickly record,cut, and mix audio clips together.-This is a test of the Gravis UltraSound Classic’smicrophone recording capability.\"This is a test of the Gravis UltraSound Classic’smicrophone recording capability.” But that’senough of that, let’s check out some games!And for me there was no question, the firstgame I had to try was Jazz Jackrabbit, thevery title that introduced me to the GravisUltraSound’s existence in the first place.-I don’t know if it’s just me but that sounds... better than I’ve ever heard.Like that right there?Wow. I didn’t think I’d be able to hearthe difference but... good grief, that sounds good.Holy crap!Yeah, that was my legitfirst reaction. I was seriously awestruckby how good this sounded having come fromthe Sound Blaster Pro 2.0. It may not comeacross well depending on YouTube audio compressionand your sound setup, but just listen to these side-by-side.Here’s another title that makes great use of the card, Epic Pinballand well, just listen to this awesomeness.Dude those samples are socrispy and it actually plays more consistentlythan my SB Pro. That’s another GUS plus:with games programmed to take advantage ofit, they’ll not only receive high-qualitysound but you might also get improved performancedue to how things can be mixed on the carditself without taxing your CPU. As an example,playing Descent on this 486 machine with mySound Blaster Pro results in the music irritatinglyspeeding up and slowing down. But with anUltraSound? Nah man, the music continues playingat a more constant tempo, regardless of frame rate.The thing is, while this makes the GUS a solidchoice on lower-end hardware, it is unfortunatelya real toss-up as to whether or not the gameyou want to play fully supports it. Whilehundreds of titles claimed to have GravisUltraSound support, what that actually meanscan vary quite a bit from game to game. Sometimesyou get improved performance and great soundquality when a game has a sound mode specificallybuilt for the GUS, but other times it’sjust wrapping up a General MIDI implementationand mixing audio using your CPU like any ol’random sound card. Also, it’s worth mentioningthat while the GUS Classic is capable of 44kHzstereo sound, it can only output 14 of itspossible 32 channels at that rate. With themaximum number of channels playing back atonce, the quality drops to just 19kHz, sothat’s something to keep in mind when workingwith more involved music. Keeping on the topicof tunes, you might see the program ULTRAMIDcome into play with various games. This programis sometimes required, and often comes with,games that rely on MIDI playback and use theMiles Audio Interface Libraries. How wellthis works depends on how the game loads instruments,how many it uses at once, how much conventionalmemory you have, how much RAM your UltraSoundhas etc. But typically when you see somethingusing ULTRAMID, I found that results weren’texactly optimal, especially on the originalUltraSound Classic with the factory-installed256K RAM on-board.Oh and in case you’re wondering, yesyou can take advantage of MIDI in and out usingsomething like theGravis UltraSound Universal MIDI Connector Box.While the GUS doesn’t provide MPU-401compatibility through hardware, there aresome software solutions like Mega-Em to achievethis. Not only that, but this program alsoallows you to emulate Roland hardware throughsoftware, loading in samples mimicking thesound of those devices. Although good grief,the headaches I went through to get this workingwere all for naught, especially on this 2.4revision of the unexpanded GUS Classic. Itnot only doesn’t have enough RAM to emulateanything close to a full version of GeneralMIDI, but again there are no reverb or choruseffects built-in, and it won’t load allthe custom Roland patches and parameters forall games anyway. Speaking of lackluster emulation,Mega-Em as well as another Gravis programcalled SBOS can attempt to emulate the featuresof a Sound Blaster. This was Gravis’s wayof getting around the card’s lack of OPLsynthesizer chip or Sound Blaster-compatibleDAC, and provide some semblance of compatibilityfor games that don’t support the UltraSound.And while the digital audio emulation is actuallypretty good, the Adlib FM synth portion really, really sucks.That is just sad. I mean,they tried, it’s better than no sound atall I suppose, but wow, it makes Adlib musicsound like an ice cream truck.Just listen to Duke Nukem II here.But all of these positives and negatives so far havemostly revolvedaround commercial software, and the appealof the Gravis UltraSound reached another,far less mainstream audience as well: thedemoscene. In case you’re not aware, thedemoscene subculture is one where programmers,artists, and musicians work together and competeto produce impressive software demonstrations,often pushing the hardware beyond what hadbeen seen before. And much like the CommodoreAmiga computers, the GUS became popular amongdemosceners for its ability to play dozensof custom, simultaneous sound samples withoutoverreliance on the computer’s CPU, leadingto more impressive audio while freeing upresources for intensive graphical effects.And this was extra impressive consideringGravis initially hadn’t published any detailedhardware references for the card. But in 1992the GUS was reverse-engineered by Thomas Pyteland Joshua Jensen, members of the group Renaissanceknown as Tran and CyberStrike, two of themost fantastically 90s handles ever. Oncethe nitty gritty details were freely releasedthrough a text file known as \"Gravis UltrasoundTech Specs: The Unofficial Dox,\" the floodgateswere open, whether Gravis wanted it or not.After the Unofficial Dox spread plenty ofdemos, intros, and software was developedto take advantage, including a boom in trackersoftware like GUSMOD, FastTracker II, andImpulse Tracker.Gravis eventually embraced thisthemselves, releasing their own programmingguides and even partnering with demoscenersto create Gravis demos to display at tradeshows and such. Gravis then continued to updatetheir line up with multiple revisions andnew cards over the years, with the first majorone being the UltraSound Max in 1994, whichdoubled the included RAM to 512K, added multipleCD-ROM interfaces, and a Crystal Semiconductor4231. No need for a daughterboard anymore,now you just had 16-bit recording out of thebox and support for the Windows Sound Systemstandard and improving SB emulation. Nextwas the Gravis UltraSound ACE, or Audio CardEnhancer, in 1995: a cut-down version of theGUS Classic with no game port or recordingability. But the idea was to provide somethingsimilar to the Creative Wave Blaster daughterboardbut on a standalone ISA card you’d installalongside another sound card of choice, soyou could have GUS wavetable synthesis ontop. A neat idea and something you’ll probablybe seeing on LGR again! Another major updatewas the UltraSound Plug n Play in 1995, whichis a total overhaul of the GUS based on theAMD Interwave chip to provide 44kHz playbackat all times, 1MB of sample ROM, and the abilityto address 16MB of RAM. Unfortunately, asawesome and enjoyable as each iteration ofthe GUS can be, Gravis couldn’t really catcha break when going up against the might ofCreative Labs. The UltraSound may have beena cheaper option for a time but Sound Blasterscontinually dominated in terms of overallgame support, advertising, and heavy-handedbusiness moves that left companies like AdvancedGravis Technology in the dust. By the timethe UltraSound had enough game support tomake it more worthwhile to a larger numberof PC users, plenty of other wavetable soundcards and daughterboard upgrades had hit themarket at competitive prices and with hardwaresupport for the Sound Blaster. In one finalcourse correction, Gravis produced the UltraSoundExtreme cards in 1996. It combined the UltraSoundClassic with an ESS AudioDrive chipset tofinally provide hardware Sound Blaster supporton top of wavetable goodness, but it was toolittle too late. Gravis discontinued the UltraSoundline and started fielding acquisition offers,leading to them being bought outright by KensingtonTechnology in January of 1997, falling backto selling input devices under the Gravisbrand into the mid-2000s before bowing outof the market completely. However, while itwas abandoned by the company decades ago,the GUS has been kept alive by fans ever since,with multiple attempts at software emulationthrough emulators like DOSBox, and more recentlya GUS-compatible card known as the ARGUS indevelopment by a bunch of people on VOGONS.And I can see why! I was always a bit mystifiedby these cards before doing this video butnow I think I really get it. For 1992, whatthe Gravis UltraSound was pulling off withsuch high quality sample-based playback? It honestly took me by surprise. It’s a shamethat they couldn’t hold onto that littlebit of an early start because, man, the abilityto load custom samples into its RAM is superversatile and the output is just so clean.Clean in more ways than one, not just in termsof clarity. I experienced very little linelevel noise coming out of it, say, comparedto my Sound Blaster Pro 2.0, 16, or even theAWE32. It just sounds better. At the sametime though, the reality is that the GUS isa card with less than 200 games that nativelysupport what it can do, making it the lessreasonable choice considering there are thousandsof Sound Blaster-focused titles. It is atleast enough for me to want to keep thesecards around and continue to mess with themfor no doubt years to come. And that is absolutelywhat I’m gonna be doing so if you enjoyedthis video perhaps you’d like to stick around,I am sure that this is not the last time aGravis UltraSound of some kind is going toappear on LGR. And once again I wanna thankthose who donated all these devices, as wellas Mr. Jim Leonard and Charles Scheffold forproviding all sorts of really useful informationon first-hand experience with the demosceneand technical specs and all sorts of thingsfrom back in the day. There really is a wealthof information about the UltraSounds out there,which is a testament to how uniquely enjoyablethey can be. But anyway that’s enough forthis timeand as always thank you very much for watching!\n"