The establishment of the MIDI protocol in 1982 enabled independent composers to effectively control the entire recording process from home-based studios and contributed significantly to the sound of the 1980s - from sequenced industrial mixes … [Read more...]

When a sound card records analogue audio, it is converting the sound waveform into digital information and then copying this in real time onto the hard disk. Essentially, it is using the disk as a digital tapeless … [Read more...]

PCI audio chips started to emerge during 1996 and are either integrated on the motherboard or on a card in a PCI expansion slot. By mid-1998 a trend towards PCI cards providing enhanced features for both gaming and music applications had … [Read more...]

Swiss semiconductor company Micronas has developed a technology which could render the sound card obsolete on future multimedia PC systems. Its USB audio controller integrates a DSP, DAC, operation amplifier, and a USB controller into … [Read more...]

While of only indirect relevance to sound cards, a place has to be found somewhere for a technology that took the PC world by storm in the first half of 1999 - and this seems to be the most appropriate. Derived from the original MPEG standard, MP3 - … [Read more...]

In late June 1999, representatives from the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) - comprising more than 100 companies from the music, consumer electronics and information technology industries - announced that they had reached a consensus on … [Read more...]