Making music on the A\Box
by: Alf Inge Wang at NTNU 

Output
The A\Box comes with four 16-bit CD-quality audio outputs as standard. Who need four audio outputs ? Isn't stereo (two) output enough ? Most high-cost, high-quality synthesizer have four outputs as standard. The reason for this is that you have a lot more flexibility when it comes to mixing sounds when recording (you can control four separated sounds instead of two) and to make special effects. Another useful feature is that four outputs makes it possible to produce two stereo outputs at the same time. This feature can be used to let two players of a game hear different when playing the same game.

Input
A\Box comes with stereo 16-bit CD-quality audio inputs. Because this is A\Box standard hardware, there is no need for buying an additional audio-sampler.

Digital Signal Processor (DSP)
The best part of the A\Box audio system is the built in DSP (FAME). This co-processor makes it possible to mix any number of tracks (only limited by memory space available). As an example you can have separate tracks for every instrument in an orchestra and a possibility to edit each instrument. You can also play all instrument at once and mix them together as professional audio engineers do (adjust volume and equalize each track). All the mixing of tracks is done real-time without use of the main processor. The DSP can also be used to generate sound effects. The A\Box is a ideal platform for creating sound studio software, because of A\Box DSP capacities of real-time mixing, and fast I/O (for hard-disk recording). The DSP (FAME) is also programmable and have almost unlimited possibilities.

FM and AM synthesis
It is not only digitalized sound A\Box can produce. A\Box provides built in FM and AM audio synthesis which makes A\Box a true synthesizer. By using FM and AM synthesis, there is no need for storing amounts of data for defining the sound. The sound is defined through parameters that decide how the audio waves behave. However it is not easy or maybe possible to create all sounds by using FM and AM synthesis.

Easy to expand
Since the A\Box has a PCI-bus, it is possible to use almost all audio hardware available on the marked. The limitation is software support for different audio hardware.

Midi-support
Midi is an acronym for Musical Instrument Digital Interface and is used to connect e.g. synthesizers to computer or to other synthesizers. By using a midi-connection between your computer and a synthesizer you can record what you're playing, save/load sounds, program your synthesizer from your computer etc. Midi can also be used to synchronize video. There is no plans for a build-in Midi-interface in A\Box. This don't need to be a problem, since more and more synthesizer has build-in Midi-interfaces. This means that you only hook your synthesizer to you serial port. There also exist a lot of external Midi-interfaces on the marked. I have personally asked Phase5 to include a Midi-interface, but I haven't received any answer yet.

General
In general digital samples, FM-synthesized sounds and envelope-VCO generated tones can be generated, modified, mixed and output via these freely programmable audio-DMA.

Software
My opinion is that A\Box has a lot of audio power, but my concern is software. If big audio software companies want to support A\Box, A\Box will become an audio workstation. If not... (you can't do much with only audio hardware)