WHATS NEW? Creative\EMU stated that they will be releasing SBLive! compatible APS drivers sometime this year. Modifying your card will most likely become pointless at that time. In any case, here is some information about modifying your ORIGIONAL SBLIVE FULL or VALUE sound card. All of the APS's IN's and OUT's CAN be accessed on the Live! Most are in digital form and require digital to analog conversion or Analog to digital conversion to be used. Read on to find out more!!!
New topics are: Building a cheap 18 bit ADC, New ways to enable analog outs, 10K1 schematic.
Introduction A friend of mine, who I'll call Mr. X, had some interesting theories about the differences between the SBLive! and the APS. Thank you Mr. X...You KICK ASS!!! After hearing his ideas, I started probing around on my SBLive! and comparing notes with Mr. X . In time, we found the following information.....You may have noticed that not all strips are accessible in the APS mixer. WHY? Well, If you look in the APS mixer under Help\About, you'll see that the Multi-output card (MOC) is reported as "NOT connected". And, depeneding on your card, may show that the Edrive is NOT connected as well. Note, that the Edrive.. IS.. reported as "connected" if you have a SBLIVE Full with the IO card attached. It turns out that on the Live's 10k1 chip, there are pins that can be pulled high or low, that enable or disable the Edrive and MOC functionality in the APS mixer. With Moc and Edrive Functionality enabled, you will find all of the APS's In\Out signals on your Live!. IMPORTANT NOTE: All new In's \ Out's are in digital form except Analog out 7&8. Setting the APS Main output strip to "Analog Out 7&8" will send all sounds to the "rear out" connector on your card - giving you analog output. So all other new-found IO's will require an ADC or a DAC. We'll discuss A to D \ D to A conversions later.
WARNING !!! ........PLEASE READ !!! EXPERIMENT AT YOUR OWN RISK.....This information is intended for EDUCATIONAL purposes only. Please realize that no matter what you do to your LIVE! you'll never create a true APS card...The APS is truely a kick ass piece of hardware!!! Know that, you will DAMAGE your SBLive if you don't know exactly what your doing! This information may contain errors. The modifications require some re-wiring and are only recommended for people with electronics experience and who can afford to experiment with or damage there Live!. Also, you can't be sure, that it will work with next generation drivers, even if your using altered drivers. I assume no responsibility for problems that are associated with these ideas.
Tools Used:
Ohm meter, Soldering iron - with Sharp tip, Magnifying Glass, Oscilloscope (optional), PCI extension card (optional but extremely useful for board testing), Screw drivers, Pocket Knife, Assorted other junk. Parts numbers are mentioned later in this Doc. and may change with time.
Enabeling your Live! for MOC and Edrive Functionality
New: There is now a patch going around that enables MOC and EDRIVE without having to rewire. This re-wire info is left here for educational purposes.
Live! Value : The Live Value can be altered to enable the Edrive and MOC as shown below in Figure 1. Here you'll solder one connection across two 18K resistors and one capacitor. This will pull the two resistors R79 and R81 to the same 3.3V supply for the EMU 10K1 chip (found on C94). These resistors are connected to pins 110 (enable MOC) and 112 (enable edrive) on the EMU 10k1 chip. Remember to check your work before powering up! There are alot of small ground pads that you might accidentally short to. The connections you are making are directly connected to the EMU10k1 chip (pin 110 and 112) and should NOT be shorted to GROUND! See figure 1 to verify where ground SHOULD be found.
Live! Full: When the Digital IO card is connected to the Live Full,
the IO card's built in circuitry already pulls the "Edrive"
pin high, thus enabeling all Edrive-related strips in the APS
mixer. The MOC can also be enabled by making a minor alteration
on the IO board. On the IO board's connector:
Pin 23 enables support for the Edrive, when pulled high.
Pin 24 enables support for the MOC, when pulled high.
(see pin out below)
(See below for a newer rewire method) Note that pin 23 is already pulled high through a 4.7K resistor on the IO board(R17). Pin 24 is pulled to GROUND through a different 4.7K Resistor(R23)..thus disabeling MOC functionality. You'll need to (Disconnect the IO card) and cut\lift or un-solder R23 from ground (see Figure 2). Then solder R23 to R17 (Using the perspective in the photo, you solder top of R17 to top of R23). Both are now pulled high(5V). Verify that you're connection is not shorted to ground (You WILL damage your card if 5V is somehow shorted to ground). Due to a voltage divider circuit between the IO board and Live, you should only read about 3.8 volts on the IO connector pins 23 and 24. You'll have to measure the pin voltage from the bottom of the resistors as shown in the photo's. Top's should read around 5V, bottoms around 3.8V.
New Rewire Method for full owners... Someone thought of an easier way to enable the MOC on the Live! full, by modifying the IO cable. Any IDE Hard Drive cable should work (See the picture of the 40 pin cable below) . First, strip a small section of pin 23's wire (or melt insulator with soldering iron). Then, cut pin 24's wire asshown below. Then solder the sound card end of pin 24's wire to the exposed 23's wire, leaving the other end of pin 24's wire open (not connected). Now, cover your work with tape or something to avoid the wires contacting ground (your computer case). Make sure you check your work and connect the cable as shown in the pic...IO card should connect to the end which has pin 24's wire OPEN.
Pin-out's... for your convenience:
Where to find the IN's and OUT's
Once you Enable the Edrive and MOC you'll have access to ALL of the audio signals (IN's and OUT's) that the APS has to offer. Most of these are in digital form and require an analog conversion in order to be used. Note however, that setting the APS mixer's "MAIN" output strip to Analog out 7&8 will send all audio to S/PDIFO#3 which is already connected to a DAC and routed to your REAR output channel on your SBLive! So you will get analog out without re-wiring any audio signals!!! And you'll still have normal SBLive! driver functionality - i.e. 4 speaker out EAX gaming. Note: there may be a minor issues involving the use of this output. Read the "interesting facts" section below.
ALL of the Input and Output ports below, have been verified and .....THEY ALL WORK !!! In the Future, we'll try to provide more info about good soldering locations on the value, you should not solder directly to the 10K1 !!!! ...NOTE: As with the true APS... Digital out 2 and Analog Out 3&4 share the same channel and cannot be used simultaneously!
| APS Outputs | Live Full location | Value location | Requirements to activate in APS mixer |
| Analog Out 1&2 | i2s digital serial output , pin 9 on 10K1 | pin 9 on 10k1 | No requirements to activate. But to use it, you'll need a DAC,.. ie Crystals CS4390. The corresponding 48KHz Frame sinc is on the 10k1 pin 11. Also, the corresponding 3MHz Bit Clock is on pin 1 of rear out DAC IC labeled 1330A. |
| Analog Out 3&4 | spdif out 1 = pin 19 on IO card | Pin 9 on S/PDIF EXT connector | Moc enabled + D2 must not be in use! |
| Analog Out 5&6......... | spdif out 2 = pin 22 on IO card | Pin 11 on S/PDIF EXT connector | Moc enabled |
| Analog Out 7&8 | spdif out 3 = pin 9 on IO card, and Back speaker output jack | Digital on pin 12 on S/PDIF EXT connector, analog back speaker output jack. | Moc enabled, doesn't require a DAC. |
| Dout1(ecard) | spdif out 0 = pin 17 on IO card | Pin 1 on S/PDIF EXT connector | No requirements to activate. |
| Dout2(edrive) | spdif out 1 = pin 19 on IO cable | Pin 9 on S/PDIF EXT connector | Edrive enabled + AnalogOut3&4 must not be in use! |
| APS Inputs | Live Full location | Value location | Requirements to activate in APS mixer |
| Analog in 1&2 | i2s input , EMU 10k1 pin 8 | i2s input , EMU 10k1 pin 8 | No requirements to activate. But, to use it, you'll need a ADC ..ie Crystals CS5335 which needs 48KHz Frame sinc from 10k1 pin 11 and 3MHz Bit Clock from pin 1 of rear out DAC IC labeled 1330A |
| Analog in 3&4 | i2s input, Pin 35 on IO card | 10k1 pin 106 | Edrive must be enabled, and the corresponding framesinc is SENT to the IO card pin 39, and the bitclk is SENT to the IO card pin 37 and must be synchronous to the 24.586MHz clock found on IO card pin 4. ...see below |
| Spdif in 1(ecard) | cd_spdif input connector | cd_spdif input connector | none |
| Spdif in 2(edrive) | IO card RCA input or pin 15 | S/PDIF EXT connector pin 6? | edrive enabled |
ADC and DAC info
The COOOL thing is that we finally have access to ALL of the INPUTS that the APS has to offer. Here is some info about building an ADC\DAC interface that you can make yourself. These projects use a simple 8 pin, 18 bit Crystal ADC , part number CS5331 found at http://www.cirrus.com/products/overviews/cs5330a.html . You can also use the same 20 bit Crystal ADC's that the APS uses part number CS5335 found at http://www.cirrus.com/products/overviews/cs5334.html . The IC's are around $10.00 per chip and are ordered through various distributers. See http://www.cirrus.com/corporate/contacts/ and download the sales contact PDF file. If the distributer won't let you buy just a few chips, you'll usually have to place a large order ( $100.00 +) ...or....state that you work for a local electronics company and request some samples for FREE. Each CS5335 provides a stereo analog input and an i2s (Inter IC Sound) output, which is what we need for our digital inputs.
Working with i2s signals: i2s uses 3 basic signals to communicate: SDATA, LR CLK, and SCLK. The SDATA signal contains repeating 20 bit digital strings of data that represents audio at some point in time. The LR CLK, sometimes called frame sinc is used to alternately select which channel, left or right, that data is read from or written to in the i2s data stream.. The BIT CLK is the clock for the serial data, it is 48KHz*64 = 3.072 MHz. Also, the converters need a 256*48kHz = 12 MHz or 512*48kHz = 24.576 MHz "master clock" for the conversion process. Both are available to us. Please refer to the PDF files at www.crystal.com for more detailed info on the ADC's.
ADC projects
Below is a working schematic for building 2 analog to digital converters to use for ANALOG IN 1&2 and ANALOG IN 3&4...(Thanks Mr. Y) for more details, see Crystal Semiconductors PDF document for the CS5331 (18 bit ADC). For SBLive FULL owners, it is easiest to build the circuit for Analog IN 3&4 since this converter is ran in master mode and produces it's own timing from the 24 MHz clock from the IO board. More importantly, all of it's connections can be found on the IO card (see the IO card pin out above for those connections..pins 4 , 35, 37, and 39 are all you need). For value owners, you'll need to hunt for the pads that correspond to these 10k1 pins. I didn't use the supply circuit (bottom) or the 7454 buffer (right) from this design and I haven't seen any problems on Analog IN 3&4. Analog 1&2 (which I haven't built yet) may need them how ever. Check out crystal's 5331 PDF file for more info on this circuit ....as well as a clear schematic. I'll try to post a photo of my board in the next update.
Important Pins on the EMU 10K1
The chart below might be redundant but is useful especially for Value owners. Since you don't have the digital IO card, you can see the value's "equivalent pins" to the Live! full's digital IO board connections. Then you can confirm the Resistive loads (if present), and make your connections with confidence. I've found that both my SBLive value and SBLive Full are almost identical aside from a suspected "card type identification EEPROM" and some missing IO board connector circuitry on the Value. Figure 3, (above) shows the 10K1's pin orientation...have fun counting without a Magnifying glass ;-)
| 10K1 Pin | Function | Facts ... (see tables above for more info) | Load to GND on Live Full |
| 8 | Analog in 1&2 in i2s format | Needs an ADC | NA |
| 9 | Analog out 1&2 in i2s format | Needs a DAC | NA |
| 11 | i2s LR CLK (Frame sinc) output, 48KHz | Clock for selecting Left then Right audio data from i2s data stream | NA |
| 12 | i2s 12 mHz master clock | Master clock for ADC's | NA |
| 91,93,94,95 | Connection to issi 823 PROM or EEPROM? (IC not present on Value) | Possibly determines whether card is a Live,Value or APS | NA |
| 103 | i2s FS Frame sync input | IO card pin 39 | 10K Ohms |
| 104 | i2s CLK, i2s serial bit clock input | IO card pin 37 | 10K Ohms |
| 106 | ADCSDO0 i2s audio data input | IO card pin 35 = Analog IN 3&4 in APS mixer | 10K Ohms |
| 107 | ADCSDO1 i2s audio data input | IO card pin 33 = Not implimented on APS or Live! yet | 10K Ohms |
| 108 | ADCSDO2 i2s audio data input | IO card pin 31 = Not implimented on APS or Live! yet | 10K Ohms |
| 110 | Enables MOC | IO card pin 24 | 18K Ohms |
| 112 | Enables Edrive | IO card pin 23 | 18K Ohms |
| 132, 133, 134 | i2s IN Connector on Live full (Missing connector on Value - circuitry is present though) | SDATA, Bit Clk, LR ClK, Doesn't seem to correlate with any APS IO's .. yet! | NA |
| Non-10k1 pins | Function | Facts | Load to GND |
| IC 1330A pin 1 | i2s BIT CLOCK = 3MHz | I used this 3MHz clock found on the rear channel's DtoA converter for the i2s BIT CLK. | NA |
Interesting facts\issues (Outdated)
Stuff I've noticed since enabling the MOC:
1. Pulling pins 23 & 24 high (to enabling the Edrive and MOC)
seems to enable some "software switch" becuase I can un-plug
pins 23 and 24, and I still have all features enabled, until I :
reboot, or open help\about. I wonder if this "switch"
could be set to "permanantly ON" or just disable the
"check" all together? Please let me know if you have
ideas.
2. Snapshots involving MOC in the main output
strip do not work....If I select "Analog Out 5&6"
or "Analog Out 7&8" for the Main output strip and
then access Help\About and listening to the full EMU logo WAV, my
mixers "snapshot" suddenly changes back to some default
snapshot where the Master Output Strip is not what I selected.
Not listening to the full "EMU wave" doesn't cause a
problem. And, other outputs that I select are fine (after I close
the "Help\about" screen). A FIX is to don't open Help\about
or better yet use Moc settings in the aux bus strip and rote
everything to it. I think this is a problem with the real APS Moc
as well.
3. Can't save snapshots with Moc in the main out strip (related
to above problem). I get the error: "Invalid File or file
not exist error. I just save my snapshots without the Moc setting
and change it when needed. Again you can save moc settings in the
Aux bus.
4. There is now a Product Registration Number that says: "yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy"
in help\about. ???
5. The is an PROM (Hopefully an EEPROM) on the Live full that may
be resposible for telling the 10K1 and\or the drivers, whether
your card is a Live FULL, LiveValue or an APS. It would be VERY
interesting to read that EEPROM - if it is one!
7. The round gain buttons on the top of the A1&A2 strips are difficult to implemented but could probably be used with the Volume control IC, CS3310 from Crystal semiconductor.
Conclusion:
It appears that the Live! and APS are more alike than we thought! More information after the new APS drivers are released!
PS : Please, don't burn your Live up!.....or your house down.....it'll make us look bad! ;-)
Helpful Links:
Crystal Devices - DAC's and
ADC's
Fortune City - Origional Rewire info.. Excellent Resource -
pinouts and more
Kick ass Blaster
- running 2 Lives together.. Excellent APS driver resource
EMU - Home of the APS