Crystal CS-9233 / CS-9236
The CS9233 and CS9236 were Crystal Semiconductor's later ISA-based wavetable synthesis chips, introduced in 1997.
|
Released | 1997 |
| Bus | ISA 16-bit | |
| FM Synth | None | |
| Sample Range | Up to 44.1 kHz | |
| Packages | 144-pin TQFP (CS9233) or 44-pin TQFP (CS9236) | |
| Standards | General MIDI | |
| Plug & Play | Yes | |
| See Also |
The CS9233 was originally the Dream SAM9233. Dream S.A. (Digital Research of Electronic and Acoustic Music) was a French company that started in 1987, specialising in DSPs. For ths CS9233, Crystal entered into a technology partnership to rebrand and market the Dream 9233 as the Crystal CS9233.
It's a GM (General MIDI)-compatible wavetable synthesis chip with reverb and chorus. No DAC. Requires DOS initialisation for the MPU-401 (UART mode) to work in Windows.
Usually coupled to a 1 MB or 4 MB wavetable sample ROM such as CS4110 or CS4111, with 128 melodic instruments and 47 percussion sounds, as it has no built-in memory for sample storage.
Its ROM soundfont is typical of old 1 and 2 MB ROMs. This is covered also in my Wavetable Audio page under Crystal/Dream SAM9233.
The CS9233 and CS9236 were designed to interface directly with the CS423x family of multimedia audio controller/codec chips.
The CS9233 can be found on the following sound cards and wavetable daughterboards:
- Aztech CS9233 wavetable card
- Terratec Maestro 16/96 and 32/96
- Terratec WaveSystem Professional SOWT-24
- Terratec MiniWave System SOWT-12 and SOWT-11
- Orchid NuSound PnP 32
- Oksori WS32
- Ad Lib ASB 64 Wave Pro 4D IDE
- AOpen AW32 Pro
- Formosa AudioStar Wave (daughterboard)
- IBM Aptiva S-W1/C Wavetable card
- Zoltrix Audio Plus 3200 AV500
- Zoltrix Audio Plus 3200 V2 AV305
- Dream PW-32 Pro
- Powerwave
- Shark Multimedia Tsunami
- QVision MidiStar/GS
Revisions
I have no revision information for the CS9233 or CS9236.
Competition
To check out what the CS9233 and CS9236 went up against, read my Wavetable Audio page for an extensive list.
In the Media
Setting it Up
Downloads
CS9233 Datasheet |
CS9236 Datasheet |
