I spend some of my time answering other peoples questions, mainly the ones showing up on the SBLive mailing list. So, to prevent other people from asking them again and to show off my in-dept wisdom, I'm collecting them at this page. On the other hand, I'm not creative support. If I'm wrong in any answer and you make a wrong decision based because of that, I'm not responsible!

Anyways, I hope you find at least some useful information. I also intend to update this page more often, but that's certainly not a promise...

	Q: How can I get 1:1 recordings with the SPDIF input?
	A: Sorry. For a lot of reasons it just isn't possible with this card.

	Q: Can I use the APS drivers with my SBLive?
	A: Yes, you can (atleast with v1.1 drivers). However, you can only use it with the SPDIF in/out. The analogue ports on the card goes silent. A description on how to install the drivers can be found here and here. However, if you are a brave person who don't hesitate to perform surgery on your soundcard, here's a page that describes how to modify your card to enable those ports again.

	Q: What is an APS?
	A: The APS (or Audio Production System) is a product made by EMU systems. It is based on same chipset as the SBLive. Check it out at EMU's homepage.

	Q: Can I get digital I/O on my SBLive Value?
	A: Yes, there is a connector on the card named SPDIF_EXT which has one TTL level SPDIF in and four similar outs. There's also a CD SPDIF input connector on the card which accepts a normal SPDIF signal. Depending on the device you are connecting the SPDIF out to, you may not need to convert the signal levels from TTL to SPDIF. Another option is to buy hoontechs expansion card or Creatives announced optical SPDIF expansion card.

	Q: What's the difference between the SBLive synth A and B?
	A: There's no difference. It's just divided into two synths so that you can use 16 (A) + 16 (B) = 32 midichannels at the same time. They both use the same Soundfont memory and the same soundbanks (ie. you don't have to load banks into synth A and B separately).

	Q: What is the I/O card in the SBLive (not value) package for?
	A: The I/O card has connectors for coax SPDIF in and out, midi in and out (not real midiports though, you need two special cables and I hear that in the US, Creative only bundles one...) and a special digital multi-output connector for future use. Keep in mind that the same midiport is available in the joystick port, provided you have the standard joystick-to-midi-cable. A little spin-off effect of this is that you can use both the joystick port midi and the expansion bracket midi at the same time.

	Q: How can I record a sound from a CD?
	A: There are two ways of getting a sound from a cd into your computer. The most accurate one is to use a "grabber" application which is able to read audio cds digitally and save the result as .wav-file. In this case the sound data "travels" through the IDE or SCSI connection. Also, this requires a CDRom capable of doing this. It seems most older ones aren't... If you are running Windows 98 and has a cdrom capable of reading CDA, there's an addon that will make your life (or atleast your audio grabbing) so much easier. The other way is to sample the audio output of the CDRom (which could come as an analogue signal (common) or as a SPDIF digital signal (not so common) ). This would give the same result as recording the signal from an ordinary cd player attached externally to the card.

	Q: Is there no way to enable the analogue ports when using the APS drivers?
	A: Actually, there is. This page describes how to modify your card to get those ports working again. Although, you have to perform some advanced surgery on your card to get this working... and if you fail, it's your problem...

	Q: I've heard the SBLive only uses 13 bits when sampling, is this true?
	A: In a sense, it is true. When recording, you will find that the noisefloor is around 74-76 dB's. If you do some maths you'll find that only 13 bits are required to recreate a dynamic range of 76 dB's. The remaining 3 bits "contain" noise and can be truncated. This behaviour is caused by poor circuit design. However, you will get ordinary 16 bit soundfiles when recording!

	Q: Why can't I use v1.5 of the APS drivers?
	A: Because they check if you have a real APS card or not. If not, they won't run. On the other hand, a crack for these drivers recently appeared and it seems to work fairly well.