emusonacid!

hello everyone,

i have bit of a stupid question. i've been making music for four years, mainly d'n'b. i started out with software (yuck), bought an akai s6000 and some small mixers this summer. now i realize i miss something. i miss z-planes, lotsa cc's (wich akai doesn't provide) etc... my question is: does the e4 ultra's really sound that phat? should i swap my akai for it? i really want the holy z-planes, but does emu sound that crisp and clear for drums and breakz like akai does? is it possible to produce badass wicked tunes without lots of outboard gear, cause that's also a problem i have with mr. akai s6k. it's like i have to polish my mix a lot afterwards. i really don't have the money for both so please guys help me out. thx. h/w for ever!

Akias sound sort of dirty. It's almost as if everything ran through them sound like they are band passed or something.

The emu is considered on of the best for basses. One guy on here uses it for pads, god knows how, My pads always sound... stupid.

I have actually just finished a song using nothing but the emu and cubase to do some slight and I mean slight eqing afterward and the song sounds great... for my skill level anyway. In the end, I only had to shelf the track by 1 db at like 4k. I had to do very little work eq wise for the song. I did put alot of effort into making the track. I was avoiding using compressors and stuff and did something quite insane, but it worked out well. So, yeah, I would think it's possible to make a decent choon using only the emu. I did in my opinion.

As for drums... They sound fine. Very clean. I think they sound meatier through an emu then akia though.

My suggestion is to supplement the Akia with an Emu. Get the best of both worlds.

snh

I think it's common knowledge that Emu's are preferred for DnB, I'd switch if it's feasible.

I have to admit though, that I've entertained the thought of getting a cheap, low end Akai for drum loops, I agree that they seem to sound thicker coming out of the Emu... maybe I just need to eq a bit more??

I've always thought the pads were pretty good, maybe you're running too much signal and not enough reverb?

Believe it or not, but I use my e-synth as a kinda expandable soundmodule. I find the synthesis in eos good enough to do most things. An true oscillator would be nice, but things work ok. The e-synth rom has some factory presets that rocks many of the factory presets on many new synths based on samples, and they are tweakable to make most people drop their jaws.

thx for the reply's guys. though choice... think i'm going to look after an e5000 ultra and keep the s6k for a while. the main reason i eventually wouldn't swap is the usb function (stupid emu guys why you never implemented this...). i really want to quit using software. i know guys who produce wicked tunes just with their sampler, compress and eq things non-realtime (comp in soundforge or so and eq just with the filters), but with just the akai i can't manage that... keeps on sounding verry harsh and even too bright (even too detailed), and not that coherent qua dynamics.and i don't have h/w compressors... but for now i really refuse to record every track one by one in logic and throw a bunch of waves on it... how do you guys mix your hardware? (where do you compress, hw/softw, eq in the chain) convince me so i don't buy software anymore...