emusonacid!

ok.

I've been making music for years, but entirely with software (aside from a few synths when I first started out). I've never owned any hardware, and I wanted to invest in a hardware sampler. I'm running logic express 7 on a mac mini. I want to purchase an emu, but seeing that apple dosen't support scsi anymore (and that I have a mac mini, instead of a tower mac machine) I'm really stuck in a situation. I'm getting tired of just clicking the mouse and staring at the computer screen and miss the days when I was borrowing a mate's synth, and actually tweaking knows, and hearing what I was doing.

Anyway, I really don't know where to go with this. Can you guys give me any tips/suggestions/pointers on what to do, or what would you do if you were in my situation.


they are selling emu 5000's here in japan, but I haven't found an 6400 yet, and I want to. I want my first piece of kit to be a hardware sampler.


any suggestions?


thanks in advance

If you want one, just get it. You don't have to have it connected to your computer. I don't have my Emu hooked up to my computer via scsi. I just keep all my samples and such on a different storage system.

I have heard that you can actually buy scsi to usb converters, but I haven't seen them in stores. I have heard about online sellers have them...

I would say, just get it.

snh

Hanging around on ebay.co.uk i actually found a parallell to scsi converter. Was thinking of posting a link here, but my computer crashed.

sampleandhold wrote:If you want one, just get it. You don't have to have it connected to your computer. I don't have my Emu hooked up to my computer via scsi. I just keep all my samples and such on a different storage system.

I have heard that you can actually buy scsi to usb converters, but I haven't seen them in stores. I have heard about online sellers have them...

I would say, just get it.

snh

So you just load up the samples into the emu, mess around in there, and then bounce the output onto a disk and back into your machine then?

or you just sequence everything within the emu and make final adjustments on your computer sequencer?

I'm using logic, and I wonder if I bring the emu up and have it run with my sequencer, and if that's possible, what about midi snyc and the like?

Every thing is done in the emu.

I eq (using the FIR mostly) mix the tracks and so on. Then record each track sequence (for instruments, usually note per track, each track in other words has one pitch assigned to it, insane I know, but it yeild great results) into my computer. I have Absynth now and I am experimenting with various things. Once I record all my tracks from the emu, I will do any other additional eqing and such there. After a while, I found I like the effects in the emu... Strange, but I do, especially compared to Cubase's canned processors (blah).

For the most part, the emu has everything I need to get a pretty good mix down. With absynth added to my arsenal though, I think really cool things are going to happen.

The one thing I really want to do is store my samples on a CD burner, but I need to hook the emu up to my computer via scsi. I hear it's hard and all that, but that is really the only reason why I would want my emu hooked up to my pc, for file protection and management.

snh


Oh... and I think I will run all my Absynth tracks through the emu as well. Absynth as no bottom. It sounds a bit funny compared to the emu, but the upper range stuff messes well though.

This is a more general answer (and perhaps theorhetical as there may be practical limitations to the approach i present that I haven't yet encountered - correct me anyone) as I am new to my EOS sampler and I'm not as commited to it's use as snh (yet at least).

If you want to use it like a synth then you could just get some sample cds and a scsi cdrom (cheap on ebay - just this minute won a great one for 4 ukp) and a cable (probably more than the drive but not a lot).

If you want your own material in the sample memory then you might want a hard drive or zip drive attached to the emu to save stuff. But you can get it in there through the analogue inputs if nothing else. You'll probably find your macs audio output/input (assuming you havent got a firewire/usb audio interface) is the weak link here although you may find the da ad combination creatively pleasing. For best sound quality preservation (especially considering you might want to record back to the mac) you might want the ADAT option and a firewire audio adapter with adat support. This would offer you most of what a scsi connection does (a little more effort sample editing on the emu but the same audio fidelity) plus a lot more flexibility when it comes to sequencing/recording tracks. Plus if you are currently relying on inbuilt mac audio you should get a benefit of better monitoring audio through a quality audio interface.

Also chicken systems produce an application (including a free version) that enables you to create emu format CDs on your computer which would mean you could get your hi quality audio to your sampler with just a scsi CDrom.

Once again I issue the caveat that this is more theory than practise so anyone more experienced should shoot holes in any misconceptions I have, for instance the ADAT option could be infamously faulty for all I know.

rod.hull wrote:for instance the ADAT option could be infamously faulty for all I know.

What do you mean?

Sorry my english is convoluted (see what I mean).

Answer to your question:

Nothing about the ADAT option.

It was an illustration of the limits of my experience and an implied invite for others with more experience to validate or rubbish my approach. "for all I know" is a way to end a statement to create this illustration. Statements takes the form "this unlikely idea could be true for all I know".

Further on the digital audio route:

I've discovered my e5000 came with an option board that gives you AES/EBU in and out - another way to get digital audio in and out of an EOS sampler (presumably only stereo). I dont know of any firewire interfaces with these connections but spdif can be converted (with an m-audio co3 I believe) and a firewire interface with spdif would be much cheaper than one with ADAT. Plus the ADAT EOS option makes a sampler pricier too - well pricier than what I've got this AES/EBU for anyway.