emusonacid!

Hey guys,
I came across an EMU EIIIxs rack, not the turbo edition. Can anyone tell me how to make floppies for it? It doesn't have any and I my computer doesn't support SCSI. Also is this thing worth anything?

Thanks!
Tyler

bump? please?

Not much e3-guys around here...

You might try trawling through the back messages on one of the Yahoo! Groups, I think they have one for the older E-mu samplers.

In the mean time, I'll have a dig through me electronic collection of manuals and see if I can come up with any info for you... might take a few days, might not even yield any results, but it's a shot.


[edit, later that same evening]

OK, the first question is, "do you have the manual". If not, scoot on over to E-mu's web site and dig through the legacy hardware support to find a PDF copy of it (they only have one for the EIIIx, not the xs, but the only difference as far as I can tell is that the xs includes analog sampling inputs, while the x doesn't... oh, and to really confuse you, the EIIIx is sometimes referred to as the EIIIxp).

Second, what exactly do you mean by "make floppies"? Do you mean "how can I make some floppy discs of samples I've downloaded from the web on my computer so that the EIIIxs will read them". If so, the answer is, "you don't". As far as I know there's no utility available to write the proprietary E-mu format diskettes on a PC.

So, the only answer that matters is, "you get a floppy, put it in the EIIIxs, format it with the utility in the EIIIxs (see manual), sample something, and save it to the floppy". Or, get yourself a SCSI CD-ROM drive and throw the floppies out the window (there are plenty of EIIIx library CD-ROMs floating around out there).

As for "is this thing worth anything"... that's a largely subjective matter. As far as I know, those units still have a voltage controlled filter (read: analog!), which some people insist sounds much smoother and creamier than digital filters. But it's only a basic low-pass filter, so you don't get any of the funky filter models that were introduced in later E-mu products (though, those filter models are all digital filter stuff... if you want warm analog, low-pass is all you got). As vintage gear, it's worth "something" to anybody interested in vintage gear. To the average house-wife, the answer would be more like "isn't if sort of big for a paper-weight?"

What it comes down to is "do you like the sound"? In the end, that's all that matters (unless you're an obsessive history buff into the unit just for the "vintage gear" aroma/ambiance)

oh nice!
thanks for the reply, I really appreciate it. I didnt even know you could hook up a cd-rom to it, for some reason I thought it would only work with a computer.

Thanks so much for the information, I'll get back to ya on how it works!

thanks
t

Yeah, the only other thing to consider is that the E-mu CD-ROMs are also a proprietary format, and can't be written like a regular CD on a computer. There are programs out there that will allow you to write in that format (Translator from Chicken Systems... http://www.chickensys.com/home.php)

Good place to try for the EIIIx library CDs is either in the Buy/Sell Stuff forum on this board, or they show up every couple of months or so on eBay.

There are also slightly less than legal ways to get ISO images of the E-mu library CDs... but I'm certainly not going to tell you how to do it (some of us generally frown on that stuff... and the board admins will cut you off at the ankles if they find you discussing it)

Hi,

I'm a new EIIIxp owner. I buy this rack on ebay recently.

It comes only with a boot disk v2.3.

the problem is when I power on it searchin for floppy and scsi and it never stop to search....

The seller told me he has a zip drive with it but it suposed to start properly with the floppy.

Can someone help me???

Thanks.

Check here
http://eiiiforum.com/

Thanx a lot for the link!!!