emusonacid!

Hi,

I'm trying to find the best way to use more efficently my ESynth, in Logic Pro 8, on a MacBook (IntelPC, mac OS 10.4.11).

first of all, I've only a floppy disk drive...So I'd like to buy a SCSI external drive. The question here is : once I'll get this external drive, how could I easily ship audio samples from the computer, to the external drive?

the other question is about the EOS version... I currently have the 3.2 EOS installed on my EMU Esynth. I've checked out for updates on internet, but I heard comments about the risk of downloading a bad file (maybe the internet download may arm the integrity of EOS file)...and if you install this on your hardware, it may not work anymore???

Do my Esynth will support an extension of 2*64 Mo of RAM? I've heard again that SIMM Ram may not work on some hardwares, and there are no warranty...

thanks a lot for your answers.

A simpler way of transfering your samples from the Mac to your ESynth would be midi sample dump (but beware, you'll have to separate stereo channels since only mono files are transfered via midi sample dump) or SMDI (SCSI Dump) if you have a compatible SCSI card. Some software like Bias Peak 4 can send the samples to your E-mu. The Adaptec 29160N seems to be working fine on OS X Tiger and E-mu samplers (though OS X doesn't really recognize the card nor other peripherals connected to it). That's what I was told by a guy named Andrew Checkley (http://www.digitalnasty.co.uk/) and I bought the same card for my G4. I'll test that and let you know as soon as I find the right scsi cable.

Don't be afraid of upgrading you E-mu. I did it on my E6400 Ultra and it worked. I used VirtualPC to make the floppies out of the downloaded files, but you can use a real PC if you have access to one. Since you're in EOS 3.2, you'll need to run the "Flash Prep" before you can upgrade the sampler to 4.6. Should anything go wrong, you can always get back and restore an older OS version. But 4.61 runs flawlessly here?

As far as RAM is concerned, you should put two simms of the same value or else, if simm in slot 2 is of a lower value, its value will be divided by half. I think 8 Mo and 16 Mo simms are not allowed anyway, I know I read the info somewhere in a pdf, gotta check back when I'm home...
You'll find the ram specs here : http://www.emu.com/support/compatibility/e4_ram.asp

As well as limiting you to mono samples, SMDI is incredibly slow and prone to errors in transmission. Unless you have really short samples, I would forget about this method.
Another option would be to get a SCSI zip drive and a USB zip drive (fairly cheap on ebay). Connect the SCSI zip to your Emu SCSI chain, and connect the USB zip drive to your MacBook. Transfer files from your macbook to your sampler/external hard disk by zip. I use this fairly frequently with my PC since I upgraded to Windows Vista Vista (which doesn't recognise my SCSI card ).

mocheez wrote:A simpler way of transfering your samples from the Mac to your ESynth would be midi sample dump (but beware, you'll have to separate stereo channels since only mono files are transfered via midi sample dump)

hey ! thanks for your reply.

I m gonna try the Flash Prep then update my EOS. You said that version 4.62 is good?

I've found on internet a seller (US...) where I can buy SCSI drives that are compatible, and guaranted. it's a good start, I'll check then to ship samples from the mac to the sampler.

could you advise me about a shop where to buy SIMM? maybe not here...(I don't want to be bann from this awesome forum :)

tha,ks again

Tom

I can give thumbs up for the zipdrive model. I am having one scsi zip drive connected to my emu, and one usb zip drive connected to my mac.. its rather quick to move samples :)

and.. you can easily share your banks by taking your zipdisk with you :).

ehasting wrote:I can give thumbs up for the zipdrive model. I am having one scsi zip drive connected to my emu, and one usb zip drive connected to my mac.. its rather quick to move samples :)

and.. you can easily share your banks by taking your zipdisk with you :).

yep, this way seems to be an easy way to transfer samples. thanks ! what king of connection do you use between your mac and zip drive?

I m a complete noob on mac...and I m on a laptop... can you give me advices about components I may use to connect a scsi device to the macbook?

thanks,


Tom

i have a usb zip drive (250mb), and a scsi zip drive for the emu.

its rather easy. You can probably get it rather cheap.

yessss!

i m checking on internet to see if I can find two zip drives...obviously, this solution for the moment appears to me far better than getting an external scsi drive.

but I wonder something... if I edit samples on the laptop (using peak) or if I edit samples on my PC (using other softs as audition...), once I save the file (in .wav or .aiff), they won't have the same format than on EOS...? right? so there must be an intermediate operation before I can play those samples into the Esynth no?

maybe I missed something...

I think somebody else needs to answer that. I am using EOS 4.7 with fat support, so for me its only to dump the wave on the zip and put it into the emu.

Does older Eos support reading off FAT from a zip drive?

I 've maybe found some answer in another topic regarding HDD storage devices.
The guy explains that using ChickenSys Translator allow to realize a lot of sample format conversions, for all type of platforms (Akai, EMU, wav, aiff...).

So, if I get 2 zip drives (one connected to the sampler, the other to the laptop), and this apps, I would be able to edit samples on the laptop, then convert files into EOSformat, store them on the Zip and finally ship them to the EMU. But the remaining question is "which EOS version support FAT format"...If I could do that, I would be very happy and I think I'll save a lot of time (instead of these F.... floppy disks :))

thanks again for your answers ehasting,

cheers,

Tmo

ehasting wrote:Does older Eos support reading off FAT from a zip drive?

no

ok thnks for reply.

so the only solution to ship samples from a mac or pc computer to my Esynth is to convert them in EOS format, store on Zip drive, then open the zip disk in the SCSI zip drive connected to the sampler, and load the file in EOS...

Am I correct there?

thx

stereotrope wrote:ok thnks for reply.

so the only solution to ship samples from a mac or pc computer to my Esynth is to convert them in EOS format, store on Zip drive, then open the zip disk in the SCSI zip drive connected to the sampler, and load the file in EOS...

Am I correct there?

no

you can also transfer Samples very simple and most of the time faster via the old fashed way S/pif or analog Sampling Input

Just Sampling

Beware, Translator will only work on PC. On Mac there is CDXtract but as far as I could figure out, it reads and converts from EOS banks but cannot convert to EOS? Still, it converts banks to Soundfont banks, which are compatible with EOS samplers. Check out the table of conversions here :
http://www.cdxtract.com/cdxtract2.php

hi mocheez, thanks for your post.

once I'll get the two scsi drives I'll try out translator on my PC, it seems to be very usefull.

thks all for your replies, I'll reply in the same post to tell you how it work.