emusonacid!

Hello All,

If you are looking for a cheap storage option for your samplers look no further than the PCD-50B and PCD-60B series of card readers. You can pick them up on eBay from time to time for cheap!

They are a 5 Card reader and although you can only use the PCMCIA reader option on them, they have a 50 pin SCSI connection that will accomodate many samplers. Many people say not to use them because they are Read Only, but that is not true if you have the Firmware upgrade that unlocks the read/write ability.

If you purchase one, contact me at aexns@... and I will send you the firmware upgrade. I have used these drives in Yamaha, E-MU and Akai samplers with no issues at all!

You can use a PCMCIA to CF or 5-in-1 adapter (PCMCIA) with them.

Cheers!

hi,

Thanks for the tip, my head is exploding after an evening of looking at storage options.

From this, are you suggesting, get one of these, then install the 5-in-1 reader, and then the Emu will be able to read things like smart media via the card reader? Just wanted to double check I understood correctly, which cards have you tried? any strange behaviour, i.e. when swapping cards while in a disk scren, have you tried?

These seem to go pretty cheap on ebay alright, scsiforsamplers has dissappeared so this might be the only card storage option available for the moment,
has anybody hooked up one of these with their emu?
if so , how does it work out?

SCSIforSamplers.com is now Out of Business
see topic http://www.emusonacid.co.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3655

I can vouch that this works with the PCD-60B. Many thanks to Brian for the firmware to enable writing in this card reader. The installation of the firmware took about ten seconds, if that, and appears to enable reading in all slots-- I've tried PCMCIA, SD and CF slots.

I have the reader installed in my computer running Win XP, attached to an Adaptec 2940UW card via 50 pin connection. My ESI-32 is connected with a cable that provides high-byte termination for the wide connector on the card to the narrow connection on my sampler. I enabled Multi LUN capability in the BIOS of the 2940, so my computer sees each slot as a removeable drive.

The ESI-32 only sees the PCMCIA slot. I tried a 32-bit PCMCIA to SD adapter which couldn't be seen by either the computer, sampler, or 2940 BIOS. Using a 16-bit PCMCIA to CF adapter with a Transcend 4 gig card works fine and is seen by both computer and sampler.

The only trouble I had was trying to format the card using the sampler. I got a SCSI SW Error message on the sampler. However, the sampler still saw the card, reporting it as No ESI File System Installed. Then I remembered the hidden menu option to install the ESI File System on an already formatted drive, so I tried that. It appeared to install correctly, but the sampler reported an error once it finished and it instructed me to reboot the sampler. After rebooting, the CF card worked perfectly, both from the sampler and using ESI-Win.

So, I can report that this works and is relatively cheap. Thanks again, Brian!

Great information!
Have you used the card reader for long now?
do you run esi win on windows xp? if so where did you get it?
I have read mixed reports on the maximum card size you can use on the esi samplers, 2 gig , 4 gig etc, do you know what the max is with this card reader?

I've been running the card reader a whole two days now. Previously, I was using a twenty year old 2 gig SCSI disk that's a double height 5.25 monster. After upgrading my computer last month, that beast became the loudest bit of gear in my studio, so it had to go.

I've got ESI-Win running under Win XP; on my old computer, I could only get it to work under Win 98. I found it at the deepsonic site. The largest card that I've tried so far is a 4 gig, which the sampler reports back as 4 gig. I haven't filled it yet. IIRC, the largest disk size that the 32 can use is 8 gig, but I might be wrong.

Using the card from my computer, it looks as if it might be hot-swappable. I know it is under Win XP, but I'll be trying this with over the next couple of days to see if it works/is reliable with the sampler.

In my previous post, I make it look like it was quick in remembering the hidden menu file system install. In reality, I was pounding my head against my desk for a week trying to figure out why I couldn't get the card to format and was on the verge of giving up until I broke out the manual for another purpose and just happened to read the bit about hidden format menus.

Just took a quick look to see the max size that either the card reader or sampler can use. It looks like the ESI-32 can only use a max of 4 gig. A larger card should still work, but the sampler will only be able to use 4 gig of it and waste the rest.

Ok, I'm starting to run into some issues. I'm able to read banks from the PCMCIA - CF card slot, but writing to the card is giving me an error, where the sampler says, "An error occurred in this ESI-32. Please power off and restart..."

So far, I haven't been able to rectify this, and it's happening every time I try to save a bank from the sampler. I can import banks to the card from the computer and read them from the sampler without problems.

Positive Update: I think I got it, but I'll be testing more to be certain. I've set the 2940's BIOS to treat all removable drives as fixed drives. Sadly, this eliminates the possibility of hot-swapping, and also means that I've had to turn off Multi-LUN capability as the computer won't boot if any removable slots aren't filled once the BIOS has been set to treat them as fixed disks, which also means that all slots save the PCMCIA slot will be useless while the BIOS has been so set. But, I've been able to save banks and haven't had a sampler error since. I'll be working more with this and will post any finding good or bad.

hey,

thanks for all your efforts on this and keeping the thread updated

i'm very eager to see if this works without any glitches

I just installed a pcd 50b into my esi4000 and it seems to work. The sampler can only see the pc card slot so I have a CF adapter in there and the sampler can load and save onto to the card. Although it is just day one its looking good. I will update in a few weeks

ok, one week on and its looking good, formatting the card on the esi4000 seems to be the same deal as on the esi-32 (you need to access the hidden menu).
you go to master/7 disk utilities/6 format disk-now when it asks "are you sure y/n" press 8 (on the trigger buttons)
it will then say "install file system y/n" press yes and the card will be formatted and ready to use within 1-2 seconds.
I have also hot swapped many times and this seems to work ok, can anybody tell me if hotswapping might cause an
issue or damage in the future?

What up yall,

I'M new to the forum and just wanted to ask a question I friend of mine gave me a pcd 50 b to use with my akai mpc 60mkII but when I went onto mpc-forums they said that both the pcd 50b and 60b would only work as readers until I read here i your forum that with a firmware upgrade they would be able to read/write what I wanted to know is does anyone have a copy of the firmware upgrade that unlocks the read/write ability and if so could you please send me a copy also how would I go about installing it and what version windows would I need to doit on.

anyone with a copy can email me at richiedinero@gmail.com

thanks in advance

Hey Russ-- when you installed your card reader into your sampler, did it take the place of the SCSI port on the back of the sampler, or can you use both?

I'm still trying to get mine to work reliable from inside my computer, but I've got a conflict somewhere-- first I didn't have it terminated, then I had an ID conflict with my hard disk, now I've got something else. I'm able to hot swap though, so that's good.

I've put the updated firmware here on my server for anyone who wants it. Brian-- let me know if you'd rather I not offer it there and I'll take it down.