emusonacid! legacy

found this on a website detailing the esi range, knew it was possible but never got round to the tuning

Recording At Higher Sample Rates

An unfortunate limitation of the ESI series is that the output sample rate is fixed at 44.1kHz. This makes it very awkward to digitally record to anything running at 48kHz. The quick and dirty way is to use the analogue outputs — but this is a pity if you bought the Turbo board for its digital interface. The best option is to use a 24-bit sample-rate converter, but a good one costs more than an ESI! However, if you're using a MIDI + Audio sequencer, there is a clever workaround which exploits the ESI's distortionless transposition.

Here's how you do it. Set the recorder to clock from the ESI's S/PDIF output, while leaving the sampling rate set to 48kHz. Most ASIO soundcards (with the honourable exception of those made by Digidesign) will let you do this. Detune the whole ESI by 100 cents downwards (from the Master Tune section of the Master/Global Module) and then detune all your Presets downwards by a further 48.8 cents (from the Setup section of the Dynamic Processing Module). Now you can record the sampler performance digitally. Even though it will sound out of tune while you're recording, this is actually dealing with the sample-rate mismatch. Now you can record your sampled performance, and when you clock the sequencer to its own digital clock again, you should hear the recording playing back at the correct pitch.

Transposing in this way would also work for recording at 96kHz and above — it's just a matter of tuning by ear. The best way is to load a sine wave into the ESI (you can find one on Emu's Production Sound Set sample CD). Record a continuous tone into the sequencer at 96kHz via the analogue outputs. Now clock your soundcard from the Emu as before, and play that note again, tuning it to the soundcard playback