emusonacid!

Hey there, all

As a long time EMU user, I have struggled with issues like dying power supplies, archaic hard drives crashing, lack of easy connectivity to computers for storage, manipulation, etc.

So, here's the potentially exciting news.

I get my gear serviced at a very reputable shop here in Los Angeles called Advanced Musical Electronics. http://www.advancedmusical.com/

I purchased a SCSI for Samplers CF card reader a while ago, and it stopped mounting, leaving me with my entire library totally inaccessible.

I went to Advanced musical to have them take a look at my CF card reader, but after talking for a while, they informed me of a new piece of hardware that might allow my emu (and lots of other SCSI devices) to have a USB port put in place of the floppy drive, allowing for pretty much any USB storage device to interface with the sampler. They said, this would include direct connection to a mac or PC.

They haven't been able to do the research into exact config because they haven't had an EMU to work with. So, i gave them my E6400 ultra to expierment on.

I should know more in a week, if this works, we might just solve a lot of EMU problems with one device that should be easy to install.

I'll keep you all updated.

_origin

Sounds fantastic!

But I hope it isn't the one that emulates a floppy drive because you can only access the storage medium in 1.44mb blocks.

Here's a floppy emulator that can use SD cards and there's a USB version as well but you can't write to the USB one:
http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=12

Cool, i'll pass this info on to them. =)

_Origin

I should also be clear, this is a USB device, not a CF device. It just adds a USB port and the ability to mount devices via it. As you can imagine, if this works, it would be awesome. It is brand new, and not like the device in the link you sent.

_Origin

very very very interesting altogther

Origin wrote:I should also be clear, this is a USB device, not a CF device. It just adds a USB port and the ability to mount devices via it. As you can imagine, if this works, it would be awesome. It is brand new, and not like the device in the link you sent.

_Origin

Those are brand new - they make them in versions that are USB or SD, internal and external.
They've been used successfully on the old Emulators, Korgs, Rolands etc, you name it, the guy who created the original one can get it work with anything with a floppy drive virtually. There is even a forum just for troubleshooting this thing and helping people to get it working in their set ups.

The only problem for me is the 1.44mb memory addressing, it wouldn't be much use for saving most banks, unless it's smart enough to automatically use lots of slices of 1.44mb one after the other without issues.

This is the guy that originally created these floppy emulators (scroll down for the list of compatible synths to date):
http://hxc2001.free.fr/floppy_drive_emulator/

Three problems with the floppy interface:

* ultra slow - 10 KB/Sec type interface.
* file system is 1.44MB
* awkward eject requirements, mount, load etc.

Try this instead - it works:

viewtopic-f=1&t=2561.php.html
Permits an IDE drive to directly mount, and a USB connect to the same drive for sample moves.

Similar can be achieved with CF cards over SCSI.

M