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EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Thu Aug 04, 2011 9:17 pm
by 5c4r7
I have successfully managed to do a USB to SCSI sample dump from my Intel C2D Mac Mini to my e6400 (upgraded classic). My goal was to only have 1 small computer in my studio to reduce noise and heat, save space, and basically force me to utilize the hardware as much as possible. I do still use my computer quite a bit and in conjunction with a SCSI CF Card reader that I added to my e6400 as wellI thought it would be perfect to make this combo work for quick transfers and archive purposes, to have the ability to transfer sounds between my e6400 and Mac. For a while I kept a Windows PC in my studio as well but, I really only used it for EMXP (which I can also use my Mac Mini for now) and Soundforge for dumping sounds to my e6400. Now, this is no longer required.

What you need:

-a Mac PPC OR Intel running OS X (I am using a Early 2009 Mac Mini 2.26 core 2 duo with 8gb's of RAM)
-for PPC OS 10.4 or lower OS X (I am actually running OS 10.6.8 on an Intel core 2 duo but, I managed to locate an OS 10.4.10 virtual machine online (shhh, don't tell Apple!). What I have determined is that OS 10.4 is the last OS that fully supported SCSI. In all my tests with SCSI+ 10.5 and higher have failed with the EMU's.). If you know of a way to get the newest OS X to support SCSI, please reply to this post.
-Castlewood USB to SCSI adapter (this is key as it is the only known USB to SCSI adapter to work with the EOS Emu's and OS X, as far as I know (and they are fairly rare but still found on eBay from time to time))
-BIAS Peak 5.2 or lower (must be OS X compatible of course)

1. Connect the Castlewood SCSI to USB adapter to your Mac and Emu EOS sampler.
2. Start up your sampler
3. Boot the computer (In my case, what I have done is run OS 10.4.10 in a Virtual Machine so I start it up and connect the Castlewood to that system)
4. Start up Peak
5. Load a 16bit 44Khz wav file (stereo or mono, preferably under 30 seconds long) and then highlight it by using the select all function
6. Go to the sampler menu and select the Emu Sampler option, then press transfer. (if the sampler menu is not available, then you may need to check your SCSI settings on the Emu. I believe the termination setting must be set to "on")
7. Give it a few seconds to transfer and you should then be able to go to the edit sample page and audition your sample.

As I mentioned, the Castlewood is the only unit I have ever witnessed working with the Emu from OS X. There used to be another user on here named Drayon who told me he had an adapted SCSI to USB working with an old Pizmo G3 but, I cannot verify that.

I will try to post a video of this working for everyone soon.

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:07 am
by 5c4r7
Correction!!!


Upon further testing, I was able to get the Castlewood USB to SCSI adapter to transfer a 16bit 44KHz wav file without the need of a virtual machine. I am actually running OS 10.6.7. I'm not exactly sure why it just started working but, it did. Here is a video of me creating a wav file and transferring it to my E6400.

http://youtu.be/jYvrIT63FK4

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Sat Aug 20, 2011 11:50 pm
by slown
Hi,

I read your post and this is a great news. I have an Ultra and want to connect it to my macbook pro, so I think I will try the castlewood converter.
I saw your video to see if you filmed how you connected all together.
Could you tell me what is the good cable to connect the EMU to the castlewood ? EMU Ultra got an SCSI-1 Connector.
Thanks for your post :grin:

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 6:13 pm
by 5c4r7
Hi I believe the Castlewood is SCSI-2 and the Emu's are Centronics. I just have a generic SCSI-2 to Centronics adapter connecting the 2 together. I even use a 3 foot Apple USB extender and it seems to work fine.

Sometimes the EMU is not detected by OS 10.6.7 but, I simply reboot or boot up my 10.4 virtual machine and connect the Castlewood adapter, then shut the Virtual Machine down and suddenly it appears and functions perfectly.

http://i.ebayimg.com/00/$(KGrHqR,!hgE1f ... Q~~_35.JPG

http://www.rockby.com.au/Catalogue/Jpg/1261_.jpg

Hope that helps!

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Wed Aug 24, 2011 10:37 pm
by slown
Hi,

thanks for your answer and your post :grin:

By the way, I found this : http://www.systemconnection.com/downloa ... _guide.pdf

Cheers !

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Oct 11, 2011 10:14 pm
by tonedepth
Hey this is a great post. Just dusted off my e6400ultra and its not working properly but will try this once i figure out the bugs. Does anyone here know of any ways to save patches and samples from the e6400ultra in OSX ? I'm on OSX 10.5.7 and would love to have the option to do this aswell instead of being limited to having to save to floppies or reconnect a zip drive to the back of my sampler everytime I wanna save something.
Thx!

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Oct 25, 2011 7:39 pm
by 5c4r7
Thanks dude. If you want an alternative to saving files, get one of these bad boys:

http://a4000t.com/store/index.php?main_ ... cts_id=180

then you can save to a solid state card and it'll load in seconds. I just moved my floppy to where the HD goes and then used the internal SCSI HD and power cables to power this unit. I seated the card reader in the floppy slot.

Hope that helps!

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 1:31 am
by razo
Hi, which card or adapter are you using for shuffling the samples?

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 9:36 am
by mosrob
See first posting:
"Castlewood USB to SCSI adapter"
I found one. But you should at first sit down and relax before clicking the following links:

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 1:48 pm
by razo
Mosrob, I also found a castlewoodadapter... cheap!

But my question was for which Compact Flash card and formatting that will work with the card reader in the link above. I bought one of these, installed it in my E4 but it will NOT recognize my SD card (neither with FAT or FAT32 format). It can only see the extra card/disc-station. The guy that sell these say one has to use a pcmcia adapter.

So, in this video it seems like he's using a pcmcia adapter for a CF card (?). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ-44kIy ... 2BF8E2553D

I wold like to use a SD card... (moving the samples between my iMac and E4).

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Apr 03, 2012 2:48 pm
by mosrob
In all threads I saw about the SCM PCD-50B (and similar models) they were using the CF card with a PCMCIA adapter.
No one was talking about SD Cards. The reason might be that every slot is accessable via a specific LUN.
LUN0 is a PCMCIA slot
LUN1 is a Compact Flash card slot
Lun2 is a SONY Memory Stick slot
LUN3 is a SD/MMC card slot
LUN4 is a Smart Media slot

When EOS cannot handle LUNs, the only slot that is accessable is LUN0.
Because of this, you need a PCMCIA CF-card adapter to use a CF-card via this slot.

There also exist PCMCIA SD-card adapters but you don't know if these adapters are supported by EOS.

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 1:57 am
by razo
Ok I'll buy one of these http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll? ... vi-content and keep you posted. My chance to be an E-mupioneer... ;)

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Wed Apr 04, 2012 10:34 am
by mosrob
As you can see in the description, the only supported SD-card type is "SD", not ""SDHC" or "SDXC".
Furthermore the maximum suported capacity is 2GB.
2GB is a lot of storage space for selfmade sounds but not suitable when you want to store a larger library on this card.

In contrast to this CF-Cards that will work via the PCMCIA-adpter are also available with 4GB, 8GB, 16GB, 32GB, 64GB and 128GB.

Just as information for other (new) EMU-users:
Storage media up to 20GB can be handled by EOSFAT. There were hard drives with this capacity but because of their age (and their noise) it is recommended to use modern storage solutions.
For using storage media (respectively CF-cards) with more than 16GB you need a sampler of the Ultra-line with EOS 4.70, supporting FAT32.
The Classic-line samplers (e64, E IV, e6400, E4X, E-Synth, E4X Turbo ... and related keyboard-versions) just support EOS file system EOSFAT but not the file system FAT32.

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Tue Apr 17, 2012 3:25 pm
by razo
I can say that the SD-PCMCIA adapter works with the PCD-50B.

Using a small powerswitch for the PCD-50B I can swap the SD card without powering off the E-mu.

Re: EMU E6400 + OS X + USB to SCSI = .wav transfer success!

PostPosted: Mon May 07, 2012 9:22 am
by rtype909
The ATTO UL5D Pci-e card works as well with Mac and OSX including Lion.
The card is difficult to get hold of but the prices are falling all the time with legacy SCSI gear.

http://www.attotech.com/products/product.php?scat=3&sku=EPCI-UL5D-L00