emusonacid! legacy

first of all i know very little techie stuff about emu's so please forgive me if i ask a silly question.

i own a emu e6400 ultra and have just ordered a cf card reader for it.

i recently found a emu e4 next to a bin right outside my house! funny to think these once cost £5000 and there is was just thrown away. and surprisingly it powers up ok! the backlight has gone and when i plug headphones in i hear loud white noise. there are no samples on the hd and i haven't tested it any further but it sounds like something isn't quite right (hence why it was by a bin).

my question is: are there any features i can take from the e4 to upgrade my e6400 ultra? i would like to able to use a ascii keyboard with my ultra. looking inside the e4 it appears that the ascii card is built into the main board. does this make it impossible? can't really see the need for an extra scsi port or digital in/out.. so it's just the ascii i'd like to swap over i guess.

also looking at the ram in both it appears they have a different number of pins. is this right? meaning there is no way of using the ram from the e4 in my ultra?

i've decided to keep the e4 regardless as it may come in handy one day for spares (knobs and buttons etc..)

i'd really appreciate any help with this.

thanks,

james

Hi James,
welcome on board...

You are talking about the EIV. The ASCII-option cannot be removed.
From an E4X Turbo you would need the ASCII-option that is connected to the mainboard through a ribbon cable AND the IC CS8411 which is soldered onto the mainboard. So, this mission would be also close to impossible if you don't have a special desoldering tool.

The e64 and EIV had SIMM-sockets with 30-pins.
The later generation 2 (E6400, E4X, E4X Turbo) or 3 (E5000 Ultra, e6400 Ultra, E4XT Ultra) used 72-pin SIMMs that are mechanicaly incompatible.

As the voice and filter ICs stayed the same through all generations of E4, they could be of use if you have the right tools for removing them from the EIV-mainboard.

Cheers,
mosrob

thanks for the reply. that's very helpful info.

yes, you are right i have an eiv (not e4 how i originally wrote it)

i now have the opportunity to buy an e4xt (not the ultra version) which has the ascii card. it sounds like attempting to remove the card to use in my e6400 ultra would be tricky (i do have a soldering iron and solder remover however..) so was thinking maybe i could just use the e4xt instead. Is e4xt better or worse than the e6400 ultra in any way? The one thing stopping me would be loosing the cf card reader option and therefore not being able to import wav's.

But then i saw this youtube video of someone using a cf card reader in an e6400 (not ultra) running eos 4.62 and successfully importing a wav file:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ-44kIy-c0

how is this possible? i was under the impression eos 4.7 was needed for this, and this only works on ultra's.

It's all a bit confusing. i'm just after an emu with ascii option that can also read wav files.

morrisj wrote:
Is e4xt better or worse than the e6400 ultra in any way? The one thing stopping me would be loosing the cf card reader option and therefore not being able to import wav's.

But then i saw this YouTube video of someone using a cf card reader in an e6400 (not ultra) running eos 4.62 and successfully importing a wav file:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZ-44kIy-c0

how is this possible? i was under the impression eos 4.7 was needed for this, and this only works on ultra's.

It's all a bit confusing. i'm just after an emu with ascii option that can also read wav files.

1 better or worse?.... The Ultra is better as it has a much faster chipset (coldfire processor). Cord setup allows for it be controlled by 12 continuous controllers.It will handle IDE drives up-to 120gb formatted in FAT with EOS 4.7, plus resonance will tweak in real time with 4.7.
The one great thing with the e4xt is the ASCII port, I love this feature on my sampler as it makes preset creation, page navigation and name/ number input much easier, but the non ultra sampler is more likely to respond sluggishly when running from your DAW on multiple midi channels.

2 YouTube video how is this possible?.....the guy in the video has his card reader in EOS format not FAT and he has it hooked up to the samplers scsi board, however the card he is writing to will not be readable on a PC as it is not FAT format. So this setup will not allow the info stored on the card to be moved to or from the PC for sample transfer or archiving presets/banks by simply slotting the card into the PC.

In my opinion I would prefer the ultra but be on the lookout for an ultra with ASCII and move up to this when you find one for the right price, or fit a ASCII port if you can find one.

However if the e4xt is really cheap you could buy it and use it for bank creation then transfer the banks to and from the ultra with a scsi zip disc, you would then have most of the editing done with ASCII and maybe just need to do a few tweaks inside the ultra. This option would also give you loads more audio outputs and voices.

Although 2 samplers might sound excessive just think how easy it is to swallow up polyphony when creating sounds.

Example..... I often stack four copies of stereo samples, add detune and offset s/start points to get an nice analogue synth, now if you play this as a four note cord you have used up ......4 x 2 x 4 = 32 notes (but what an organic thick sound)
If you run 2 of these on a 64 voice sampler you are out of notes! And you haven't started on the drum track yet!!
So maybe it's worth considering 2 samplers

thanks for the help. i'm less confused now! great forum.

and good idea about using two samplers. i may give that a go. or like you say, just live without the ascii keyboard until an ultra with this option comes along at a good price...

Hi,

mosrob wrote:From an E4X Turbo you would need the ASCII-option that is connected to the mainboard through a ribbon cable AND the IC CS8411 which is soldered onto the mainboard.

Sorry to hijack, but what would actually involved in doing this? If one had a dig i/o + ASCII board from an E4X Turbo, and a CS8411, how could they be incorporated into an Ultra series sampler? The CS8411 is a digital audio interface IC; does it also play a role in the ASCII interfacing?

Cheers,

Oli

Take a look at the embedded picture which shows the expansion of the E4XT.
If you install this option you need the CS8411 to get the Digital I/O running.
I'm sure that the ASCII-port will also work without the CS8411.

For using this option in an Ultra you have to check the pin assignment of the ribbon cable and attach a new connector to the ribbon cable on the side that is connected to the mainboard of the Ultra.

mosrob wrote:For using this option in an Ultra you have to check the pin assignment of the ribbon cable and attach a new connector to the ribbon cable on the side that is connected to the mainboard of the Ultra.

Great, thanks. That's what I was thinking. I guess there may also be peripheral components required for the IC. Would you happen to know if there is a schematic, or at least a pinout available for the connectors?

Cheers,

Oli

Only EMU has the schematics and will presumably not hand out any information about their intellectual property.

The only way to get the pin assignment is comparing a DWAM option and the Digital I/O option of the E4XT.

mosrob wrote:Only EMU has the schematics and will presumably not hand out any information about their intellectual property.

The only way to get the pin assignment is comparing a DWAM option and the Digital I/O option of the E4XT.

Ah, that's tricky. I don't have access to a D-WAM. I'll keep an eye out for a service manual.

Cheers,

Oli