emusonacid! legacy

Now what the hell do I do?

Bought it off ebay. Didn't come w/ a manual nor the 9 cdroms. So I'm stuck for now. I'm going to head to the music store and buy some midi cables as well as audio jacks so I can plug the output into the ins of my soundcard.

Can't anyone direct me on how to navigate through this thing?

I've got the manual on CD-ROM somewhere - PM me and I'll e-mail it to you.

I've got the manual on CD-ROM somewhere - PM me and I'll e-mail it to you.

download the manual here:

http://www.emu.com/support/files/download2.asp?Centric=569&Legacy=1&Platform=1

Then check the hard disk (start with Disk/Browse) and see if the vendor left you some sounds on the hard drive.

plug in some headphones and press the audition button if you find some to load.

hook up your leads and sample some of your own sounds.

Get your favourite soft synth patch (am I right in thinking you were computer based up until now?) and sample it at every 2 tones over a couple of octaves and try keymapping the samples and making a preset. Play it loud whilst appreciating the absense of cpu drain on your computer. Dont forget to save it

Download translator free http://www.chickensys.com and convert some soft sampler files or soundfonts to eos banks. burn to cd/copy to zip or just plain floppy (choose small files then) and get them into your ultra.

Sample some loops and beat mung and filter the life out of them.

Buy some sampling cds with material that suits your musical style. Remember your emu can read akai so dont limit yourself to the emu library.

that should keep you busy for a while....

thanks for the replies guys.

rod.hull wrote:download the manual here:

http://www.emu.com/support/files/download2.asp?Centric=569&Legacy=1&Platform=1

Then check the hard disk (start with Disk/Browse) and see if the vendor left you some sounds on the hard drive.

plug in some headphones and press the audition button if you find some to load.

hook up your leads and sample some of your own sounds.

Get your favourite soft synth patch (am I right in thinking you were computer based up until now?) and sample it at every 2 tones over a couple of octaves and try keymapping the samples and making a preset. Play it loud whilst appreciating the absense of cpu drain on your computer. Dont forget to save it

Download translator free http://www.chickensys.com and convert some soft sampler files or soundfonts to eos banks. burn to cd/copy to zip or just plain floppy (choose small files then) and get them into your ultra.

Sample some loops and beat mung and filter the life out of them.

Buy some sampling cds with material that suits your musical style. Remember your emu can read akai so dont limit yourself to the emu library.

that should keep you busy for a while....

I'm stuck at making keymaps. I loaded a wav file into the emu (the dust file from the tutorial that is on this site) but I don't know how to keymap it. I even tried hitting every key to see if I can locate the sample. Is there something that i'm missing? Seems I can't get stuff to play after I load the file.


This is a new world for me. My first piece of hardware. The way I have it set up is that (since i'm on a mac mini) I have my outs plugged into the ins of my audiophile FW, and I have the outs of the FW plugged into the ins of the emu. Hopefully I can write tunes in the emu and record them via the fw into to cubase.

But for now... I need to work my way around this thing.

so expect questions from me

First check all the connections are working and that the audiophile is routing the incoming sound to an output (use the M-Audio Firewire Audiophile Application on your mac to check this). Make sure the volume is up! Load dusty again and then press SAMPLE / Manage - you should see S001 DUSTY .WAV on the display. Now if you press audition you should hear DUSTY play. If that's okay then we know your sampler and signal path are all in order - good news! If you dont hear anything recheck the leads and audiophile mixer control panel. If you cant get a sound out of the outputs then try some headphones just to make sure your emu really is a sampler!

Now we know DUSTY is in the sample memory but it isn't attached to a preset. So press PRESET/EDIT and then press the soft key under the word "Voices" on the display (F5). Then use the arrow keys to move over to highlight S000 Empty Sample and then turn the wheel to select S001 DUSTY .WAV. Now you should be able to play this preset from your keyboard and hear DUSTY.


Raw samples in memory need to be attached to a preset to be useful, saved presets or imported banks keep all this info so this slightly laborious process is only for loaded wavs or sampled sounds. Check out the manual on this and key mapping and then ask some more questions

more audiophile stuff.

I'm assuming you have the emu going in to line inputs 1 and 2 (no choice really).

And monitoring on line outputs 1 and 2

and back to your emu on line outputs 3 and 4.

In the big view the mixer screen should have 2 mid grey channels on the right. One should be labled analog in. Check the out 1/2 button is on for this channel (blue highlight when on) and that the levels are up.

I'm using the latest driver for os x 10.3.9 so I guess theres a chance you are running something different but hopefully it'll look similar anyway.

rod.hull wrote:more audiophile stuff.

I'm assuming you have the emu going in to line inputs 1 and 2 (no choice really).

And monitoring on line outputs 1 and 2

and back to your emu on line outputs 3 and 4.

In the big view the mixer screen should have 2 mid grey channels on the right. One should be labled analog in. Check the out 1/2 button is on for this channel (blue highlight when on) and that the levels are up.

I'm using the latest driver for os x 10.3.9 so I guess theres a chance you are running something different but hopefully it'll look similar anyway.

My system is osx 10.4.1. The way you described is the way I have my emu set up. Thanks for the tips.


Oh another question. I'm reading the eos manual, and I was looking into the section where you can transfer samples via the midi cable. Have you tried this and got it to work? Transfering samples between the audiophile and the emu?

Sorry no, I transfer banks over zip and loops or sequences I just sample. I have scsi on a PC but I dont find myself using that either.

check this thread on loading samples via midi. if you don't already have software that will do it, i posted a link to a freeware app in there that will.

viewtopic.php?t=1494

Great help you guys are. I'm starting to dig into making my own presets. Found out what the heck cords are, so I'm exerminting with that.

here is a question. The emu hw samplers are know for their z plane filters. Is this a particular filter or multiple filters.

How could i Set that up?

cords are where it's at. the modulation options on the EOS samplers are top notch.

the z-plane filters are a certain variety of a single filter that can morph between parameters. check out the filters in preset edit menus. read the manual for more info on the z-planes. i'm sure someone can explain better than my sleepy attempt here...

jbuonacc wrote:cords are where it's at. the modulation options on the EOS samplers are top notch.

the z-plane filters are a certain variety of a single filter that can morph between parameters. check out the filters in preset edit menus. read the manual for more info on the z-planes. i'm sure someone can explain better than my sleepy attempt here...

So varing different filter paremeters @ the same time is what the z-planes aer about? And I'm guessing this effect is achived by developing chords?


Also, should i upgrade my EOS? I'm using 4.0.1. I haven't experienced any problems yet but I'm unsure if I should update or not. What are the advantages once the software is updated? And if things don't turn out well, is there a way I can roll everything back to the way it was?

The concensus is that the later OSes are better. 4.7 adds fat32 support for hd / removables so you can put samples on windows formated zips, mos (maybe even cf) etc and read them straight into the sampler (otherwise you'll need Translator to read/write your emu media from your mac). 4.7 has a couple of irritating bugs but I believe they relate entirely to the RFX option so if that's not in your emu then it should be fine. I'm running 4.7 and the fat32 support is invaluable to me. Plus there's that no need for floppy feature that means I can fit an internal removable drive (mo or cf). Those practical considerations aside I believe bugs are fixed and the synthesis engine enhanced from 4.01 to 4.6+.

I'm not 100% certain but I think the update process allows you to save a backup of your current OS onto floppy so you can restore if you feel like it. The emu site has 4.7 and 4.61 so if 4.7 causes you problems you can resort to 4.61. I think it's safe to say EMU think 4.61+ is what you should use. Because you have a very early OS you'll need to use the flash prep software before you upgrade so your emu can handle the newer compressed os images.

Check out the other forum threads on updating to learn more...