emusonacid! legacy

A few questions I have:

- Aren't I supposed to be able to use more memory for presets now? It still only lets me use like 400K or so. This can be a real limitation at times so it'd be nice to have more.

- What the crap is "resident memory"? What's it used for? I couldn't find anything about it in the EOS manual.

- I just successfully installed 4.62, and have initialized the EEPROM and recalibrated. Is there anything else I need to do or should try to get the most out of it?

Other than that, it's great. I have a ton of S3000 disks that I can finally use. I can't wait to start digging through 'em.

Hmm... hadn't thought about it myself, but this raises an interesting point.

OK, if you look through the EOS manual (post 4.0), on page 64 there's the definitions of the memory statistics that appear on the Master screen (Resident, Preset, and Sample).

According to the manual, "Resident memory... shows the amount of preset memory available for the optional ROM or Flash RAM banks." What does that actually mean? Damned if I know... if you had an E-synth, I think that's where it would store the preset data to go with the samples in the 16mb sound ROM. Now, you might (and I can't quote you a reference on this theory, since the explanation of the various memory types in the manual are difficult to follow at best) be able to store some preset data that points to samples on your hard drive, and it would be battery backed preset memory, meaning it would be there when the system powered on (but the samples from the hard drive still have to be loaded into sample RAM... it's really much more useful if you have a sample Flash RAM or sample ROM installed, since then the samples are accessible on start up too). I haven't tried this, experiment at your own discretion. The manual does suggest using that memory to store templates of presets you might create (see EOS 4.0 manual, page 30).

None of this is helped by the fact that the manual seems to use three different terms to refer to what appears to be the same memory (CPU Flash, Preset Flash, and resident memory... not to be confused with the four other types of memory you might have... again, see page 30).

As for your preset memory... don't forget to go into the Master>Setup>Memory menu item and jiggle around the balance of preset to sequencer memory. If (for example) you're not going to use the on-board sequencer, might as well allocate no memory or the bare minimum to sequences.

If I remember right (and there's no guarantee that I do), the memory upgrade was to handle the larger 4.0 and after EOS, and doesn't actually increase your preset memory at all. Yeah, it is a limitation at times... there are some ESi banks from the Formula 4000 E-mu CD-Roms that I can't load because I run out of preset memory on my e6400 classic (although I can break the large banks down into smaller ones by loading the presets one by one... not ideal, but you only need to do it once and save the resulting smaller banks on a hard drive)

You might just have to make do with smaller banks of fewer presets.

After installing 4.62 and initializing the EEPROM and recalibrating, you just have to go through the Master>Setup items the make sure they're set the way you want (for example, I think initing the EEPROM throws out the "avoid SCSI host on ID" setting).

No, it's the exact same amount of preset/sequence RAM I had before. I guess there's just no way to increase outside of selling this box and getting an ultra. Well, I guess it's not that big a deal anyways, since I only plan on using this for 2 or 3 sounds at a time in a mix to supplement other instruments anyways, not for complete arranging. The completionist in me is annoyed though.

Besides, I almost never load entire banks. I usually just sprint individual presets, loading the ones I like and then saving my own banks.

It makes sense about the resident memory. I don't plan on trying to get any sound ROMs though. I'd rather be able to use all 128 MB of memory. If I really want to use those ROMs, I might get a non-sampling E-mu model like a Proteus2000 or a an Orbit. It's a bit obnoxious that I can't use it for anything. It'd be nice to be able to allocate it for presets for instance

I have yet to actually get SCSI to my PC working (the sampler addresses my 3 external drives fine though). It's this old Adaptec SCSI card I have though, I'm fairly sure. It used to work back in the day, but I haven't gotten it to recognize anything I've connected it to lately. I just ordered a new 2940AU off Ebay ($9.50 after shipping!), so hopefully I can get it to work then.