E-mu Emulator Sampler User Forum for the EIII EII EI and EIII XP

Have you seen this auction?

http://auction.recoil.co.uk/emu-emulator-ii/

(http://auction.recoil.co.uk/gear/emulator.jpg)


Alan Wilder from depecheMode is selling most of his vintage samplers EII, EI, EmaxII. He's even selling them with 50+ floppy's library.
I don't know if this is too old but anybody knows what's the destiny of those libraries and samplers?

The EmaxII still has the Violator set list printed right to the mod wheel.
http://auction.recoil.co.uk/emu-emax-ii-sampler/

(http://auction.recoil.co.uk/gear/emax_little.jpg)

I was so excited when he announced this last week, but now it pisses me off.
99% of us true fans will never even get close to owning any of this stuff, let alone the precious samples, because its going to cost a small fortune.
I really do hope that whoever ends up with the samplers and libraries decides to share all those awesome sounds.

Why?

It is a EII with the double memory option?  "press 00 to change"  :o

The "double memory option" means it is an Emulator II+. Two separate banks of 500 kb each.

yeahh, mine doesn't have it    :'(
But my girl has a Hxc card  option :-*

All I want is that library.  An EII is an EII.   To be honest.. seeing Alan sell all his Emulator's and having him tell me to my face that he won't ever use those things again really deflated my balloon about it all.   Why wouldn't you use them again?   I've heard his Recoil stuff for years and he could use some old Emulators in there if you ask me.  I respect the whole Mac laptop thing within using nothing but software, but if you're not using both hardware and software these days, then you're missing the juice of life with making music today.   You gotta have both, imho.   You want to sell a shit ton of records, Alan? Do a 2012 Hydrology reissue or remix album and use your original EII and library and your Mac(s).   You would clean house and make a killing on album sales.   I just don't get it...  It leaves a bad and kinda sad taste in my mouth.   So that's it huh? 

I will use mine forever.  I tried going commando a couple times now without an EII and was totally disgusted with my music without those filters.   You can't get them with an EIII or Emax.   Maybe a 2002 rack comes close but still not the same.   

I feel your point of view, as I'm also addicted to all the stuff.

Noone cares about you or me though :D
See - that's the difference between freaks like us and "real" musicians. A musician doesn't want to mess around. He just wants to create music. A tool is just a tool especially talking about a "sampler" - it can even hardly pass as an instrument imho.

No intent to be offensive bro. ;)

No offense taken, Elmer.   But I like my style of music a 1000 times better than Alan's.
Granted he is 1000 better producer than me, but it comes down to style and the final outcome.
I could care less what he's doing now.  I haven't like a track of his since he left DM a hundred years ago.

Do you have a myspace page or something similar where we can have a listen?

greetz,
Elm.

No. 

Think Basic Channel/Maurizio/Chain Reaction, etc.

Mr. Elm is spot on here.

I used to work in different Music Stores here in Denmark and the professional composers/musicians DO GENERALLY NOT CARE about the equipment they use; what they use is tools.

I totally understand where you're coming from (I am from the same place you know :-) ), but anyone with just a small amount of rational thinking will quickly understand that using a soon-to-be 30 year old sampler with technical quirks where you need 5.25 inch floppy drives and old Apple computers in order to make it work - and an OS that takes a LOT more time to get around than software samplers - over a software sampler like Kontakt or HALion is silly if not stupid.

You WILL get things done quicker and more sleak using software - no doubt about. What you WON'T get is the fantastic sound of and Emulator II but I am pretty sure that the average listener couldn't care less.

I - like you - just LOVE the filters and the overall sound of the EII, but if your job is being a professional musician most would move on.

Best;

KennethA
12bit.com

Depends what kind of artist you are and the sound you're after.  If you're Kaskade or Deadmouse than software all the way.  If you're Echospace than you're purposely using Sequential and Emu for the dirty dark tones.  Granted they use laptops on stage, but they're just playback recorders for them.    It really depends on the genre. 

There is no doubt that DAW's are very fast in making music these days in a more efficient and elegant way of working.  The EII is old fashioned.  But it has character that computers could never make.  But as you said, most people wouldn't know the difference.  Especially if your music isn't radio friendly than mainstream audiences will never hear your stuff anyways..   It's a personal thing I guess to the artist who owns these old things and nostalgia.  All this time wasted (or invested)  and expense and hassle....  it's worth it.

Yeah. That we all do know.  8)

Reckon 12bit speaks for the majority of music professionals, although I've sold EII soundbanks recently to two recording artists (one very well known) still using their EII's in the studio to get a particular sound. Not live on stage though for obvious reasons, shame as they would look very cool.   :)    

For those who commented on wanting the library, if you look deeper in the catalogue, you should see there are some library zip discs available as well.
These are a compilation of banks that we managed to recover from Alan's ageing and decaying floppy libraries. Most of the 101 stuff is on there as well as a few tasty banks from the SOFAD tour.

 ;D

What format are the SOFAD banks in? Are these Emax 2 format too (like the 101 ones) on zip disk? Couldn't see these specifically on the catalogue list...   

what an awesome sale..... look at the EII disks.... we should buy this for our group.....

Hi Zom,

that´s a very good idea! I´m in th boat with you!

 :o cool!

I'd kick in too!

I'd be up for it.. I'm hoping to be at the actual auction too if anybody's going

 ;D

looks like the Emax Zip Discs are back in the auction

http://auction.recoil.co.uk/20-x-aw-dm-sound-sample-zip-discs/ (http://auction.recoil.co.uk/20-x-aw-dm-sound-sample-zip-discs/)

Anyone going to the auction?.

Yeah, probably will out of interest. Not far from me (Preston).

Not that I need one, would be cool to have the EII (for ownership history) but no point expecting that will stay within reach... 

Would be good to give those old EII floppy disks a go though, shame they're not being auctioned separately. Have found most old floppy disk loading varies a lot between the drives used. Managed to find a brand new, original Shugart SA465 last year that works a treat on mine. Oh well...             

swapped some holiday dates around so have intention of going.

what sort of % chance that you will land something.as there's gonna be some serious
bids coming in.

was after the black shirt with the red flowers on from the video on top of the
twin towers. would have been nice if up.   

anyone got one..?

Because we users of E-mu Emulator Sampler  Forum do not collect a sum of money in order to make an offer for Emax Zip Disc library auction?
A member of the forum of English nationality or who it wants participates at auction can do an offer for we users of the forum.
If  we adjudicate the auction, everyone of we that to participated will have 'right to a copy of Emax Zip Disc library on the cheap.

Hi group, greetings from an old DSP/synth guy, but total Emulator newbie.  Seeing this AW/DM auction has got all sorts of old juices fired up.  Now I understand these old guys paying top dollar for weird 70s muscle cars -- the ones they couldn't afford when they were teens ;)

Chevytraveller -- your comment sounds like you were involved in the process of compiling the zip disks in the AW auction.  Do you know anything specific about the formats involved?  emax1 or 2, for instance?  It seems logical that all the banks on the zips would work on an emax2 turbo w/8MB, but I'm wondering if they would work on an emax2 with only 1 or 2 megs, or even an emax1?   Would an E3 play back the data on such a zip disk?  I've sent an inquiry to the auctioneers, but doubt they'd be able to answer.  Sorry if this is an ill-posed question.  I /am/ a total newbie regarding E-mu gear, but have tried to put in the google time before asking questions ...

re: group buy of one of the lot 69 discs --  I'm certainly interested in a part-share for a group bid.  I plan to bid on one, and would be willing to make a few copies for people with emax hardware, if I'm able to win.  If I don't win, I'd pay a reasonable part-share to participate in a collective.

Yes I was involved in compiling the discs (I even got a credit in the catalogue :-).
The banks are all saved as Emax II banks. The vast majority of them (101 tour) will load in any Emax II as they were originally loaded from Emax I floppy discs and so are small bank sizes.
Some of the later banks from the SOFAD tour do require an 8MB Emax to play in their entirety as there are many samples layered, but individual presets may load.

Either way, there will be a way of getting the sounds on to any Emax either by EMXP or other means.
Once the auction has run, then I can say/do more for the group with regard to accessing them from other devices/formats

hope this helps

 ;D

Thanks a million, chevytraveller, that's exactly the info I was looking for.   I reckoned there'd be some procedure via EMXP and a usb-zip for extracting the raw wavs, or even an old midi SDS dump, for getting the material into Kontakt or suchlike, but this research has actually convinced me to buy an Emax 2, and I might even spring for an E2 someday now that emuser exists.  Awesome stuff in this forum, thanks everyone!

Dear Lord, I lost control this morning and bought an E2 from a fellow on ebay with zero feedback.   :P  What was I thinking?  Time to fire up the scope, warm up the soldering iron.  I really don't know how my wife puts up with this...

A thousand bucks isn't that much...

 :o

ALL THE BEST!!!

Hi Elmbeatz,

Thanks for good wishes!   The good news is, that she mentioned she needs a new violin bow...

Chevytraveller, yet another question about the AW zips -- do you happen to know if they are bootable?  Are all the samples mono, by chance?

Thanks a million, minphase / KevinC

I don't think the Zips are bootable.. as far as I remember the majority of samples are mono with a few exceptions..

here a video of Alan going through the sound banks just after I dropped it off at his house

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXXTdmNXQjo&feature=channel_video_title (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xXXTdmNXQjo&feature=channel_video_title)

 ;D

Nice to watch. Now we want to see the same playing the EII and the included disks.  ;D

That HD is not long for this world.

Any news on this?

Sigh.  Lots of news, lots of phone calls, not a lot of items being shipped ... 

I'm dealing with a fellow in TX who seems very nice and sincere, but it could still prove to be a scam.  I paid immediately, and the fellow printed a shipping label.  It's his first ebay transaction (Danger, Will Robinson!!) and there's been a lot of confusion about paypal.  I've talked to him on the phone, and he seems like a sincere, engineer-musician type like probably all of us(!), maybe a bit older.  Long and short -- all the delays are explainable by simple f**ups rather than anything shady, but here we are, a week later, and still nothing has been shipped  :'(    When this silly saga ends, I'll post the result.   Thanks for asking Elmbeatz -- I'm really looking forward to bringing it up, screwing around with HxC, etc. and hopefully making and trading some samples.

Cheers, minphase

So what about buying the sounds together for the forum? :)
Or will the price be soo high that it is not affordable anyway  :(

days are counting...

So who's going this weekend?..


I'll be there for some of Friday and all Saturday. PM me if you're going along and fancy a beer

 :)

Not bothering myself now. Been told you need to register, set up an account, provide ID, give credit card details in advance plus an entry fee... understand why, but can't be arsed with all that.   

Good luck to anyone here planning on bidding.

Midway through auction, here are the interesting synth items:

Emulator II:      4200 GBP
Emax II:           6400
EIII (broken):    1500
e6400:                440

emaxII zips went for quite a lot -- between 550-650 GBP

ARP Odyssey:     1800 ( That is a STEAL!  Good buy! )
Minimoog:          3700
Wasp + Spider:  1400
OB-8 (broken):  1500

Novation Supernova:  1300


Gretsch White Falcon:  10400

Not much love for the other  acoustic stuff:
Drum kit:    3300 (quite low)
Wurli:   didn't meet reserve
Steinway Model O:   10k-11k   ( insane low price for a rebuilt 1915 Model O) 

Emax II for £6,400 !!  :-X 

I bought the EIII and the 6400. Emax price was a bit more than the $10000 than I predicted,  but way out of reach for me. I was on the phone ready to bid on it, but my limit was already shot on the opening bid.
Wow.

It was quite a day.. I just got back from Manchester..

Bidding was just silly.. things I expected to go for loads(steinway, drumkit), didn't things I thought would be cheap went for silly prices. The sound discs we did for Alan went for between £550-650.. madness!!..

Silliest item of the day was 2 pairs of jacket sleeves... no jacket, just the sleeves.. went for £100

come on now.. own up.. who bought the sleeves?..


 ;D

And so it begins......... >:(



http://www.ebay.com/itm/DEPECHE-MODE-Alan-Wilder-signed-drumsticks-COA-/200649044309?pt=UK_Music_Music_Memorabilia_LE&hash=item2eb79d7155

does anyone know if any percentage of the sales are being donated to charity?

The sales are donated to charity of Alan Wilder himself :)
By the way, I got one of the discs for 600 pounds. Any ideas if it it isnpossible to convert it to different formats (so they can be used in various softwares)?

EMXP will convert to various EMU formats, Akai S1000 (I think) and soundfont. Not sure how good the conversion quality will be though. 

Any reason AW didn't offer multiple copies of the EII disks like he did with the Emax II ones? Could have made a fortune with those.  

Sadly we didn't have access to a working EII for more than a couple of days, so only manage to copy a few discs. Plus the discs were older and not in the greatest of shape. The Emax one's were relatively easy to compile.

 ;D

I have made conversions using Chicken Systems Translator. Works very well, I now have ESX24 and NN19 format banks but can produce any format you want.. drop me a PM


 ;D

Ok, already sent you a PM. Will contact you later once I receive the disc. Many thanks.

Rats.  I hate it when my most cynical assumptions prove justified.   

I respectfully submit Alan's Bondage Pants as a candidate for silliest item of the auction.   And no, I'm not even going to consider answering the next question.    :-*

Thanks Chevy, I had a feeling it was something like that...very sad! :(
I remember when Keith Emerson went through his divorce, he was selling off all his vintage analog equipment.

[/quote]
Thanks Chevy, I had a feeling it was something like that...very sad! :(
I remember when Keith Emerson went through his divorce, he was selling off all his vintage analog equipment.
[/quote]

Yes.. I remember that i think.. back in '93.. went to a huge warehouse to look over the things for sale.. most of it all got bought up by Martin Newcombe and Jim Davidson though sadly..  >:(

I got to play it in Manc, as well as the EmaxII. Damn, 22 years of devotion to ACW's work and my fingers were shaking like mad! Had a chat with him about power supplies and stuff, and a look through the Emax banks. Absolutely bloody amazing. Some (smaller versions) of the pics I took:

(http://img.skitch.com/20110906-fauu77qb85bem343c8aqsikqq3.png)
(http://img.skitch.com/20110906-f7rrq54prq21dg1gugreccgtyk.png)
(http://img.skitch.com/20110906-xpjrijxapi1tnuuafpi8rh97uc.png)
(http://img.skitch.com/20110906-biiq6jc5ai7ga4t1e45u46y9ub.png)
(http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lr0nf6t93O1qgapk8o1_500.jpg)
And fugly old me, had to!

(http://img.skitch.com/20110906-86hbaph1p3jddcrxne76h8csd8.png)

Hi to Paul and Nick who were there :P Midipuppies, can't wait to hear about the EIII...

Great pics ! Surpised how cheap the OB8 went for, was it broken?


Looks like you have a SCSI bus/connection to fix Jay after watching this clip featuring James Walker here:

http://www.side-line.com/news_comments.php?id=46793_0_2_0_C

I know James pretty well so let me know if you need anymore info from him (unless you've already collared him on it) ;). Good luck anyway. Hope it arrives over there safely.   

There'll be members blowing that pic up to poster size and sticking it on their walls.  ;D

An Emax II, Emulator II and Emulator III with a girl up front who's into them all !!! Beat that.   

Lmao, cheers, although I looked a sodding fright because I had a MAJOR hangover that day- I was still throwing up on the train to Manc in the morning, and we got to the venue at ten! Looked like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, and then some!

Thanks guys, I am looking forward to getting them. I wonder if the HD still works.......
I know its been taken out, but I may be able to get it going with parts from another. Will keep you posted!

Here we go........back online.......

Hope no ladies have died while ive been away!

Eagerly scouring Ebay for a Mac so I can actually use my Emulator properly.

Nick

Hi J

The HD spins up, but could not get it to be recognised by anything. Tried an EIV and an old Mac but no joy.. good luck with it

 ;D

I've never known James to be beaten by anything... Was it a case of too little time to sort or did he draw a blank? 

I'm not sure if James had a look at the EIII.. I know he got the EII up and working with some PSU work



 ;D

It's the EIII with James in that auction video I linked to earlier.

He did the business on my EII ages ago and it's been tip top ever since. Now there's tempting fate....

Better off looking in the local paper ads or car boots, they go for silly prices on eBay, and that's if you're lucky enough to find one locally- postage is a bomb. Try Freecycle, Gumtree etc...

Hi all,

We got one of the sample discs from the AW auction together with friends. Being not professional in Emax issues, any ideas how we can copy this disc?
And also, I am looking for an Emax II. Any suggestions for the places I can get one these old animals is very much appreciated.

Many thanks..!

adds to the whole rock n roll mystique though doesn't it? :D

Look around for a Zip Drive? I've got one working with a WinXP computer, but I'm in the USA so you'll probably want to find someone in the UK.

Once you have a Zip drive running, then you can copy them into your computer and make copies onto new Zip disks, or burn the files to CD. Or use the EMXP software to convert them from Emax format into other E-mu formats or wav files.

See: http://www.emxp.net/

I'm interested in buying a copy if you're interested in selling. Either a direct copy onto a Zip disk or copied on to a CD works for me.   

I'm hoping to get an Emax as well.  :^)

The Emax allows you to make a complete backup of one drive to another.. the best way to do this is with 2 Zip drives and an 8Mb Emax II. That's how we created the Discs in the first place from the Internal HD in Alan's machine.
If you need any further help, drop me a PM

 ;D

Keep in mind that there are several versions of "Zip" drives that were made over the years. They came in the following disk capacity sizes:
100 MB,
250 MB, and
750 MB,

and with the following interfaces:
LPT (Line Print Terminal), aka "parallel port",
SCSI,
ATAPI,
USB, and
Firewire.

The Zip 100 with a LPT port is probably the most common, and Zip 100 with SCSI is most likely second most common.

If you want to use your computer to make the copies, you probably want to get a Zip 100 with LPT interface, as it should hook right up after installing Iomega's drivers.

If you have a SCSI port on your computer (or you get a Emax), make sure you get a cable that matches both the SCSI interface on the Zip Drive, but also on your computer (or Emax) as there are many different sized SCSI interfaces to deal with.

@kdk;
Many thanks for the answers. I will check in details but I am pretty comfortable now that we will be able to solve the issue. In respect to getting a copy, once I manage to get things done, I can share with you one copy of course, no problems. Don't care about the money, not important at all. I just received the invoice but the disc will arrive in 2-3 days I assume. I will be in US (New York) next Tuesday for 2 days. If you are around and if I get the disc by that time, we can even solve the issue there. Just send me a PM.

@Chevytraveller;
I already sent you couple of emails and also PMs, but no reply back still.. Especially in respect to getting an Emax II. ;) But thanks anyway.. :)

That's strange.. I did reply, but it was via my Yahoo account.. anyway, I have just sent you another PM.. let me know if you get it ok


S.  ;D

Yeap, got your PM and replied back. ;)

Ugh. After a painful 9gb upload, here is the auction Q&A, and gig in full:


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z5tLWprCrUA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOpU-ZeafXU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B1KKoM3CTqE

Thanks a million for posting this.  Really good of you !  Cheers, minphase

Here are some of the samples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LoJHXc3RaC0&

Sorry dude. Completely weak playing.

Sure.. I am an amateur. :)

You're still better than I am though!   ;)

You must be really bad then :))
Some more samples. The idea is to share the sounds with people, not to show my talents.. So no related comments please ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd3dORxgy5c&

Glad to see you're having fun with them  ;D

Yes, that was the idea behind. Somehow as you see i also managed to get those banks which were higher than 4MB work on the machine now. Thanks for all your help.

Thanks for taking the time to record and upload these cool sounds, and for not worrying about what other's think.  :)

Does anyone here know who won the auction for Wilders EII?

Here are some I Want You Now 1994 samples:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krp99U-qdOY

Mercy In You:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0nhLZIvNr2k

cool :)