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

i just want to know:

has the eIIIxp rack analog filters?
(there are different opinions on that i found)

please answer if you definitly know!

eiiixp has digital filters

ei, eii, eiii have analog filters

plus emax-1

thank you,
you helped a lot!

best regards

Yes...  they are digital but like the EMAX II they are very nice ones - they might not go into wild self resonance but they still sound very sweet  :D

Although I adore my Sequential Prophet 2002 sampler for it's real analog filters and 12 bit crunch I also adore my EIIIXP and EMAX IIs for their super smooth sound - ideal for Orchestral stuff.  The transposition filtering on the EMAX II was awsome for it's time and still stands up very well now.  Head and shoulders ahead of the S1000 for it's musical sound (but NOT midi timing!!) - I always used to say use an EMAX II or EIII for instruments and an AKAI sampler for percussion.

I think the EMAX II and EIIIXP get unfair treatment coming from someone who's owned more samplers than mobile phones!!

Also, I think it's interesting to note that the digital filters on the EIIIX were the first that genius Dave Rossum at E-mu designed to my knowledge, and indeed the Emax II and Morpheus share the same custom "H Chip" filter...

I mean, do you really think Dave had "given up" somehow when he was designing his latest groundbreaking technological advancement?  Surely you jest!

The EIIIX was designed to be a counterpart to the original E3 in many ways, not the least of which as a "MIDI overflow" destination for E3 patches.  The goal was to make a more reliable digital counterpart that sounded virtually identical to their flagship of 5 years earlier.

Looked at in this light, it only makes sense that they tried to mimic the sonic characteristics of the original analog E3 as much as possible for continuity, even going as far as the much overlooked 8 setting volume response curves for the envelopes and a similar massive headroom like the original!

As for self-oscillation, I always thought that issue was a bit of a red herring, particualrly when it comes to samplers.  Because the analog filters on both the E2 and E3 reduce the unaffected frequencies (i.e. the BASS) most times it's a useless trick IMHO.

The EIIIX will still "ping" the filter and track the keyboard very nicely for some useful effects, whereas anyone who has ever had an E3 in need of filter tunig knows that unless you want the same repeating 8 pattern melody superimposed on your playing via the filter oscillation it's a losing proposition!

Packed full of proprietary and largely abandoned technology that sounds modern and awesome-- the EIIIX is still a unique and viable high class piece of kit.

My EIIIXP is loaded with 32mb and the elusive analog sampling inputs, but it craves an internal CF drive.  Does anybody have a working internal CF drive set-up that they can share the magic combination of jumpers and termination with the rest of us???

Robert

I got a cf card reader with an acard scsi/ide adapter and can't get it work to. I bought a zip drive and it won't startup to searching for scsi device after loading the os from the floppy.

I heard that for booting the EIIIX, you need to have a bank on EIIIX formated drive and you don't have an internal hard disk.

I tried with EMXP to format a ZIP on EIIIX format but the software can't do this.
I'm actually searchin for someone who can make me a formated EIIIX ZIP with somethin on it.
That's my last chance...
Someone can help me please?

Check to make sure that there isn't a conflict in your SCSI ID numbers by changing the ID number on the ZIP drive.  Also, make sure the external zip drive is terminated, and power it up just before the E3X.

I use a JAZ drive with mine with no problem, although it will automatically go to "sleep" if not accessed for a half hour or so, which is a drag.

It should still recognize the ZIP disk itself even before formatted to E3.  Try hitting the ESCAPE button when it hangs after start-up.  then go into MASTER, DISK UTILITIES, the MOUNT DRIVES.  Form here you can select FORMAT DISK and then choose the ZIP drive instead of the floppy.

Hope any of this helps at all!


Robert

Thank you for your answer.

My ZIP drive is terminated and I tried several id. I will try the escape but I think I already tried too.

I'm waiting for an EIIIX zip. I don't know if it's best to have a zip with bank only or bank + system startup.

I'll let you know.

Hello - I'm not sure about a CF reader but I can absolutely promise all of you that both the EMAX II and the EIIIX will boot and work with internal and external SCSI drives provided the system is transferred to the drive allocated as the boot drive.  You need to look through the Master/Global settings on the EIIIX to find the menus for boot drive number and copy system functions.

My EIIIX has an internal 500Mb SCSI drive which it happily boots up off.  Any SCSI drive that works on an EIIIX can be made bootable - even after it has been formatted and had data copied to it - the transfer is non destructive (quite unlike formatting!)

The system can be copied off a floppy disk to a hard drive using the sampler to perform this task from the master/global menu.

I can also absolutely guarantee that the EMAX II and EIIIX and XP will run and boot from external SCSI ZIP, JAZ drives, SyQuest, SyJet, and 230Mb Magneto Optical drives as I have used all of them with these samplers over the years.

My experience is that both samplers are not that fussy about termination when using external removable media provided the cables are short and there is only one device plugged in.

Sadly where I have had far less luck is with CDROM drives on both samplers where they seem to be very fussy.   I find the early SONY and Plextor drive (< 4X) drives work best.

As I keep repeating on vintage music gear sites the drive I can recommend more than any other is the Fujitsu MO230 Magneto Optical drive - MO disks are known to be extremely stable - very much more so than ZIP or SyQuest units.  They were the preferred choice for professional archival.   I have several MO disks that are 20 years old now and still read perfectly.  Most of my ZIP disks on the other hand were binned years ago.   If you are serious about storing your samples long term - please DO NOT use ZIP disks - you have been warned!

I entirely agree as long time owner of 2 EMAX IIs and an EIIIXP (and now an EII+) I have felt almost a degree of snobbery about the Emus featuring analog filtering and almost complete lack of respect for the EIIIX by some.  The fact of the matter is that EIIIX was a fine piece of kit and still stacks up well today.  I'm afraid this website in some ways is an indication of this - you only have to compare the number of entries for the EII vs the EIIIXP!  That said I personally prefer my EMAX IIs as they are so easy to use and make wonderful sounding samples with no effort.   I find the UI on my EIIIXP a little more confusing.

hello to all,and peace to Exp users! ???
in reply to the subject of analog filters.
i dont know if they were genius or not, but why Emulate filters when you already had them in stock? ???
if it is a fact that analog filters sound warmer and better why not set yourself apart by keeping them as part of your legacy? why does it take someone like Moog and Dave Smith and not the current Emu? >:(
they wasted all their R&D developing 400 new Z-FILTERS!! that sound as good as analog!? ::)
maybe i am ignorant,but can someone give me an idea of how much analog filters add to the price of a
keyboard versus digital? ???

The whole subject is very reminiscent of the old solid state vs tube amplifier argument and I'm afraid there are a lot of narrow minded analog only snobs around.

That said, analog resonant filters maybe overhyped but they do have some very desirable properties.  They are often, but not always, warmer, less repeatable and sometimes even slightly out of control into and around self-oscillation.   Digital filters can sometimes sound a little too notchy by affecting a very narrow range of the spectrum whilst being swept (high Q).  The other thing is that analogs can distort in nice ways too.  When the resonance is very high on my P2000 it can distort the hot spot in quite a musical manner.  These qualities make it just a little special - a bit like a fine wine or an old sports car.   If you listen carefully to most digital filters they are often a little too clinical and well behaved.  I believe as time goes by more and more clever emulations of these properties will come about but I suspect rather like direct injection speaker emulators there will always be a little something missing.

Sadly there are few integrated analog filters around and discrete fully real time controlled Moog like filters on a modern sampler would be extremely expensive to build.  Maybe Moog need to release some new integrated solutons.

Also don't underestimate the romance in owning this gear too - they didn't make all that many PPG Waves or EIIs and were fantastically expensive when new and so ownership is not just about how they sound.

I'm a fan of all technologies - digital and analog and I think it's right to have sensible mix in a studio.  Like everything in life it's about balance.   To think Jarre is only into old analog gear is totally wrong for example - he used and still uses tons of digital gear with digital filtering along side his analogs.... long live the D-50!   :)

e3Luv: "i dont know if they were genius or not, but why Emulate filters when you already had them in stock?"

With that way of thinking we would all still be listening to music on vinyl albums and CD would never have existed. :-)

Seriously, I think it's best to look back at the time when the EIIIXP was developed. Digital was the new thing back then. Digital = the future. Artists back then wanted to use digital gear because at that time it sounded better/cleaner to them. Even if it didn't in hindsight.

I remember as a kid in the late 80's buying CD's and hoping that they were recorded in DDD instead of AAD (when is the last time you saw that code on a CD?).

Kraftwerk re-recorded their album Electric Cafe, which was already finished with analogue gear, with digital gear because they saw it as the way to the future. (BTW, that's one of my favorite albums ever)

Also, the competition (Akai, Roland, ...) were releasing samplers with digital filters.

Another aspect was the cost. Sure they had to spend a lot of money for R&D but once that was done it was cheaper to make digital gear than analogue.

Just my point of view. Feel free to discus.

Cheers,
David

Thanks foe the reply.

That's interesting but I can't go in the global sytem menu after booting, even when I push the escape buton or enter.

It stay locked on this searching for scsi...

On an external zip drive there's a termination, do I need to put a phisical terminator on the rear of the EIIIX to get it work?

Thanks.

Ok I made a ugly thing: copied a piece of text from EmulatorArchive!  :-[  But I will give you the link too:

http://www.emulatorarchive.com/Archives/Samplers/Emulator_IIIX/E3XSCSI/e3xscsi.html (http://www.emulatorarchive.com/Archives/Samplers/Emulator_IIIX/E3XSCSI/e3xscsi.html)


According to the text the SCSI chain should look something like this (example):

Emulator IIIx terminator power + terminator <--> SCSI+CF-combo (internal) NO terminator <--> SCSI zip-drive (external) NO terminator <--> SCSI HDD (external) terminator only!

So what you have to check is that ONLY one of the two end units (EIIIx or the last external drive) have terminator power ON, both the EIIIx and the last SCSI unit must have their terminators active AND NONE of the SCSI units in the middle should have their terminators active, not even the terminator power.

I don't know if this solve your problem but I hope, good luck rectape!

//Escobar

Thank you escobar!

I already read this before and have difficulty to understood.

There are jumper in the EIIIX to set the termination but I don't know in which way it work. This paragraph in emulator archive is not clear to me.

I found somebody who own an EIIIX and he'll be sending to me a ZIP formated on a EIIIX with a bank. I really hope in this solution. I got 2 EIIIX and I can't figure they're not working!

btw thank's for your support.