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

Hi, if I play my Emax through either an amp or speakers, or even via midi, the sound is so quiet I have to turn everything up to full just to hear it!
I've been told I need to buy a mixer, but after some googling, it seems that synths are supposed to have a high enough level anyway.
The manual mentions nothing about overall volume apart from calibration (which is set to as high as it will go)...so, have I missed a setting or is something wrong? I have tested it with more than one amp and cables.

don't know your amp etc., but put a headphone at the stereo out - if it's loud enough, all will be fine

On full volume it's at a comfortable level on the earphones..is that correct?

I wish I could get to the bottom of this. I can't record into Logic with it because the output is far too quiet when I plug it into my computer/and or amp.

THis is strange...
No volume pedal not calibrated correctly, mmmm.... ? ;D

I don't have a volume pedal with it. Do I need one? or should I just buy a mixer?

Sorry for the noob questions. I'm learning as I go along!

Your soundcard or audio IO is normally enough.
If you have an insert cable (that means a 1/4" Stereo-Jack goos to 2 Mono Jacks) try this with the stereo-out of the emax.
It's not the normal way, but maybe you can hear then a different level. Maybe it helps to define the problem.

Ok, i just found something out by accident, but I bet I won't be able to explain it properly.
Basically, I'm hooking it up via a midi to USB cable and playing through Kontakt which is where I have all my EII samples, as a midi controller, seeing as I can't get the volume playing it by itself.

I pressed one of the buttons and pressed a key as normal, it started playing a preset bank, some sort of arpeggiator, but using the Kontakt sample and NOT the Emax's own disk voice (which I didn't think was possible, lol)
But here's the thing- when it started to play the arpeg it was LOUD on just that one preset. I went thorough all the other presets on that disk, all quiet (I have approx 20 original Emax floppies).
Am I onto something? I'm sure it's just a setting I've missed?

EDIT: What I should have said was, most of the presets on the Emax factory disks are quiet but some are loud- the arpeggiated ones. Is there a way to make them all loud.

Is it an expander, or a keyboard ?

If its a keyboard, take every cable away, MIDI, everything, put only mains and output to an amp.

Power-up the machine without MIDI.  What does it say ?

It's a keyboard. Sorry, what do you mean by 'What does it say?'

The HD is dead by the way, so I'm just loading from disks. Everything appears to be fine, I can get a decent volume through headphones, just not through an amp or speakers unless I turn it to full volume. Someone told me there was a setting under Master, but all I can see there is the calibration for the slider.
When I turn it on, it just says 'Loading Software' because it's looking for the dead HD.

I've tried everything. All I'm getting is massive hiss off the speakers and miniscule volume. I've plugged the lead into every hole on the back of it just in case, I've gone through the manual...Please, how does everyone else record their emaxes? Just in case I've done something stupid...I have a macbook by the way.

Have I done something wrong, am I using the wrong kind of cable, wrong sockets...pics.

(http://img.skitch.com/20100527-rwpexci6jghkc4an64pcrkcgpu.jpg)

(http://img.skitch.com/20100527-eyr2asmdyh65g6iwb37tgjha5h.jpg)

Normally, when you start your Emax with a diskette inside the reader, its the diskette wich takes the hand on the hard disk.

Then, you can recalibrtate your fader !

You mean the volume slider? I have already done that, or do you mean another setting?
Well, when I say I did that, I put it to the bottom for lowest and the top for high in master...

Thanks for your help.

IMPORTANT : Do you get a big "POP !" when you insert the jack plug into your Emax ? (You obvisouly have to connect the other side of the cable into a mixing consoole or an amplifier...)

If you turn your Emax on its back and take away the metal undercover, check near ther place where the jack plu connects to the board. There must be a circuit named TL084 or TL074. Power your emax for five minutes and then put your finger on the integrated circuit. If you burn yourself, it means the circuit is dead.

Is it an Emax 1, Emax 2 ? Stupid question, forget it...  ;D

Yes, i get the pop. Thanks for the advice, I shall take it down my dad's (who used to be an electrician) and get him to have a look at it- I'll report back.

I mean, a very big pop !

The explanation is simple : your output ciruit must be bad, the output at -15 or +15V
There is a capacitor to avoid the DC to pass thru, but you still get the charge and the discharge of the capacitor. Normal...

Make a picture, a NICE AND CLEAR ONE of the circuits around the outpu, I will tell you where to look at.

Cheers

I will tomorrow when I go to my Dad's. Something is definitely up- I bought a roland Jx-3p less than an hour ago (for silly money, it had a case and everything and is MINT! :) And that is blasting through my amp, so yeah, at least I know now something is not good with the Emax. Will report back tomorrow, thanks again for your help, I'll take some photos.

I just turned it on...and I have full volume for the first time? Wtf?!

Still taking it down my dads today though. That's so weird. I haven't done anything??

Only thing I can think off is that the amp was already on when I switched on the emax, and I heard a 'boom'- suddenly full volume?

I once bought an Emax-II rack for 15 EUR - the price was so low because the output wasn't working anymore.
It behaved almost exactly as yours (no or very low output, sometimes max volume, ...).

Now... the cause of this problem was just the ribbon cable inside the Emax-II which was not perfectly connected to the boards  ;)

I guess it's not that simple with yours, and I assume you already checked this kind of basic things, but I wanted to let you know anyway...

 

Well, this gets far weirder.

Suddenly, the hard drive is working again. it has never worked since I had it. Nothing was done to it.

My dad spent 3 hours on it, we cleaned it all out (was full of grease and stank of chip fat, thankyou mr whoeveryouare from Wales who left your name on the bottom of it, next time learn how to not cross thread screws and fry your chips on it!!)

Cut a long story short...working output, working HD, everything checked and fine inside, all keys cleaned, and new backlight fitted. But.

The new backlight is bright blue- great...but, something's gone wrong...the lcd's gone funny. Before we took it apart, the letters on it were fine, now all we get is scrolling lines, so we've put it back wrong, although we can't figure out how. Any ideas what we might have done wrong?

If I remember well, there are plastic washers because a standoff was making a short circuit on the LCD board.

Just look, it must be something obvious !!

Well, all is fine now. Still not sure what was wrong with the LCD, took it out and put it back in 4 times then it worked, didn't do anything different. Had a nice surprise when the HD started working, it was full of banks :P

Anyway, here's a pic of the nice new backlight I bought from a German site (Midirakete)

(http://img.skitch.com/20100704-jwng3j2pix51q67hn8hhk6idt9.png)

My Baby! <3

(http://img.skitch.com/20100704-bd6spbb9e8scehb46j9xt99qef.png)

Now all he needs is his big brother, Emulator II....

The backlight on the LCD is going out. Mine slowly worsened over time until the backlight was completely dead. LCD itself was fine. I had it replaced about a year ago. From now on, I'm replacing backlights myself. Finally found decent prices on ebay. Added a white backlight to my EIIIxp over the weekend and it is so much more useable now. Emax will be weird with a white backlight, but, I may modify the panel LEDs to have it be more aesthetically cohesive :-)