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

Excited. With Mac, all the banks on zip, some floppies...Will post pics asap as long as nothing goes wrong with the sale. Waited so long!

Couple of things. Is it as easy as the Emax to replace the backlight on, and what stands are you using? Every company I've contacted has said it's too big for their stands...

Congrats !
Finally  :)

In my studio, the EII and EIII are on studio tables, not on stands...

Hi to all,
i´ve an EII and EIIIk on an Jaspers Stand, cut to the right measures. That stands!!!!

Can´t upload a pic, so you have to look at my profile. Or PM me and i´ll send to you.

Happy emulatings

Syncla

KEEP IN MIND to drive S L O W L Y with the E-mu in the back. avoid bumpy roads and such.
I bought my first one in perfect working condition (the seller gave me a demo), when I arrived home (2 h drive) the thing flipped... had to do the whole reseating procedure  >:(

AVOID ANY PHYSICAL SHOCK  ;)

greetz and good luck.

Our car is so ancient it only goes past 40 down a hill...lol. Don't worry, there's no way I'd risk anything!! Thanks for the advice about the stands/and to the people who replied to my PM's as well. I feel like I'm being initiated at last!

Congratulations! I hope it works out well. Look forward to hearing about it.

Brothers! Ignore the cables, I'm still sorting stuff out.

(http://img.skitch.com/20100912-mn5t29sj3stb7qnu8ikwgks8he.png)

(http://img.skitch.com/20100912-kkuhw578mwbyxfyfngnd6qafxf.png)

(http://img.skitch.com/20100912-ns1cp8rqs4id2sfnyi8na1e1py.png)

Everything works, floppies work, Mac works, all's fine!

So- am I in the club now? Do I get an honorary medal? Woohoo!

Wow !

This machine seems to be in great shape, it even came with a bright LCD/LED display (?).

So what are you going to do with the Emax now ?  ;)

Congratulations with this excellent buy !

The backlight is I'd say 60%- better than I thought, the cam makes it look very bright. Cosmetics wise some of the plastic has rubbed off around the number buttons but overall I'd say very good condition- well pleased, yeah. LOADS of floppies, all the banks on zip, a zip drive, a mac, SD, everything pretty much, going to order the cable off Rob tomorrow he has them in stock. This EII also used to belong to Rob I found out, he's going to see if he can find out who originally owned it. I bought it from someone who bought it from him.

I start a music production course in the morning and I'm shi*ting it- last time I was in college was 11 years ago...

Can you get the other disks in SD format for mac, the non factory ones, or do you still have to buy them? Oh, and is there anything I can cannibalise for the knob-ends (there's a euphemism for you!) It's missing them.

I'm keeping the Emax for the time being. Using this Emulator makes me realise how bad the keys are on it though, they are so spongy. Needs new springs.

Beauty  :)

looks really good. All voices okay?

Haven't found a problem with it yet...

...Heh, spoke too soon. Turned it on yesterday and couldn't get any sound out of it for almost an hour. Tried everything. In the end, the 4th time I turned it back on, it rebooted itself again after loading and the sound was back. Display was showing fine throughout. Temperamental old bugger!

S'pose that's just to be expected, or is it the sign of something more ominous? I've seen it reboot itself three times now.

Absolutely normal. Mine does that, too, from time to time.
I'm sure it can be fixed. Maybe it's the power supply...
Don't worry too much. Enjoy the thing.

No sound at all now. Been trying for 20 minutes. Help!

EDIT: Suddenly the LCD went as bright as new, the thing went bang, rebooted- and now there's sound, with a dim LCD. Power supply?

Watcha mean - it went "bang" ?

Like a pop from inside it somewhere. You know the noise when you plug it into an amp? Like that, but coming from somewhere around the disk drives. For about 5 seconds the LCD lit up bright blue like new, then it went blank, rebooted and defaulted back to its 60% brightness- and I had sound.

Somewhere around the drives?
If you ain't have your power supply on the right side (early models), then it shurely was it. It didn't blow the thing, so whatever...   or?!?  Experts?

It's getting worse. No sound again last night, today it rebooted itself twice and all the led's came on- and stayed on.

Take two or three days off work, buy some cleaning alcohol, open the unit, and reseat and clean each and every connector and IC inside (all those that are in sockets - use a thin screwdriver or a dedicated IC calipper). This sucks, but...
Of course - unplug the thing before, stay grounded (touch radiator here and then) and STAY AWAY from the power supply, even if it's unplugged.

You wanted to be in "the club"   :-\

Lol course I do, I just don't want it packing up on me. I know they're temperamental. Just asking in case it was a symptom of something that could possibly go catastrophically wrong- and I'm skint. Will try what you suggested over the weekend.

I hope it's going to work out.
When I did that, the thing was cured. At least for two years or so.
As I played around with it about a month ago, it flipped again - some voices crackled, drives didn't respond as they should... (okay - it stood still for more than half a year before...).

GOOD LUCK!!!

For a long time I have been trying to get into the club, but now I am having second thoughts. I have owned several EMU equiptment from a SP12, SP1200, Emax I, Emax II (both Emax were Rackmount), but have always wanted an EII. The only one that gave me problems was the Emax I, but that was back when I purchased it from a pawn shop in LA(Hollywood) around 1994. That was a long time ago and since the EII was manufactured a few years before and now more then 15 years later, the EII seems to be even more prone to issues.

  I hope you solve the issues with yours. Good luck with the cleaning and reseating the chips. Just dont clean the unit to hard as you might create a bigger problem than the current one.

rtech

Yeah, any EII has or will have issues. You have to get along with that, that's how it is.

edit:  I'M ALSO LOOKING FOR THE KNOB COVERS - IF YOU FIND A SOURCE, PLEASE LET ME KNOW...

I think so, too.
That's why I'm glad to have a second one for swapping parts just in case..

Nothing to be added. Well said!

EDIT:  Dimensional - you edited your post? It was really good...

I'll email and will try to call them. I asked a local shop in the San Gabriel area and they said they couldn't fix it. They don't have a tech that is knowledgeable on Old Emu gear.  I hope to get my sampling ability back on my eii.

Still haven't had a chance to look at mine. Here's what's happening now- no sound for 40 mins, it 'sort of' reboots, the LCD goes all funny with unreadable characters and all the red LED's come on across the top. I turn it off and on and I have sound, but only if I do this after all the LED's come on. Rebooting it at any other time makes no diff.

Before starting the full IC reseating process, it might be a good idea to first unplug/replug all connectors inside the unit.
If my EII is instable and has problems like yours or Elm's, I unplug the ribbon cables, clean a little bit the pin contacts and reconnect the cables. Espcially the keyboard ribbon cable connector is causing this kind of trouble with one of my EIIs.
I sometimes do the same thing with the power connectors (a few molex ones, and a few other ones). Especially the molex connectors (with 8+1 pins) can cause problems. I know I shouldn't be saying it, but cleaning the molex pins and then using a little bit of contact spray on them might help. Just don't do that too often  ;)
One last thing that I sometimes do is pressing on all ICs, and pushing a little bit on the connector between the two main boards - because this connection bridge can also cause instabilities.

It's also possible of course that your power supply is not good anymore...

Anyway, I think your EII is not in that bad shape. It worked when you bought it at the owners place, so probably something went wrong during transportation or after moving it around in your room/studio. Probably no big deal...

Whatever you gotta do to get it going again I say.  If it's gonna be
$500 to get it going again, I say it's worth it.  Which it won't, I am just
saying.  This unit doesn't spec out on paper with anything modern or
even near a softsynth, but nothing sounds this good either.  I think the EII
sounds better than the EIII.  I cannot believe the textures I get out of this thing.
There isn't anything in the Ambient genre I am not able to do with the EII and DP4 processor.  The ADSR and LFO control is absolutely mind blowing.  I think most people who have this synth get some OMI sample library and play some Music For the Masses riffs and the fun ends there.  I am not saying that is lame, but there is so much more to this big machine.   The filters are just so dark and deep.  Depends what you're doing I guess.  I sat there with the lights off last night after an hours worth of carving tones and all I did was shake my head in disbelief.  The EII blows my mind.  Out of the 4 or 5 I have had, this is the only one that has worked 100%.  The other one is in the shop, and I am looking for another.  You gotta think long term on these things. No manufacturer will ever come out with another synth like this.  Ever.   I'll never go back to cheeseball VST's and be satisfied.   Sample the sampler is my motto.  But make sure the EII is in there somewhere though.  I'll get a 3rd job for another EII or do whatever I gotta do to fix mine. Acquiring one is only half the battle.  Getting them to run is another mountain to climb sometimes.  You either buy a cheaper one that needs work or you buy a gem at $1500+ and then you still have to say a little prayer for it to run right, and sometimes wave a little chicken foot around the unit in order for it to turn on and load and work.  (lol)

My favorite synth.  If you have one or several feel lucky.  Be thankful when you look across the room.  :)

There we are!  :)

nothing other to say for!!!!!!

Damn right. He's an old man, and he's a temperamental old git. Will open him up next weekend.

Oh yeah- just tried my emax- no fucking power at all. I'm in a foul mood.

EDIT: fuse holder was loose. Emulator rebooted and now I have sound- panic over. Serves me right for plugging them in when I'm drunk.

LOL! Been there ;-)

Glad to hear things are started to get back on track.

I found some Emax tech docs on ebay. I am adding SCSI to my old rack units. One down so far. Hopefully, when the time is right, I will be able to nurse an EII into the new millennium.

Best of luck!

I replaced the fuseholders on both my EIIs as well as my SP-12 (with new ones - don't look the same but are good). These old ones with that red cap seem to become faulty with time..

i didn't read the whole thread...
Strange behaviour can also be caused by using MIDI and Mac together.

my 2ct

Nope, still waiting on the cable so It's not Mac related. Same thing keeps happening, no sound, leave it for 40 mins, all the led's come on, reboots, works. Still haven't had a chance to look inside, this course is all day and most of the evening.

You could use the same 40 minutes to open it and reconnect cables and push some ICs inside  :D
I have to do this procedure every three months or so, and it takes about 2 minutes  ;)
The screws of my EII casing are "permanently" removed in order to be able to quickly open and close the beast on a regular basis.

Lol, touche. Should find some time to look at it on Sunday, will post back the results.

At least Bob the cat is having fun on the broken EII (yeah yeah, O/T, bad idea to let cat on Emulator II etc, he insisted)

(http://img.skitch.com/20101127-g52563ab9ux466abf3t9iu2e1c.png)

my cats love both, my  E III k and the E II. But the E II most, in fact of using the Floppytower as seat for looking around! Cats know what is gooood!
Searching for pics, delivering later.

greetz
 to all

Syncla

He does love sitting on the disk drive...

Right, sample question. I have an unnamed EII disk, which has a load of random 80's samples on, one of which is identical to the synth sound on 'I Feel For You' by Chaka Khan. The preset is actually called Chaka. I'm trying to find the name of this sound, and a .wav/soundfont of it. Anyone know? I want to use it via Reason.