How to hook up EIII to a Mac

[wirefall]

Hi folks,
lately I've got an EIII Rack with full RAM and latest OS, and an old Mac IIci with Sounddiver II and also Alchemy 3.

As you all know, the EIII is rather stubborn regarding SCSI and so I really have no success in recognizing the EIII from Alchemy or the Mac harddisk from the EIII.

Took me a lot of time even to find a proper CD drive, thanks to this forum I bought the Apple CD 300 which is indeed recognized at once. But I've also tried about 20 different SCSI drives before with no success...

The same now for the Mac. How do you have managed to get the EIII working together with a Mac? Cables, SCSI-IDs, switching order... I tried a lot and I really am experienced in SCSI (got a lot stuff here), but still no success.

I really would like to get samples from Mac to EIII. Anybody?

Thanks! 

[Elmbeatz]

....
But I've also tried about 20 different SCSI drives before with no success...

WOW!
I tried three altogether.. The Apple CD-300 worked fine with mine, too.

Sorry I have no experience with alchemy. I used the EIII remote software once, and that worked fine (this works via MIDI though).
Why would you like to like to get samples from a mac?

Greetz,
Elm.

[wirefall]

Should have read this forum before, it would have kept me away from trying so much CD-ROMs ;-)
Its is not only the Mac, since this is equipped with an Audiomedia II. I would like this to be a "sampling station", also connected to my old Kurzweil stuff (K250 and K250 RMX). Recording, changing samples between the samplers, saving, just the whole sampling logistics. As Alchemy has a dedicated function to "speak" with the EIII of course I want to use this feature. And I know it must be possible in a reproducible and stable way, otherwise they wouldn't have implemented this function, right?

[micromoog]

Alchemy and EIII works, but don't ask me how

The former owner of mine EIII had used it a lot.

[Elmbeatz]

Should have read this forum before, it would have kept me away from trying so much CD-ROMs ;-)
Its is not only the Mac, since this is equipped with an Audiomedia II. I would like this to be a "sampling station", also connected to my old Kurzweil stuff (K250 and K250 RMX). Recording, changing samples between the samplers, saving, just the whole sampling logistics. As Alchemy has a dedicated function to "speak" with the EIII of course I want to use this feature. And I know it must be possible in a reproducible and stable way, otherwise they wouldn't have implemented this function, right?

That sounds very interesting. Having that Kurzweil Monster says enough! Yeah, I think that alchemy and EIII work together pretty stable.

Nonetheless I have no idea how to adress and connect all those scsi ids and devices properly....

Greetz,
Elm.

[wirefall]

Alchemy and EIII works, but don't ask me how

The former owner of mine EIII had used it a lot.

Glad to hear that! Please tell us more about your working setup > which Mac, which OS, cable, anything else in the SCSI chain.... Maybe it is just a very simple detail that provides the solution...

[thomas]

Hi,

I have a working EIII - Mac (Quadra 700 with Alchemy and SDII 2.5) plus CD-ROM and MO drive setup.
Though it can be temperamental sometimes, it is generally quite useable.

I use only short high-quality SCSI cables (from Granite) with the EIII and the Quadra at opposite end of the SCSI chain.
SCSI termination is very important as the devices in the middle of the chain should not be terminated.
Also be sure to have unique SCSI id's; I have: ID1 Quadra, ID2 EIII boot disk (from CF-Card), ID3 CD-ROM, ID5 MO drive, ID6 EIII and ID7 Apple boot disk

The order I switch them on is first CD-ROM and MO drive, then EIII and after that has fully booted, the Mac.


Using Alchemy to send and map the samples and the EIII remote control software to name the presets is really a comfortable way of working. SDII 2.5 can send the samples via SCSI too, but is more rudimentary in working with the EIII than Alchemy is.

[wirefall]

Thanks Thomas,

your posting provides several helpful points, I've tried them out, and with some success!
First I wanted my EIII to recognize not only one but two SCSI devices, as your setup does the same. So far my EIII only had recognized the Apple CD300 or an iomega Zip100, but not both together in a chain. A 100 Zip drive is not that big, I like more the jaz 2 GB. So I did several attempts, at least I got this all to work properly, when I indeed took the thickest and shortest cables I could find in my SCSI spare parts box (original Apple SCSI cable!)! Now I have a CD and a jaz together, using the last one for my very first backup of the internal EIII HD. Works!
The last bridge was to build from EIII to the old Mac via CD and jaz, so I connected the jaz and the Mac with another cable and guess what: SCSI Scope easily finds the EIII and even shows it's software Version 2.42! Whopey! Then I started Alchemy... no success. But with SD 2.5: Fetching a Sound was indeed easily!
Now I think I do something wrong with Alchemy as SD works. Alchemy is completely new to me, do I have to make any special settings? THe manual is still on the way... How do you set up Alchemy to speak properly with EIII? Thanks! 

[wirefall]

Got it! 

Was just a mismatched SCSI ID (thought my EIII was on 5 but it was indeed on 6...). I think I just did too many attempts with all this stuff ... 

But now it is working perfectly!

So my chain looks like this now:

EIII > Apple CD300 > Iomega Jaz 2GB > Mac 7100 /80AV