News from Chicken Systems

[esynthesist]

Strange things are happening here.

- Immediately after the new Translator was announced a few weeks ago I downloaded the latest free version which was - as I far as I remember - described as build 115 august 2008 on the download website.

- But after reading the eiiiforum messages half an hour ago, I checked the Chickensys website and it indeed mentioned build 114 of june 2008 again (the one Micromoog also observed).
Maybe Chickensys did a restore of the old website after some server crash...

- Big surprise however: while typing this very message, Garth is also typing a reply and he says that build 115 can be found on the usual place. So I check their website again and guess what... the website mentions build 115 again. So it seems that the Chickensys webmaster changed something during the last hour to correct the problem (if this is true it would of course be nice to at least admit this)

By the way I downloaded the free version which was mentioned on the "114" download page half an hour ago and I compared that one with the "115" I downloaded a few weeks ago: they are definitely different files with different sizes so they are different builds (114 and 115 that is).

Now I'm not really a user of this software, but I have to admit that at least the free version is behaving strange and giving quite low-level technical errors when I try to use it. But I only tried Emu-related conversions and I didn't read any manual or help file (by the way, Emax seems still not to work correctly on the level of sample data). I also never submitted any bug report because I'm not considering to actually "use" Translator in my studio - I just take a quick look at each version - so my opinion is probably not very important :-)

On the other hand there also seems to be a group of very satisfied users (see comments on the web, even the last messages on samplerzone) so perhaps satisfaction or anger depends on the way people use this software...

[chickeneps]

The listing on the Downloads section of Translator Free did say earlier today build 114, we changed it this afternoon, you are correct. That's just text; the download has been build 115 for sometime. Browser and system caching can show old things, perhaps, I don't know what the issues would be.

Nevertheless, even if the users got build 114, there isn't that much difference; 114 should be just as well as b115.

There are a lot of variables dealing with Emax stuff: floppy or hard drive or CD, Emax 1 or 2, homemade stuff or factory floppies/CD's, multi-part floppies, and so on.

Files and disks have so many unusual things about them that we try to handle everything we know about. If there is something that is funny, we simply ask anyone willing to share that info if they would share it, and we attack it immediately.

We only support 12 or 16-bit Emax stuff, which is Emax II. We don't have support yet for Emax 1 8-bit compounded, so that will error or just give noise.

We had emailed you a couple times on the 8-bit sample interpretation but we had not gotten a reply; it wasn't required of course since this is your info, so we understand that.

[esynthesist]

Hi Garth

You're right, I remember you e-mailed me once about the Emax encoding, sorry for not answering that one.
Anyway - as you may indeed have guessed - I'm not publishing any specs, creating them took me too much effort :-)

Those Emu samplers are not the most easy ones to support in sampler software, so I understand what you're saying. My specs also still contain some unresolved issues, but fortunately they don't seem to be real blocking ones...

But I'm getting a bit off-topic here on the EIII forum...
Anyway I hope a lot of EIII users enjoy Translator !

[micromoog]

still no bashing! But...


Chickecneps wrote: [...] we have a Bug Report system in place that if a person finds a file that doesn't convert correctly, they can supply it into Bug Reports and it gets addressed within 24-48 hours.

Now 7 weeks after my offical "bug reporting" i'm still waiting for an answer (i don't expect a solution, only an answer)!

Thats the point for me to ask:
Is Chickensys a serious trading partner?

[chickeneps]

It was taken care of a long time ago in Build 116. We've updated your Bug Report.

[e3luv]

    hello, just trying to educate myself on what's available.
what is the bottom line on this company's software?
which product do they offer for us EIII user's with modern computers?
thanks to all.  

[chickeneps]

We (Chicken Systems) have finished our output driver for E3/ESi, which means we can convert to E3/ESi format and write E3/ESi files. It wasn't too difficult but getting the time to do it was a struggle.

This will be put into our Translator program this week. Translator is a Mac and Windows conversion and sampler tool program that converts any format (like Giga, EXS24, Kontakt, Akai, Roland, anything really) to Emu E3/ESi format. This greatly expands the usefulness of your E3/ESi, allowing it to load any format, not just stuff made available in E3/ESi format.

It will also be attached to our new Constructor program, which is a generic Instrument Builder for Mac and Windows. This allows you to build Presets and Bank from scratch or from any starting point (SoundFont, Kontakt file, whatever), then write them to a Emu disk.

Any questions - check www.chickensys.com out, or email me at support@chickensys.com, or ask here on this forum.

[e3luv]

thanks for the quick reply!
constructor? is this something i can use to build 1) virtual sampler/synth then 2)the sounds i create with it can 3)be written into any sampler format ? is this the basic idea?
and if so ,how do i get the sample from my computer to the EIII?
even when using  translator how do i get the sample from my computer to the EIII?
let me make it clear that i know how to move samples with the old macs-zip-scsi method
i am talking about  using this software  with newer computers.  thanks

[chickeneps]

Yes, what Constructor is, is a generic Instrument/Bank builder.

You open a new Bank document. This is a blank slate where you develop a Bank of Presets (Constructor calls them Instruments).

You open a new Instrument document. You start filling it up with .wav or AIFF files, and you program the keyrange and velocity range and pitch settings etc. etc. You can audition your work at anytime with a MIDI keyboard or the onscreen keyboard.

You then assign the Instrument to the Bank document you have open.

Once you are done, you can save it to a Emu disk (if you have it hooked up to your computer) or a "Virtual Drive", which is just a big file that is intended to be written to a CD.

Then, hook the SCSI Drive or new Emu CD to your Emu, and load it in. Done.

[e3luv]

  thank you-thank you! Danke!  Gracias!
your software has moved to the top of my next shopping list for my EIII !
doing actual synthesis with a sampler is one of the areas i want to explore with the EIII.
do any members know if any other  emu sampler besides the emax-se actually has a secrect synthesis engine waiting to be exploited?