I finally made a decision. After a couple of months reading reviews, including raves from Martin et al, I decided on the E-Mu 1212m (linked via a Soundcraft 4/10). DSP effects etc. Perfect for my needs.

Checking stock availabilty, Andertons didn't return my call (ready to buy today), so called Digital Village, and was told that they are advising customers not to buy Emu as, due to driver issues, they don't work!! And their ace pc guys can't resolve the driver issues.

????????????

It depends on your DAW software.
If you can't use ASIO, forget them! That's one issue that may cause a lot of buyer complaints, plus that unless you're careful, installing next to an Audigy card can break everything.
Perhaps the dealers are just being lazy, and don't want any hassle.
Probably, because of the attractive price, the E-mu cards are being bought by people with little or no DAW setup knowledge, hence potentially a lot of after-sales complaints.
Then again, if I was being really cynical, maybe the profit margin isn't good enough?

Myself, I'm waiting for someone to make a pci card with 4 balanced analog + spdif + midi i/o and equal converter quality to the E-mu M series but with proper WDM drivers.
All M-audio need to do is update the Delta 66 with the latest AK converters and I will be a customer. What are they waiting for?

Someone to second that?

--------------------
www.RTaylor-Design.Com

I'm suprised that DV recommend you don't buy the EMU card. The problems are all WDM related and even then only at certain sample rates. I've also put off buying a new soundcard because of these driver issues, but AFAIK there are certainly a lot more happy EMU users than sad ones.
Martin's got one, so maybe he can shed more light on precisely what the WDM limitations are with the newest drivers.

Basszn, I think you'll probably be well served if you go for EMU. If you use ASIO, the by all means go get it whereas if you use Sonar, waiting a while might be helpful. Having said that WDM does work, just not to the full at the moment.

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Neowin - Where Unprofessional Journalism Looks Better

As far as recording audio, the ASIO driver on my 0404 seems fine, and solid enough.
But I'm having trouble getting softsynth latency down to a level where it's not noticeable and you can play them in time to the track... someone suggested putting the card in another slot, so I'll try when I've got a mo..

--------------------
Woa-h, livin' on a prayer...

I've got 1212m (from DV incidentally)and an Audigy 2ZS Plat pro working together OK.

Everybody in the house go oooOOOOooooh!

--------------------
With a boom-a-lacka, zoom-a-lacka, wee.

I didn't think ASIO allowed you to use two soundcards at once?

Quote Antiluddites:

---

I've got 1212m (from DV incidentally)and an Audigy 2ZS Plat pro working together OK.

---

Comment from "Martin the Wise Walker" would be appreciated.

Hello,

I've had hassle with my 1820M as well. It basically comes down to E-MU's drivers there terribly written and not up to the standard they should be. E-MU has now after just 1 hot fix driver update (1.01) have added this PowerFX (1.60) which in my opinion is pointless. Why could they not just concentrate on getting a stable driver first? Even my PODxt ASIO works better and more stable than the E-MU's. I am also aware that people are having no problems with there E-MUs but I think it’s just to do with there finicky drivers.

If E-MU doesn’t sort out some major bugs in the next release I will sell my 1820M and buy another soundcard, I'm a student in my final year and one thing I can't afford is constant crashing and issues!

Regards!

d3

I have an 1820m which I am reasonably happy with. I am running XP Pro SP2 with 512MB RAM on an AMD 1.3Ghz running with a VIA chipset. I am using Sonar 2.2 with ASIO to record with.

I do have some issues with the drivers on boot up (needs a reboot 10% of the time), but it has never failed during a session.

I guess the appropriate phrase hear is "Your Mileage May Vary". At the time I purchased it, I was tossing up between the 1820m and the MOTU 828MkII - but I had had issues previously with MOTU drivers on the PC - why is there no irony graemlin

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cheers
Greg

Quote Groakes:

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why is there no irony graemlin

---

Life is irony - {exile}

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

I have a 1820M. The drivers are not crap, but they are far from being perfect. I *feel* that the 1.6 version is much more stable than the previous one, at least it's been a while since I last had a problem with this version.

The drivers are user applications, they should be windows services in order to have the best performance...

--------------------
Jesus! Did I say that? Or just think it? Was I talking? Did they hear me?

Quote basszn:

---

Comment from "Martin the Wise Walker" would be appreciated.

---

I've written up the Emu 1.6 drivers as part of my next PC Notes column, but in essence:

The most glaring WDM issue was the lack of 96kHz and 192kHz support (only the ASIO drivers originally supported these sample rates, which is why I couldn't measure the 1820M performance at these higher sample rates in my original review). The 1.6 drivers overcome this limitation.

I'm aware of a few users with incompatibility problems when running one of the Emu cards in a particular PC setup, particularly when they also run UAD-1 or Powercore cards alongside. Emu have duplicated at least one of these problem partnerships are are actively trying to track down the cause.

However, to my knowledge the vast majority of users are largely happy with the drivers - I've had absolutely no issues with the original drivers on my 1820M, and the couple of issues that I had with the 1.6 drivers aren't catastrophic.

As someone else has said, your mileage may indeed vary, but as far as I'm concerned the Emu drivers work fine for most people.

My two pennorth anyway


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

I am running the Emu 1820M which is a great card. However, I run a UAD and Powercore card with some problems. Its fine in Wavelab but get problems in Cubase SX3. Occasionaly the sound will go distorted which is only rectified by going into the Asio control panel and changing the latency.

In my experience, the 1820m has run flawlessly. I bought one when they first came out in the summer and have had no problems. I was so impressed that I bought 4 machines with 1820ms PLUS UAD-1 cards for my Uni's new standalone workstations.

I don't think the limited sample rates of the original drivers we're the worst Windows audio limitation, but the totally unadvertised fact that you can only have a single stereo pair in and out unless you use ASIO.
In fact, it seems to me that the term WDM is completely inappropriate with these products - it is not a WDM driver at all! OK, neither are Digidesign drivers.
If it were WDM, Windows would support any sample-rate you could throw at it with wave (MME) or direct sound by using the SRC in the WDM Kmixer, irrespective of any hardware rate used by the card.

Since it's perfectly possible to make a WDM driver with adequate ASIO support, I wonder why E-mu chose not to? I suppose it gives them total control of the design. A WDM driver requires building in connections to a lot of Microsoft code with performance mostly out of the card makers control.

Overall, my response is to put the purse back in the handbag on the E-Mu option, at least until these issues get sorted. Or, like d3, look elsewhere...the 1820m is not a cheap piece of kit re todays prices in competition, and surely we shouldn't expect these issues with a product that is so illustriously promoted in terms of hi-spec quality & features. I mean - E-Mu is all over the SOS pages like rash as top doggie stuff - & then DV say don't buy it!?

Not being a rocket scientist, I admit I'm not totally au fait with driver issues, but then again, I'm not a builder or designer of PC Stuff. I'm a musician/composer. I've used PC's for midi based soundtrack & programming work since the dark ages. I just wanted to go audio pc (other issues with this but I'll post them elsewhere).

The 1212m on paper/esub suits my present needs (basic documentary stuff with soundtrack overlay), mainly for the DSP fx (my pooter is dated & replacing it is definately another issue I'm currently grappling with re all that's going on re ps deals & changes at the moment).

A shame then that I have to go back to the drawing board. And shame on E-Mu. And if I was you (Martin) and had your awesome wisdom, experience & incredible CV (& E-Mu's number on my mobile), I'd be working with the guys on this to sort out the achilles heel before they fall flat on their face.

Ace-Kit - but rubbish driver issues - ?? any comment from the guys that wrote them???

Quote basszn:

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I mean - E-Mu is all over the SOS pages like rash as top doggie stuff - & then DV say don't buy it!?

---

FWIW . . . in my experience, sales staff at any given retailer are not above having their own personal preferences and prejudices . . . not the least of which occasionally have to do with the profit margins of various products (and therefore the amount of commission they can draw from the sale).

I know for a fact that the comes into play in many cases, particularly with sales staff whose income is derived mainly from commission. I've had guys try to sell me absolute rubbish over something that was a much better product for the money, simply because they could earn a few bucks more in commission. That may or may not be the case in this situation, but it is worth considering when giving weight to a salesperson's recommendations or dismissal of certain products.

And with what Emu is offering in this card at that price, I have to think the profit margin is indeed low.

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

Yup ... good point & maybe the main point

Jim Y - Emu seem determined to avoid gettingt he Windows SRC in their signal path, which I can understand. After all, they took a lot of flak for unwanted SRC in the various Creative products.

basszn - it never works like that. I may have a public profile, but when it comes to driver issues the only avenue for 'outsiders' is to suppply detailed bug reports. I have absolutely no idea of what Emu are doing at the moment driver wise, and only find out if and when they issue a press release. Nevertheless, Emu are incredibly open when dealing with their customer's problems (particularly on www.productionforums.com/emu) compared with many other interface manufacturers, which we should be thankful for.


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Now that Creative have released a PCMCIA version of the Audigy Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS has anyone heard any rumours of EMU releasing a PCMCIA version of their soundcards?

I've really like to use the Emulator X on my laptop.

And since I have an Acer laptop (an AMD64 which I'm very happy with BTW) I can't use the Indigo cards according to what I've seen on this forum, I need to find another soundcard.

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TritonExtrMOSS/EX800, NordRack2, ATC1, D550/XV5080/MKS70/MKS7/MKS50/MKS80/S550/JP8080/Ju60/JD990, Blofeld, Mopho, TG77/An1X, ESQM, Emax, Esynth, AkaiS5k/MPC1k, Indigo2, Rogue, Machinedrum, ProOne

Quote DePulse:

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Now that Creative have released a PCMCIA version of the Audigy Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS has anyone heard any rumours of EMU releasing a PCMCIA version of their soundcards?

I've really like to use the Emulator X on my laptop.

And since I have an Acer laptop (an AMD64 which I'm very happy with BTW) I can't use the Indigo cards according to what I've seen on this forum, I need to find another soundcard.

---

There was a thread about the EMU cards on laptops not so long ago: Check it out here: EMU 4 Laptops

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Neowin - Where Unprofessional Journalism Looks Better

Has anyone tried the EMU 0404 on a Via-chipset-based PC? I have an ageing Echo Darla 20 that I'd like to replace (don't need all the physical outs), and it's a pain that - under Windows 2000 at least - using Waveout or DirectSound with the Darla seems to bring up a stop error 9 times out of 10.

Also, has anyone tried the 0404 with Ableton Live 4? Can Abe address the 0404s many "internal" ASIO outputs separately?

-Chis

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= Casimir's Blake =

For what it's worth, the Powercore issues with the Emu cards can be cured by disabling all the inputs on the Patchmix software. It seems to be an odd driver issue, and I can see it being solved at some stage.

Some people don't get issues at all.

I love the Emu 1212M card apart from that, and I'll be getting another for my new machine. The sound is incredible... And ADAT will allow me to get 10 balanced ins & outs when used with the ADA8000... As well as (hopefully) 8 channels of VST System Link with my old machine.

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

One of my main reasons for wanting the 1212m is for the DSP fx, which sound very impressive on the mp3 samples on the emu site and take the strain off the CPU. What's your opinion using them?

Electrodaddy, I had exactly the same problem with a new system I had built for me recently ( Asus A8V, AMD 64 3800+ ), but I only had the baby of the EMU range installed - the 0404. But what you describe is exactly what I had to keep doing .... it often happened if I minimised the sequencer program and then went back to it - most annoying.
Sadly, the system kept freezing and then died on me altogether ( this was the second build that had done exactly the same thing ), so it was sent back to the vendor and refund given.

Er i rang up Dv Birmingham on tuesday ,id heard, somewhere on here i think, that the staff were quite good there, (they had to be better than the Croydon zombies - who didnt answer the phone natch!) and spoke to a very helpful chap that confirmed yes the drivers do work with DVPC's and inherant motherboards, that he had installed 20 - 30 personally and had only encountered 1 problem to do with an old version of cubase sx1 which was cured with a simple (point)update. Couldnt say enough good things about them really. Which branch did you speak to coz someone is telling porkies, or at the very least being selective with their info?

Well ya wake up & it's another day & I think "ok, maybe I will just give the 1212m a try" - it's cheap enough - what can I lose? (Those DSP fx MP3's demos sound so cool on their site). And then I read Demitris's new mail from over there in Greece & think again (again)! (sooo much rain & logs fires + central heating on over here Demi m8).

I guess there are happy emu's out there, although they seem to be a silent majority/minority.

Busy & totaly frustrated now. I just need an instant audio fix for the current project that's gonna make life easier - not bog me down with pc-tech crashing/learning curve issues.

Checked out Living Exiles link to M-Audio's 'Fast Track USB' box. I haven't seen that advertised anywhere. Basic & not what I'm really after but, at £79 I'm tempted to go with something like that to get this project up & running. And looks good for a 'laptop/on the road' solution - aka quick-fix in-situ, so money not wasted.

I would love to invite an emu rep to make their voice heard here. I know if I was Mr E-mu...I would want to be defending my belief in my product that I think is the dog's danglers but there are unhappy emu's here.

Quote basszn:

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I guess there are happy emu's out there, although they seem to be a silent majority/minority.

---

Ahem!

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Seriously, there are a lot of people having great times with their EMUs. You just don't see them very often because they don't complain.

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Chis - I'm running an 0404 on an ABIT KV7 (Athlon CPU, VIA chipset) never had a single glitch, works flawlessly with Cubase and also no prob with CD and games (please don't tell my fiance about the games )

Quote Tequila Slammer:

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Seriously, there are a lot of people having great times with their EMUs. You just don't see them very often because they don't complain.

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True! Ok Tequila...pour me another one m8. Face value (& reading the reviews & ad-stuff), the 1212m just seems the ideal kit for my purposes (although phantom power on the XLR's would be a welcome inclusion), and I would now be a happy/unhappy user now if it wasn't for the warning off from DV. I go back and listen to those MP3 demos on the emu site - and that's what I want - but purely & simply without driver issues etc. I haven't got time for that.

Thanks for your comment & advice, I'm listening, hope emu are too.

Cheers

Quote basszn:

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Quote Tequila Slammer:

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Seriously, there are a lot of people having great times with their EMUs. You just don't see them very often because they don't complain.

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True! Ok Tequila...pour me another one m8. Face value (& reading the reviews & ad-stuff), the 1212m just seems the ideal kit for my purposes (although phantom power on the XLR's would be a welcome inclusion), and I would now be a happy/unhappy user now if it wasn't for the warning off from DV. I go back and listen to those MP3 demos on the emu site - and that's what I want - but purely & simply without driver issues etc. I haven't got time for that.

Thanks for your comment & advice, I'm listening, hope emu are too.

Cheers

---

Get one. If it doesn't work, take it back. You have a week grace period at the very least, defined by law (as the guy from DV told me himself when I asked if I could).

Make sure you update the drivers. The latest ones solve a load of problems, including the break-up on the effects and the annoying system of e-wiring the effects in. Now the VST wrapper is actually immediately useful!

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Cheers TS.

A (rare) day off today & reviewing all the options. Reading again Martin's reviews, you really would think the emu cards are the dog's danglys. But how scary is a vehicle with a bad driver??

How do get 'round the no phantom power xlr thing??

Gotta also take time out to explore your site & listen to your stuff - looks a bit awesome

Going back to the original question, are DV(aka DV (massive) going to the extreme in advising customers not to buy E-Mu because of the driver issues (aka "they don't work"). Beyond doubt the E-Mu hardware is top doggy for the money in spec - so why are their bad drivers smacking some users into brick walls...and making me hesitate to get the purse out. Martin (as he explained) can't get in touch & resolve the issues. But SOS has weight and I cannot believe E-Mu are playing blind to this.

Being totally banal here, if I was Mr emu, I'd be here taking note (getting concerned) & going in Monday morning & saying to the driver guys? "get it sorted". And then we rule the audio interface market.

That's the way I run my thing. Am I wrong in thinking that it doesn't go like this, I'm Capt. Emu..."I've got a hole in it - oh well - it's the Titanic - it won't sink"?!

Sorry but someone's got to say it as it is.

Quote basszn:

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Cheers TS.
How do get 'round the no phantom power xlr thing??

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Is there no phantom power on those preamps? I wasn't aware of that. If that's the case, you can get separate phantom power adaptors like this one.

--------------------
Scott
--Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?

The option I thought of was the Sound Craft 10/4

According to Martin Walker's review of the EMU 1820M, there is phantom power:

Quote Martin Walker:

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On the front panel are Neutrik combi sockets for mic (outer XLR) and guitar/line (inner TRS) inputs. Each one has red clip and green -12dB signal presence indicators, plus a rotary gain control calibrated from +20dB to +55dB when using the mic input and from -10dB to +25dB for line sensitivity. There's also a global +48 Volt phantom power switch with its own red LED indicator, and the preamps, which are apparently designed by Ted Fletcher of TF Pro, sounded good to me.

---

So c'mon now, where has all this sillyness about lack of 48 come from?!

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Neowin - Where Unprofessional Journalism Looks Better

yup there's this switch and it triggers a light and to the right of this switch there is a sign saying: 48v.

There is Phantom power on the 1820m - it has a hardware breakout box to provide balanced analog I/O over XLR and TRS (as well as a few other bits and pieces).

There is NO Phantom power in the 1212 pack - it has a daughter card to provide analog I/O over TRS.

--------------------
cheers
Greg

Quote Scottdru:

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Quote basszn:

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Cheers TS.
How do get 'round the no phantom power xlr thing??

---

Is there no phantom power on those preamps? I wasn't aware of that. If that's the case, you can get separate phantom power adaptors like this one.

---

OOOoo Scott...that's a cool little box.

No Phantom on the 1212m but yes on the 1820m, but we're getting pricey now, like over twice the price - just to get the phantom!! The Edirol UA-25 has that for £169.

Oh...and as our master - Martian Walker - suggested, I have posted the issue on the Emu forum (no response as yet - lazy people there lol). Should be interesting though. If I get any wisdom back - I'll keep you informed.

Also, as Martin concluded on his article on audio interfaces, I have got a shortlist that I'll post & advice will be welcomed.

As said, the 1212m would have been the ideal choice (albeit with no xlr phantoms), but I'm not gonna go there until this driver issue is resolved.

Quote basszn:

---

OOOoo Scott...that's a cool little box.

No Phantom on the 1212m but yes on the 1820m, but we're getting pricey now, like over twice the price - just to get the phantom!! The Edirol UA-25 has that for £169.

---

The 1212M does not have any phantom power. But it has no preamps either! It only has line level inputs so you couldn't just plug in a mic becuase it wouldn't preamplify the signal. I hope that's not what you;re trying to do. What Scott suggested is just a 48v power supply and not a preamp.

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Neowin - Where Unprofessional Journalism Looks Better

All I have to say is Behringer ADA8000.

Hmm... The Steinberg VSL2020 looks interesting. £120 for:

* 32 ADAT channels - 2 optical ADAT I/O with S/MUX support
* S/PDIF I/O - supports AES/EBU and consumer S/PDIF
* Analog I/O - unbalanced (-10dBV) Stereo RCA I/O
* SuperClock (FS 256) and WordClock I/O with BNC connector
* Standard MIDI 5-pole I/O
* 24 Bit with 32, 44.1, 48, 88.2 or 96 kHz
* Ultra Low Latency down to 32 samples (1 ms)

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

I just checked for any response to my post on the Emu forum - strange...the post has disappeared?! I wasn't rude in any way - honest!

Oh well - I'll try again.

Quote basszn:

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No Phantom on the 1212m but yes on the 1820m, but we're getting pricey now, like over twice the price - just to get the phantom!! The Edirol UA-25 has that for £169.

---

well, you get a whole lot more than just phantom power with the 1820m: 18 ins, 20 outs, surround outs, 2x midi in/out, Spdif optical out, headphone out, midi timecode, Smpte. You've also got to bear in mind that these babies sound excellent - some of the best AD/DA converts there are, have onboard DSP which now have their own easy to use VST wrapper (under driver update 1.6) and are so damn cheap for what you get. I've had the 1820m since it came out last year and never had any issues; just bought a 1212m today for my second machine and now running System Link with SX2 and V-Stack. Works like a dream.

Remember the 1212m just has Spdif I/O, ADAT plus 2x balanced 1/4inch jack i/o. Plus Midi. It's got the same AD/DA converters as the 1820m, plus the on board DSP. For the money, it's still a bargain. If you can stretch to the 1820m however, you'd be getting much more versatility and potential expandability.

Ahh - the final answer - The Edirol UA-25

good luck

Quote Smithee:

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No Phantom on the 1212m but yes on the 1820m, but we're getting pricey now, like over twice the price - just to get the phantom!! The Edirol UA-25 has that for £169.

---

Wouldn't it be great if someone were to market an outboard Pci adapter? ...Sort of like one of those old cassette boxes that you could plug pci cards into...

+--------+
|||||||||| - {Needs fixed width font}
+--------+

You could outfit it with a huge buss so as to allow for just about anything and add jumpers to each slot so as to adjust the voltage and so forth.

If you stuck cables and adapters on it so it could work with firewire or pcix, pcixpress, etc and multiple machines {maybe even set up some sort of router so you could access specific slots in it from the machines it was serving to} you could set up a sort of modular pci server so that you could use one set of cards with an entire network. It might alleviate many of the io problems we have with systems today. {besides saving folk a lot of cash.}

Back to the point... you could make it modular so that you could add things like preamps and eqs and so on... a sort of rack card system.

{Actually, you could install this in a rack system and serve to all of the boards in the rack with it.}

{{More pointless, meandering thoughts...}}

--------------------
www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Yup

The Roland Edirol UA-25 is ultra cool...both for the laptop & the desk-top. It just simply works!!! Bad call E-Mu. They just wiped out my posts as bad feedback I assume. Thank god aka MW et al that doesn't happen here.

Point taken Rousseau, but a solo based project here, so I don't need to shell out for all those I/O's. The DSP thing was the main magnet for me but, the guitar/bass/keys etc go in fx'd anyway & only the vocal needs 'sweetening' which SX can do.

£149 from Dophin - a kind link thank you -

dolphin

There is an external pci expansion bus on the market, but it's extremely expensive. You can't have two many sockets on the bus, the capacitance of all those connections gets too much and smears the timing. After 3 sockets you need a pci-pci bridge to buffer the signals.

Serial pci Express has it easier. With a parallel bus, if one or more bits are a nano second later than the others reaching true logic level when the clock samples the data, you have an error. The transmission speed has to be slow enough to ensure all bits have switched in time. Increasing the amount of metal on the bus increases the capacitance which slews the rise and fall of the logic levels. It's impossible to match the electrical characteristics of all the connections perfectly, so the physics of the thing limits the maximum transmission speed.

With a serial system, there are far fewer signals to match, so it can run faster and/or over longer distances than a parallel system.

Hmm, a bit o/t! Sorry.

Those of you considering an 0404 (as I was), take a look at Terratec's Phase 22. Similar specs: 2-in, 2-out but on BALANCED 1/4" jacks, 1xMIDI in/out, and 1x coax S/PDIF in and out. Studiospares had this at £70 for a while, as have Digital Village (I believe). I've been using one for a while now (VIA KT600-based system), installed no problems, ASIO drivers are solid.

Phase series website: http://audioen.terratec.net/index.php?pgid=1

-Chis.

--------------------
= Casimir's Blake =

Awesome kit Chris & solid drivers...that's the point. Thanks for the link.

Just to add my experience onto this obviously hot topic, I don't think that anyone can say Emu Cards 'don't work' it's just quite a few people do seem to have conflicts with the drivers and the patchmix software.
They are undoubtedly good cards, I recently purchased the 0404 which is obviously a great card for those who can use it trouble free, but I regret to inform you that I was not one of those lucky ones, my PC, despite having more than the recommended specs just couldn't stop crashing using this card, I tried everything, and even paid various PC Specialists to look at the problem, Emu couldn't solve it, specialists couldn't solve it, and as a result I'm sending it back majorly dissapointed. I don't want a discussion about what could have caused it because I'm sick and tired of hearing about it, I'm rid of it now which is a shame because for some it has seemingly been an awesome purchase, but for others, like myself, it has been nothing but a nightmare.

This is a repeat post, but is just as valid here. If you are having sound issues with the Emu cards:

--------------------

Get Double Dawg (it's a free download, but about £10 for a full version which works after re-boot) and turn off ALL unneeded ports and on-board peripherals in your BIOS. Especially SATA, any extra LAN, raid, firewire, etc.

Now check the manual for your motherboard, and make sure your sound card isn't sharing a PCI bus slot IRQ with something you need or can't turn off (USB2, etc.) Find a clear-ish slot and use that if it is.

Now use Double Dawg to balance out your PCI latency settings. This determines how hungry each of your PCI devices are for processing time on the PCI bus. Your graphics card is probably riding at 255 - which is a problem - and your sound card is probably quite low - like 32. Now it's a matter of playing with these (and other cards/devices on the bus) until you experience pop-free audio.

Good luck!

Double Dawg:
http://www.mark-knutson.com/t3/ (Thanks Martin for pointing us at that one )

Oh, and a good post on the subject is here:
http://www.cakewalk.com/forum/printable.asp?m=45491&mpage=1

--------------------
http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Quote Boony:

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I don't think that anyone can say Emu Cards 'don't work'

---

Hi Boon, just to refresh the memory on the origianl post, it was DV that strongy advised against EMu - which is why (disapponted too at the time) I dumped the option of buying one. And asking questions on the EMu tech site just reinforced the decision - i.e. any post that didn't 'fly the flag' got deleted by the moderators!! Unbelievable!! Makes you appreciate the open minded attitude here.

DV's argument was based on the fact that, because of the driver issues (which not even their ace IT guys could sort out), the product renders itself as unreliable and therefore too many returns and aggro from unhappy purchasers. No retail outlet needs that.

I put forward the issue to EMu direct and got no reply. A brilliant set of cards on the face of it - but someone in the EMu camp has, apparently, decided to make like an ostrich putting their head in the sand.

I'm sure & I hope the issues get sorted by someone for future users. I was a potential customer, but now happily using an Edirol UA-25 (the built in compressor is an ace feature).

Thanks again for the links Slam - very cool stuff

No problem! Happy to share what I've found...

Frustratingly, the problem I'm mostly worried about - the crackling I get when using the Emu with my Powercore - was fixed on my old (Athlon XP) machine with Double Dawg, but won't shift on my new Athlon 64.

Arse! What a waste of £2000.



Now, which to get rid of - Powercore or Emu? Hmm....



Try here for more ideas:

http://www.productionforums.com/emu

Emu representatives often visit this site - even if only to say 'Even though most other cards will work flawlessly in the same environment our cards are failing in, while using more channels at a lower latency, we still insist it's not our software or hardware at fault.'

Or words to that effect. Quite humourous really.

Still, there's really useful practical ideas by frustrated Emu owners - like using a cheap (huh?) RME card with a couple of ADAT ports as an input/output channel, linking to the Emu with ADAT, and wiring the ins to the outs in the Emu using Patchmix.

Presto - loads more on the PCI bus, but an entirely stable system with the lovely ins and outs of the Emu. And the ability to use the effects still. Oh, and the Emulator X - using the Emu card as a dongle.

Ahh, if I had a couple of hundred quid right now.

Hm. I wonder if a VSL2020 would work?

--------------------
http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Y'know, considering Digital Village are recommending people don't get Emu cards because of stability issues, doesn't anyone find it odd that Carillon are pushing the cards above other brands?

'Carillon recommends EMU audio interfaces' screams the adverts, in headline type.

That seems a bit sinister to me. Almost like they struck a deal with Emu, and are putting the stability of their customers' DAWs at risk to honour it.

Not the kind of behaviour I'd expect from a company in Carillon's position!

:S

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

In my experience Carillon may great attention to compatibility problems (one of the reasons they have stuck to Intel motherboards in the past for instance), and if they are recommending Emu soundcards then you are almost guaranteed that on their PCs they have had no problems with them at all.

They really do take this stuff seriously, and if Robin Vincent spots this thread I'm sure he'll say the same thing himself


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

Really?

In my experience they've recommended an incompatible system without any previous testing or knowledge of the component interactions in question, promised me they could get it working despite my experiences and research, failed, recommended another sound card solution for an extra £200, (I'd previously purchased the Emu based on their recommendation, and hadn't returned it based on their claim that it could be made to work) built it, and promised me it was working (after a day-long soak test).

The system was extremely unstable, and plagued with pops and crackles.

Considering the experiences people have had with Carillon in the past, it looks like they've possibly gone down hill recently... Certainly I experienced incompetence at every level of interaction - from the salesman:

'That combination of components and software should make a nice, stable system'

To the head builder:

'We've been stuck for the last week trying to make the Powercore Virus and Ableton Live work together.'

'What, the problem I told you about?'

'Yes.'

'The problem you told me you'd sorted out on a Carillon PC?'

'Yes'

'So why isn't it working now?'

'Unfortunately that test involved turning the machine on and making sure it made a sound. But we're in talks with TC Electronic.'

'Did you contact Ableton?'

'Er..... No. I should have through of that.'

'I did. They said they were aware of the problem and were working on it.'

All the way to the MD, who tried to convince me there wasn't a problem, then charge me for an incomplete installation when I asked for a refund. He relented when he'd examined the case further (the catalogue of error was quite long and only hinted at here) but the process of getting a receipt for the refund was bizarre and uncovered a worrying petty dishonesty within the company...

Now I'm stuck with incompatible components. Thanks!



Rant over, but you get the idea. I've made this point before, but just because a Sound on Sound journalist gets a good experience from a company, doesn't mean they're a good company! They may be trying -slightly- harder to make a good impression when the results will be seen by the entire readership of the industry standard sound recording publication.

All that aside (and getting back on topic), that's what I get for tying to use a Powercore and an Emu together. Emu owners, don't get Powercores. Powercore owners, don't get Emus. You're letting yourself in for a whole world of pain - and Emu support don't wan't to know, from what I see of the posts on the forums.

Pity, as the combination of an Emu and a Powercore is a powerful one indeed!

Anyone who HAS got got the combination and is experiencing problems, turning off all the inputs in Patchmix can help, but doesn't make for a recording solution. Double Dawg can help too. Just don't expect to use the Emu effects in the same project and get away with it.

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Quote Martin Walker:

---

They really do take this stuff seriously, and if Robin Vincent spots this thread I'm sure he'll say the same thing himself


Martin

---

Yes, I'm etirely sure that Carillon's technical director would reply to this thread saying how good the products they sell are.

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

My thoughts exactly on that Slam. Obviously a deal done there - and it seems ideal - in the glossy ads. Carillon have gone a long way into the "ideal" pc for music production, and the ads look great. I'd love one. But is there anyone out there that bought the package with EMu??

Anyone from Carillon here with a reply? EMu's wipe you out!

It would be good I guess then for Robin Vincent to 'spot' this thread - and reply.

Hmmm - that does sound like a very bad personal experience TS. My thoughts were based to some extent on my personal experience with Carillon, but also on the overwhelming number of positive reports from other Carillon users on our forums over the years, and even on their reputation among various of their competitors.

Since this does sound like a catalogue of disasters I agree with basszn - let's hope that Robin does pop in to 'defend his corner'


Martin

--------------------
YewTreeMagic

So nice to be actively targeted on a forum, gives you a nice warm fuzzy feeling of self importance.

I don't really want to get into any messy details about what did or did not happen with Mr Slammers system, but a brief summary from our point of view would be that he came to us with a troublesome system and wondered if we could build a system with an Emu card and Powercore and have it working correctly. We hadn't done this particular combination before but we said "sure - don't see why not". We then spent an awful lot of time trying to get it to work, we tried different cards, different motherboards, CPU's, power supplies, hard disks, pretty much everything to remedy the situation without any luck. We then tried an alternative to the EMu and bingo it all worked - fabulous. Then we hit another problem with Live and the Virus plugin - tricky one. I even have this combination at home and tried it and it seemed to work, however getting deeper into it there does appear to be a weirdo problem. Other than that though the system was sweet. Unfortunately Mr Slammer had all sorts of problems with it that we hadn't seen and couldn't replicate. He decided that he didn't want us to pursue it any futher so we parted company and he got his money back.

It was an unfortunate combination of new products that caused the problems. To us there appeared to be no reason why it wouldn't work which was why we took it on and we invested a lot of time in trying to get customers choice of software and hardware working. More often than not we do these things with great success but sadly this was not the case. We do work with manufacturers on these things but they don't always have the breadth of install experience that we have and so we often find we can get things working where the manufacturer has said that it won't, so "known problem" is a term banded around far too much.

We do all we can to make a customers experience with Carillon as fabulous as possible and when problems do occur our response is always a desire to sort the problem out. We invest a lot of time into what we do and have an eagerness to sort out problems the best we can - we want you to have a fantastic working studio system and if that doesnt happen then it's frustrating all round. Mr Slammer considers his experience with us to be really bad and that's a real shame as we feel we put in a lot of time and effort for ultimately no return. However, we are completely capable of making mistakes and you can't always please everyone especially when things are not working as you hoped - but that doesn't make us a bad company either.

With the Emu cards in general we recommend them because they work great, sound great, great features, great fx, great routing, great range of options, for a blinding price. However, they don't like Powercores and they don't have GSIF drivers at the moment so for the odd person it's not the best choice, but for most people it's a great solution - at least in our systems as that's all i can really comment on.

I hope that clears something up at least, if it's helpful. If you want to question me direct then try robin@carillondirect.com

Cheers
Robin
Technical Director
Carillon Audio Systems

--------------------
PC-Music.com hints, tips & reviews
Rain Computers UK - Creative Audio PC's

Cheers Robin - I'm sure your taking the trouble in replying here is appreciated, perhaps you could encourage the same from Emu. Just a thought.

If we are to believe your press, then I guess you guys work hard enough, but ever considered a Carillon forum? Now that's a thought!!

To be fair, there were numerous helpful replies on this and other forums from Ichi (Emu employee) following launch. Also in defence of Emu cards, I have 2 at home (running flawlessly) and have 4 in my studio at Uni running alongside UAD 1 project packs (again running flawlessly). Maybe I'm just lucky.

I have had untold issues with an RME 9652DSP and a POCO FW though.

Yeah, the Carillon thing was a frustrating experience all round. Absolutely everyone walked away from it unhappy.

It's a pity. It could have all been avoided if the salesman hadn't eagerly told me that the system I'd specced up was a 'nice, compatible' one. Without any experience or research to back the statement up.

I came to Carillon with a troublesome system because they'd told me it would work in the first place. And continued to tell me it would work after I purchased the components and found problems.

So... The positive thing I take from this situation is that I've learned to never trust a salesman, no matter how good a copmpany is supposed to be.

I hope that Carillon have learned to take the pre-sales customer advice a little more seriously in future.

Anyway, as far as the Emu goes, I've finally managed to make the components I was lumped with work together. My (supposedly less stable and less compatible) Athlon 64 now plays a Virus perfectly in Ableton Live, at 2ms latency, with a load of powercore effects slapped on top, through an Emu 1212m card, with all inputs and ASIO outs enabled, plugged into a fully functioning Behringer ADA8000.

The key for me seemed to be disabling the on-board firewire. Odd, as from what I gather the on-board firewire isn't on the PCI bus, but I suppose that everything has to talk to the processor in the end somehow... What's stranger is that the Live/Virus incompatibility, which used to give me a 50% cpu hit on a single instance of the Virus, has cleared up. As has the Virus/Live 'stuttering' bug, which happened when the Virus was active.

Even stranger than is that Cubase gives me pops and crackles when I hit MIDI notes at low latencies.

But who cares? I have a Virus running in Ableton. Woo hoo! That's just what I wanted. No compromises and no work-arounds (unless you count the loss of the SATA drive).

I'm using the Emu drivers on the install CD rather than the latest ones, which seem to cause stability problems, pops and crackles with the Powercore plugs.

Martin Walker, please take note

The new Emu PowerFX VST plug isn't doing anything at all to the sound, probably beacuse I'm using the old drivers, but I don't really care. The Powercore sounds a lot better and is now seemingly as stable as I could hope for. The Emu effects were always a bonus extra - not the reason I bought the card.

So I think the up-shot is that the Emu can work, even with a Powercore and all ins and outs enabled, if you're prepared to work at it and do some research.

Most people won't be. I didn't really have much of a choice.

But as I said at the beginning, I'm sure there are loads of happy Emu owners out there.

My personal experience has been that the Emu drivers have given problems to five machines out of the five I've seen them installed on. Probably just a statistical blip.

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http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

I like to think I'm both

However, although I did get a certain amount of pleasure and satisfaction out of building my own beast (and achieving what Carillon failed to do :P) I would have liked that time to make tunes.

--------------------
http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Quote basszn:

---

Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

---

Which level? What defines "musical tool"? "Geek"? What's the dividing line between too complex and not?

Why is CSound more difficult than notation?

--------------------
www.RTaylor-Design.Com

To be fair, if computer making companies sat down to work out every problem/combination of hardware/software with an almost infinite number of variables, they would never do any business and never make any money. The problems listed are pretty specific and more than one. Sounds like they gave it a good go to me.

--------------------
I don't want a signature...

Quote Booster:

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To be fair, if computer making companies sat down to work out every problem/combination of hardware/software with an almost infinite number of variables, they would never do any business and never make any money. The problems listed are pretty specific and more than one. Sounds like they gave it a good go to me.

---

I think the issue isn't about computer companies testing out every possible combination of hardware to make sure things work.

The problem lies with the obvious fact that the vast majority of PC hardware violates it's own specification. When people like Microsoft or Intel get round the table and hammer out a standard (rare, I know) what usually follows is a rush to manufacture products, and if the standards that were laid down get in the way, then they're usually expendable.

The whole PCI latency debacle is a classic example of this, as was the early days of USB.

When you think about it, there's very little excuse for all the incompatibility. If there were agreed standards about each general computing device - sound, usb, firewire, cpus, disk interfacing, and those standards were stuck to without bending the rules (and literal cheating, such as selling overclock graphics cards to give you higher FPS while the motherboard melts)....... perhaps we wouldn't have these kinds of problems.

As for the Emu - classic example of the right hardware, the wrong software.

Quote BBC Bellhop Team:

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Quote Booster:

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As for the Emu - classic example of the right hardware, the wrong software.

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Nice points Auntie Beeb. And your quote goes back to the original DV point and argument...the Emu spec is ace stuff but they won't sell them because "the drivers don't work" therefore (as a mega retail store) they can't afford to have a problem product or not be able to fix the returns.

Quote Booster:

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To be fair, if computer making companies sat down to work out every problem/combination of hardware/software with an almost infinite number of variables, they would never do any business and never make any money. The problems listed are pretty specific and more than one. Sounds like they gave it a good go to me.

---

To be honest Booster, I think it's more the case that that the 'computer making companies' have the rest of your life, needs & desires mapped out and they're making Billions hand over fist mate. They'll give it good to you - you can be sure of that!!

Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

---

Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

---

Which level? What defines "musical tool"? "Geek"? What's the dividing line between too complex and not?

Why is CSound more difficult than notation?

---

Whatever Rick

Quote basszn:

---

Quote The Living Exile:

---

Quote basszn:

---

Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

---

Which level? What defines "musical tool"? "Geek"? What's the dividing line between too complex and not?

Why is CSound more difficult than notation?

---

Whatever Rick

---

It's a real question.

I see folk make the statement all the time that "we're only artists {musicians, whatever}". Like being an artist is somehow less mentally taxing or requires less thought or research than it takes to do engineering or programming or whatever.

Granted I've taken it out of context a little bit... It's something of a pet peeve. I *know* a lot different.

http://www.robertrich.com/

--------------------
www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote basszn:

---

To be honest Booster, I think it's more the case that that the 'computer making companies' have the rest of your life, needs & desires mapped out and they're making Billions hand over fist mate. They'll give it good to you - you can be sure of that!!

---

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha yes we're going to take over the world

If only it were so basszn, you really don't have any idea, i think you have us confused with someone like PC World. Building audio PC's is a labour of love, doing it because it's cool and interesting. We're just a bunch of tech-head muso's scraping by doing something we enjoy.

And my pennys worth into the musician/tech debate is that i know how to tune my guitar, change the strings, even adjust the truss rod, similarly i know how to install soundcards and tweak applications to get the best out of them - to me it's the same thing and neither get in the way of actually making music.

"making billions hand over fist" oh that's just so funny

--------------------
PC-Music.com hints, tips & reviews
Rain Computers UK - Creative Audio PC's

Quote basszn:

---

Quote Booster:

---

To be fair, if computer making companies sat down to work out every problem/combination of hardware/software with an almost infinite number of variables, they would never do any business and never make any money. The problems listed are pretty specific and more than one. Sounds like they gave it a good go to me.

---

To be honest Booster, I think it's more the case that that the 'computer making companies' have the rest of your life, needs & desires mapped out and they're making Billions hand over fist mate. They'll give it good to you - you can be sure of that!!

---

I was more talking about the smaller companies like Carillon. They try to make lots of disparate hardware and software work together, and hopefully get solutions to problems that have been created by manufacturers' bending the rules etc as previously stated. (EMU, TC etc not just Intel/Microsoft etc) I agree that musicians also cannot hide behind 'Oh i'm just a muso man, I wanna make music' vibe, as they are using a computer. Computers have probs and software is complicated. No way around it. If you think it is wrong, then break out your wax cylinder and get recording! However, I don't believe you need to be a complete PC head and troubleshoot things like 'PCI latency' and the like. Just have some general proficiency with a computer and be able to help yourself when things go wrong.

--------------------
I don't want a signature...

I love my 4040. Works a treat.

--------------------
-->+<--

Quote The Living Exile:

---

Quote basszn:

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Quote The Living Exile:

---

Quote basszn:

---

Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

---

Which level? What defines "musical tool"? "Geek"? What's the dividing line between too complex and not?

Why is CSound more difficult than notation?

---

Whatever Rick

---

It's a real question.

I see folk make the statement all the time that "we're only artists {musicians, whatever}". Like being an artist is somehow less mentally taxing or requires less thought or research than it takes to do engineering or programming or whatever.

Granted I've taken it out of context a little bit... It's something of a pet peeve. I *know* a lot different.

http://www.robertrich.com/

---

Trying to get it into context Rick, what I meant was - musicians/artists whatever - "traditionally in the past" (oh there goes that phrase again - sorry mate) used to happily do their bit and leave the knob twiddling to the technically minded people. Now we have it all on the PC, Dumbbuckers like myself have to streeeetch the brain to take on extra skills . Which is great if you've got extra hours to do it all. But being, amoung everthing else, a "performer/musician" and coming in from that side of the stage, it's not such an easy gig to gain the techno pc knowledge that those based in the technical side have.

It's simply a question of time & opportunity a lot of the time. That's why we come here for help afterall - to try and shortcut the process and learn from knowledgable tech-minded folks like yourself et al. That's what I mean by saying "I'm only a musician/performer". aka I've been in the studio all day (session stuff) and just back from a gig - a bit knackered but I've got some ideas I need to get down and a commercial project to fulfil - Doh - why doesn't this do that!!?? Help!

Talking personally, it just was so much easier when I came back to the studio with the Mackie desk plugged into a Fostex B16. That's what I mean as a "musical tool", for me, aka logical, familiar and dependable, aka user simple and friendly. But that quality of sound is no longer acceptable.

And not wishing to play down "musicians", but so many I work with - very few want or can (for whatever reason) get into the PC based scenario. So there is a difference.

I ran commercial studios in the '70's & '80's (tape based) and a midi/pc based production company in the '90's - no problem - but the pc-based mega studio stuff takes a bit more getting your head around

Quote robinv:

---

Quote basszn:

---

To be honest Booster, I think it's more the case that that the 'computer making companies' have the rest of your life, needs & desires mapped out and they're making Billions hand over fist mate. They'll give it good to you - you can be sure of that!!

---

Bwa ha ha ha ha ha yes we're going to take over the world

If only it were so basszn, you really don't have any idea, i think you have us confused with someone like PC World. Building audio PC's is a labour of love, doing it because it's cool and interesting. We're just a bunch of tech-head muso's scraping by doing something we enjoy.

And my pennys worth into the musician/tech debate is that i know how to tune my guitar, change the strings, even adjust the truss rod, similarly i know how to install soundcards and tweak applications to get the best out of them - to me it's the same thing and neither get in the way of actually making music.

"making billions hand over fist" oh that's just so funny

---

Calm down calm down Rob

The quote wasn't a pop at you mate & I do have an idea enough to not confuse you with PC World Get the above into context. Emu is, on glossy ad, a great deal - but they have issues (which was the original point here aka DV).

No one that I've ever seen posted here has any issues with Carillon. Your operation and product is one that we would all like to afford and aspire to. My dream to have one. You are held in great esteem. And we trust in your word and product backup.

And your approach re the "muso/techno geek" link service is the point here. Carillon have the potential to bridge the gap.

Respect

Quote basszn:

---

Quote The Living Exile:

---

Quote basszn:

---

Quote The Living Exile:

---

Quote basszn:

---

Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

---

Which level? What defines "musical tool"? "Geek"? What's the dividing line between too complex and not?

Why is CSound more difficult than notation?

---

Whatever Rick

---

It's a real question.

I see folk make the statement all the time that "we're only artists {musicians, whatever}". Like being an artist is somehow less mentally taxing or requires less thought or research than it takes to do engineering or programming or whatever.

Granted I've taken it out of context a little bit... It's something of a pet peeve. I *know* a lot different.

http://www.robertrich.com/

---

Trying to get it into context Rick, what I meant was - musicians/artists whatever - "traditionally in the past" (oh there goes that phrase again - sorry mate) used to happily do their bit and leave the knob twiddling to the technically minded people. Now we have it all on the PC, Dumbbuckers like myself have to streeeetch the brain to take on extra skills . Which is great if you've got extra hours to do it all. But being, amoung everthing else, a "performer/musician" and coming in from that side of the stage, it's not such an easy gig to gain the techno pc knowledge that those based in the technical side have.

---

Traditionally in the past VanGogh made his own paints... everything from grinding the pigments to mixing the stuff. Folk make their own instruments nowadays, etc, etc... In the past we had academies of "arts and sciences". Both were seen as pretty much equal disciplines. Nowadays if you tell folk you're an artist they look at you like you're a moron. ...This is something that's happened in just the past few years and, quite frankly, pisses me off to no end. {My chosen vocation no longer pays} I'm not a moron... I've spent an easy 3o years being an artist and I get just a little sick of the inference that because I'm an artist that I'm somehow lazy, or less than bright or "useless". I realize this isn't what you're doing but I'm thinking that mode of thinking might just be one of the causes.

I'm just not used to it... I've always had as much {much more} respect for the arts as I have for any other discipline. I just get tired of seeing public opinion swing the other way. From what I can tell... it's not the fault of the artist either.

{The whole thing just brings such violent thoughts to mind.}

Quote:

---

It's simply a question of time & opportunity a lot of the time. That's why we come here for help afterall - to try and shortcut the process and learn from knowledgable tech-minded folks like yourself et al. That's what I mean by saying "I'm only a musician/performer". aka I've been in the studio all day (session stuff) and just back from a gig - a bit knackered but I've got some ideas I need to get down and a commercial project to fulfil - Doh - why doesn't this do that!!?? Help!

Talking personally, it just was so much easier when I came back to the studio with the Mackie desk plugged into a Fostex B16. That's what I mean as a "musical tool", for me, aka logical, familiar and dependable, aka user simple and friendly. But that quality of sound is no longer acceptable.

And not wishing to play down "musicians", but so many I work with - very few want or can (for whatever reason) get into the PC based scenario. So there is a difference.

I ran commercial studios in the '70's & '80's (tape based) and a midi/pc based production company in the '90's - no problem - but the pc-based mega studio stuff takes a bit more getting your head around

---

Times change... tools change. Both music and the visual arts have the capacity to change drastically today. {This is good in my opinion.} Keeping up in the 'oos can be a real bitch.

Quote basszn:

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No one that I've ever seen posted here has any issues with Carillon.

---

!

?

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

Oh, I give up.



--------------------
http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

Quote The Living Exile:

---

Traditionally in the past VanGogh made his own paints... everything from grinding the pigments to mixing the stuff. Folk make their own instruments nowadays, etc, etc... In the past we had academies of "arts and sciences". Both were seen as pretty much equal disciplines. Nowadays if you tell folk you're an artist they look at you like you're a moron. ...This is something that's happened in just the past few years and, quite frankly, pisses me off to no end. {My chosen vocation no longer pays} I'm not a moron... I've spent an easy 3o years being an artist and I get just a little sick of the inference that because I'm an artist that I'm somehow lazy, or less than bright or "useless". I realize this isn't what you're doing but I'm thinking that mode of thinking might just be one of the causes.

---

The question is, do you want to be a musician or a computer engineer?

I used to drive a car. When it became faulty I generally paid someone to fix it, or got an expert in for emergencies - like the AA. Now in theory I COULD have learned exactly how my car worked from the inside out and carried around spares for everything. I COULD have made all repairs myself.

I wouldn't have had as much time for driving though.

This is the argument, rather than one of intelligence. For example, tired of fiddling about with system settings and leaving my case open to try new hardware configurations, I attempted to use a solutions company to simply relieve me of the task. As a computer programmer by trade, I don't consider myself to lack the intelligence to build and set up a DAW from scratch - and the subsequent failure of the solutions company in question prompted me to do just that.

Despite my bad experience, and the fact that I've now spent LONGER fiddling about with computer crap than I would have done if I'd decided to self-build from the start, I think the THEORY is still sound.

If I HAD been delivered a box which 'just worked' perfectly, without any need for me to learn anything other than my sequencer and my instruments, I'd have been that happiest man on the planet. And I would certainly have made far more music over the last three months or so.

However you cut it, techy stuff like setting PCI bus latencies, installing heatsinks and balancing fan speeds and temperatures isn't very musically inspiring.

Basically, I shouldn't *have* to know, and carefully set, the firing sequence of the valves in my car in order to drive it to the shops without the engine cutting out.

It's a convenience thing.

Don't take it too personally.

--------------------
http://www.magicbeansrecords.com

basszn - you're a gentleman sir

Although, i'm not sure about this thing where musicians have to learn PC's. I don't see why it has to be different now to years gone by. As you say in the past you leave the knob fiddling to someone else, in which case why not pay someone else to do the mousing for you now - is it not the same thing? These days though we want to do it all ourselves - if PC's didnt exist then you'd be learning how to twiddly knobs if you wanted to do it all yourself.

I use plenty of vocalists who turn up and do their thing and go home - the fact that i have a PC is of no interest to them - however i want to do the whole thing myself rather than pay a studio and so i learn how to use the tools i wish to use. Seems pretty simple to me but then i'm probably really naive or something. This is the sort of discussion that goes around and around and i remember now why i don't visit here as often as i used to

Cheers
Robin

--------------------
PC-Music.com hints, tips & reviews
Rain Computers UK - Creative Audio PC's

Look I don´t whant to repeat this painfull story, just
bought RME HDSP 9652 insteadt, 1820m will be used only
as a lightpiped AD/DA and a "key" for emulator-x,

EMU has just closed their forum, they don´t realy want
to be disturbed by all the unhappy customers:

http://www.productionforums.com/emu/down.asp

HM

To be fair that forum wasn't actually anything to do with E-MU officially, they just sort of became the home of E-MU support when someone who worked for E-MU started replying there

LOL, now it´s up again, all within an hour os so,
anyway they had this rediculos "close-down" text
on for a while, "people not being friendly" crap

Quote Tequila Slammer:

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Quote basszn:

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No one that I've ever seen posted here has any issues with Carillon.

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!

?

Hello? Can anyone hear me?

Oh, I give up.

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Oh gawd - humble apologies Slam for negleting your points and opinions. As an explanation - no excuse - I was on other sites & posts at the same time...but I am blaming tiredness (plus a bit of post gig 'chill-out' juice) - and eventually falling asleep and headbanging the keyboard and sending my sax player and email that went something like "adjf;ladjfa l z zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz" etc for about 30 pages. But I think he understood it - which is worrying!? no disrespect meant Slammer.

And thanks and agree with the car mechanic analogy and agree that's the idea behind 'mechanics' like Carillon et al. Sorry you had no success with that. Perhaps you can still have a private discussion with Mr V here?

In answer to other posts here, from the '70's on, I've always had a personal studio and ran a few commercial houses & so know how to knob twiddle, but this is the 1st time for me recording Audio on PC. So the Emu site wiped my posts out and then wiped themselves out No Emus here yet?!

I don't think for most here it's a question of 'intelligence' but, in my opinion and present situ for me, it's lack of time to dedicate to the learning process etc. Vincent ground his own paint but lived that latter part of his life as a pauper for his art. A singer I used to know lived like that in her early days because she couldn't do anything other than her music. Luckily for Annie Lennox, she met Dave.

Ultimately, as Rick said ages ago, you've got to read & read up & put the hours in.

But thanks for all the extra help on this forum. Great shortcuts for us all. Is that not why we're here??..to share & learn. gerfumpfffedggjajaaljs l zzzzzzzzz

I feel pretty foolish, but I have been looking here once in a while but I never quite figured out that this Forum moved over, as to expedite my web travel I use a links list. Anyway, if you have question in regards E-MU products please visit the

Unofficial E-MU Forum
http://www.productionforums.com/emu

Since it's too hard to do all the forums(never get any work done...) we are focusing our presence on the forum above. We are trying our best to get end user issues worked out and also take note of new things folks want etc... So if it's urgent please post there or drop E-MU tech support a line.

Best,
ICHi
E-MU Systems

Quote robinv:

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Although, i'm not sure about this thing where musicians have to learn PC's.

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Musicians don't. Musicians that work with computers probably should know how to operate them.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote Tequila Slammer:

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Quote The Living Exile:

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Traditionally in the past VanGogh made his own paints... everything from grinding the pigments to mixing the stuff. Folk make their own instruments nowadays, etc, etc... In the past we had academies of "arts and sciences". Both were seen as pretty much equal disciplines. Nowadays if you tell folk you're an artist they look at you like you're a moron. ...This is something that's happened in just the past few years and, quite frankly, pisses me off to no end. {My chosen vocation no longer pays} I'm not a moron... I've spent an easy 3o years being an artist and I get just a little sick of the inference that because I'm an artist that I'm somehow lazy, or less than bright or "useless". I realize this isn't what you're doing but I'm thinking that mode of thinking might just be one of the causes.

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The question is, do you want to be a musician or a computer engineer?

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An artist. {Multimedia}

Quote:

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I used to drive a car. When it became faulty I generally paid someone to fix it, or got an expert in for emergencies - like the AA. Now in theory I COULD have learned exactly how my car worked from the inside out and carried around spares for everything. I COULD have made all repairs myself.

I wouldn't have had as much time for driving though.

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:} Bad analogy... I used to be a mechanic.

Answer: If I made a living with my car... I'd want to know at least the basics. When I drove a cab I had several opportunities to repair it out on the backroads in bum**** {*s intentional}. Generally the cabs got fixed by the mechanic on staff. If I'd not known how to make minor repairs... both the company and I would have lost money.

Quote:

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This is the argument, rather than one of intelligence. For example, tired of fiddling about with system settings and leaving my case open to try new hardware configurations, I attempted to use a solutions company to simply relieve me of the task. As a computer programmer by trade, I don't consider myself to lack the intelligence to build and set up a DAW from scratch - and the subsequent failure of the solutions company in question prompted me to do just that.

Despite my bad experience, and the fact that I've now spent LONGER fiddling about with computer crap than I would have done if I'd decided to self-build from the start, I think the THEORY is still sound.

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I suppose it's up to you how much and what you learn. More is generally better. I don't think you need to be printing your own chips in your bedroom but plugging and unplugging boards just strikes me as a useful skill if you plan on using a computer.

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If I HAD been delivered a box which 'just worked' perfectly, without any need for me to learn anything other than my sequencer and my instruments, I'd have been that happiest man on the planet. And I would certainly have made far more music over the last three months or so.

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If I pay for something to get built it had better work perfectly. Period. If it doesn't I at least expect that the builder will either right his wrongs or accept a very small check for his efforts. {Of course that all needs to be seen in context and I think you need to be reasonable about your demands.}

Quote:

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However you cut it, techy stuff like setting PCI bus latencies, installing heatsinks and balancing fan speeds and temperatures isn't very musically inspiring.

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But understanding it is essential to making music on a computer. Actually, it's essential to paying someone to build something for you.

Quote:

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Basically, I shouldn't *have* to know, and carefully set, the firing sequence of the valves in my car in order to drive it to the shops without the engine cutting out.

It's a convenience thing.

Don't take it too personally.

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I'm not... I just took issue with what Basszn said. It's no biggie. Any violence I might have alluded to is directed at the world in general.

{:} I should make horror films.}

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote ICHi:

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I feel pretty foolish, but I have been looking here once in a while but I never quite figured out that this Forum moved over, as to expedite my web travel I use a links list. Anyway, if you have question in regards E-MU products please visit the

Unofficial E-MU Forum
http://www.productionforums.com/emu

Since it's too hard to do all the forums(never get any work done...) we are focusing our presence on the forum above. We are trying our best to get end user issues worked out and also take note of new things folks want etc... So if it's urgent please post there or drop E-MU tech support a line.

Best,
ICHi
E-MU Systems

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Thanks for popping in ICHi!

I know what you mean about being too hard to do all the forums - I haven't had time to visit the Unofficial EMu Forum for ages since our new one started up, so I'm going to pay a visit now and see what people are saying about you


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

Yes ICHi has done a great job, despite our struggles we
appreciate him being there, I am very pleased to see the
forum is online again, better to gether in one place, I hope and think that EMU also appriciate the usefull feed-
back given by the many VERY patient user´s

Quote ICHi:

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I feel pretty foolish, but I have been looking here once in a while but I never quite figured out that this Forum moved over, as to expedite my web travel I use a links list. Anyway, if you have question in regards E-MU products please visit the

Unofficial E-MU Forum
http://www.productionforums.com/emu

Since it's too hard to do all the forums(never get any work done...) we are focusing our presence on the forum above. We are trying our best to get end user issues worked out and also take note of new things folks want etc... So if it's urgent please post there or drop E-MU tech support a line.

Best,
ICHi
E-MU Systems

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Great to hear from E-MU at last. A bit late for me as I bought a rival, but your post/link will be much appreciated here I'm sure. Listening is good. E-MU - great spec - good luck with the "end user issues".

Cheers.

I just took issue with what Basszn said. It's no biggie. Any violence I might have alluded to is directed at the world in general.

{:} I should make horror films.}

Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

Quote basszn:

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Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

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:} You didn't actually... you just reminded me of something that's always there, lurking just beneath the surface of my psyche. ...Some sort of innate desire to destroy all of humankind that's essential to the makeup of any true artist. Bergman probably illustrates it in one of his films. ...Call it "geek envy" or something.

} Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

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Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

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} Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

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It's called hardware.

Quote Rousseau:

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Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

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Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

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} Yup...the argument still stands...We are musical creators - not pc geeks - give us the tools that work on this level!

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It's called hardware.

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That would be hardware that works then with good software drivers

Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

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Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

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...Some sort of innate desire to destroy all of humankind that's essential to the makeup of any true artist.

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I can't reply to that opinion.

Quote basszn:

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Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

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Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

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...Some sort of innate desire to destroy all of humankind that's essential to the makeup of any true artist.

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I can't reply to that opinion.

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Once again you're voicing the sense of angst born of an innate lack of ability. Not only are you {seemingly} incapable of dealing with hardware but you seem to think you're incapable of simply responding to my posts.

{Despite the fact that you seem to have just done that very thing. :}}

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

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Quote The Living Exile:

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Quote basszn:

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Hmm...That's a bit scary!! What did I say to elicit such a response?!

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...Some sort of innate desire to destroy all of humankind that's essential to the makeup of any true artist.

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I can't reply to that opinion.

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Once again you're voicing the sense of angst born of an innate lack of ability. Not only are you {seemingly} incapable of dealing with hardware but you seem to think you're incapable of simply responding to my posts.

{Despite the fact that you seem to have just done that very thing. :}}

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No Rick, I can't reply to your opinion that to be a "true artist" you have to have "Some sort of innate desire to destroy all of humankind". I don't come here to air such issues. I don't have any innate lack of ability. Just a desire to learn & share info. Personal issues & opinions are perhaps best left to yourself here. You are a very clever & experienced person. It would be appreciated if you kept your input to that and resist personal attacks.

:} You really do got to learn to see the smileys.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

That squiggly thing is the farthest thing from a smiley dude! Now that's a smiley!

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I don't want a signature...

Quote Booster:

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That squiggly thing is the farthest thing from a smiley dude! Now that's a smiley!

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:} It's in the "official smiley list" ...Wherever that's gotten off to. It's called a vampire smiley. I'm not a vampire... It just worked well {kept my email design consistent.} with my old net persona. It's just a habit.

{exile}

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

Phew - it's not pistols at dawn then. I'm glad to hear it.

Actually I'd been wondering why you kept inserting those :} symbols TLE. Now we all know.

Isn't life a lot easier when you can see the other person's face to help judge irony, sarcasm, tongue in check, etc remarks. Perhaps when we have video-forums in a couple of years time all such problems will disappear. But then again many of us will probably use avatars rather than appear in person, and have to carry on using virtual snigger mode


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

No... No pistols. I'd guess that would explain fairly clearly why I get so pissy about the same reference being made at {by} artists though. I did have the impression that the smileys were fairly clear though. My apologes if I upset anyone.

They do look a lot less "smiley" when you're not using a big, square terminal font... Maybe I'll switch to the graphic model just to avoid confusion in the future.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com

It might indeed be less confusing - you can still enter the majority as text ; followed by ) for a wink for instance. It's just your curly brackets that don't get automatically translated to graphic images by our software.

Merry Christmas!


Martin

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YewTreeMagic

It's not that there's any real secret to the process. It's just that the smiley things are so big. ...And so yellow. ...And they must use up all sorts of bandwidth. They've got to be an easy 2k at least. :}

Merry Christmas to you too.

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www.RTaylor-Design.Com