Emu Audio Production Studio

The E‑Drive (left) and E‑Card (right).

Emu's APS system takes the company into soundcard territory, but with a comprehensive spec that even includes studio‑quality mic amps. Martin Walker tries out this all‑in‑one experience.

Emu's APS system takes the company into soundcard territory, but with a comprehensive spec that even includes studio‑quality mic amps. Martin Walker tries out this all‑in‑one experience.

It seems that hardly a month goes by without another soundcard being launched, but there are so many permutations of interesting features that each new model seems to manage to find its own niche in the marketplace. The Emu Audio Production Studio comes from a company that is renowned for its sampling expertise, so, as you might expect, this is the system's main raison d'être. At the centre of its spec lies a 64‑voice, 32‑channel multitimbral synth/sampler that uses up to 32Mb of your PC system RAM to store samples in SoundFont format. In addition, there's a mini‑mixer to deal with the four analogue input channels, four digital input channels, and 16 high‑quality EQ and effect blocks which can be patched in any combination to the inputs, sampler, and to a single stereo Wave driver when replaying hard disk audio. There's a single stereo analogue output and two S/PDIF outputs.

The package comes in two main parts. The E‑Card is a soundcard with a single pair of analogue inputs and outputs, plus an S/PDIF input and output and a single MIDI I/O connector. To supplement this, the E‑Drive fits into a spare 5.25‑inch drive bay (just like a CD‑ROM drive), and provides a further pair of S/PDIF sockets, a headphone output with level control and an additional two analogue inputs. Unusually, these are designed for use with microphones; they provide phantom power, and each has a separate front‑panel switch to add a 20dB pad for line‑level use, and its own level control. All analogue inputs and outputs (both on the E‑Card and E‑Drive) are on balanced quarter‑inch jack sockets, and Emu claim that the preamps are of studio quality.

Installation

The mixer gives full access to all 12 input sources (four analogue inputs, two stereo digital ones, the stereo Wave output, and the stereo MIDI output from the sampler engine).

The E‑Card is a typical 7‑inch‑long PCI soundcard, but the MIDI I/O is provided on a separate backplate. The system thus takes up two card slot positions in total, but few people will grumble, since this does allow the card backplate to accommodate quarter‑inch jack sockets, rather than the far less robust and reliable 3.5mm ones used by many other manufacturers. The E‑Drive mic inputs can each be adjusted using jumpers to suit cheap SoundBlaster‑compatible powered or unpowered mics (unbalanced), or more professional dynamic or condenser types. In this configuration, the mic inputs are balanced and 12V phantom power can also be selected. While this is much lower than the standard 48V, it will still be perfectly adequate for many mics.

There's a bit of internal pre‑wiring to do: the MIDI I/O backplate connects to the soundcard via a ribbon cable, and another one connects the card and the E‑Drive. Finally, a screened headphone cable connects the card and E‑Drive. After the card has been inserted in a suitable expansion slot, the new hardware is detected during the reboot and the driver software installed in the normal way. The Emu hardware needs only a single IRQ and base address, and I was up and running in a couple of minutes. The current drivers are standard Windows MME‑compatible, although ASIO drivers are already at Beta stage and should become available early next year — as should Mac drivers.

Software

The SoundFont Bank Manager provides an elegant way to load and audition up to 32Mb of sounds. These can be in multiple banks (accessed over MIDI). Here the 12Mb used consists of an 8Mb GM set and the 4Mb ROM of the Proteus Pop/Rock module.

With the drivers in place and working, I installed the software. The APS comes complete with the E‑Control Mixer, SoundFont Bank Manager, the Vienna font editor (already familiar to SoundBlaster owners everywhere), a special version of Cakewalk Express Gold, and a full version of Sonic Foundry's Sound Forge XP (the slimline version of Sound Forge 4). However, a new software bundle is being put together for the European market, including Cubasis AV and Wavelab 1.6.

The SoundFont Bank Manager is a more sophisticated version of the AWE Control utility, and allows you to load and audition multiple banks of sounds. Unlike the ISA‑based SoundBlaster cards, which either used SIMM or proprietary onboard memory to store sounds, the Emu APS and the new SoundBlaster Live! (see 'The Creative Connection' box) use up to 32Mb of system RAM. Although this means that the user can avoid having to buy RAM devoted to the soundcard, more than 64Mb of computer RAM may be needed to use the APS to the full and run a modern MIDI + Audio sequencer as well; Emu recommend a minimum of a 200MHz processor and 64Mb of RAM. Apparently the APS will run with a 166MHz processor and 24Mb of RAM, but with a reduced number of audio tracks and maximum SoundFont memory. If you want to run many tracks of hard disk audio as well as the sampler, a Pentium II and 128Mb of RAM would be sensible.

The Emu user interfaces have a pleasing metallic sculpted appearance that even extends to the drop‑down menus (the option of using a standard high‑contrast Windows colour scheme for these would make them easier to read). Both the Bank Manager and E‑Control Mixer are fairly easy to use, but could do with some tweaks in the graphics department. The rotary knobs are tiny, as are the various switches, and most could be twice as large without increasing the size of any of the panels. This would allow their current position, value or status to be seen far more easily — on my 17‑inch monitor I had to lean forward and squint to read many of them. In addition, the controls for Aux bus Send on the mixer (see later) seem to be simply a single‑pixel‑high horizontal line, and mouse‑pointing needs to be pretty accurate to hit the correct area to operate them.

Synth & Sampler Playback

The Emu APS running as a 64‑voice sampler with Cubase VST. Note that the SoundFont is using 30Mb of system RAM. You'll probably need more than 64Mb of RAM in total, plus a powerful PC, to run many hard disk audio tracks at the same time.

Since the Creative Labs AWE64 Gold is widely used by musicians (despite its full duplex limitations), I loaded an identical SoundFont into both this and the Emu APS, and then compared their analogue outputs. As you might expect, there was no contest, despite them both having Emu chips on board: the APS sounded clean and deathly quiet by comparison, with background noise which I would say was around 15dB or so less than the AWE64 Gold. I then connected the S/PDIF output from the AWE64 Gold into an S/PDIF input of the APS, and listened to both cards again from the Emu APS analogue output. Even here the APS provided a cleaner sound, particularly at the end of fades, where the AWE64 Gold seemed to have fewer bits available, giving a buzzy end to piano notes, for instance. I could reliably tell them apart every time — the APS had more crispness and separation, which proves that the synth audio quality has been significantly improved even at the digital level.

Emu provide a total of 350Mb of SoundFonts on the CD‑ROM, including a wide variety of individual instruments; Multi Banks (collections of instruments to suit different styles of music including Orchestral, Techno, and World); a selection of Grooves and Beats; a range of Sound Effects; and various demo fonts, complete with MIDI music files. The smallest sound effects start at 19K, and the largest demo SoundFont is 28Mb. Multiple banks can be loaded in (subject to the 32Mb RAM limit) and then accessed using MIDI Bank commands. Emu have also extended the SoundFont standard to version 2.1, which allows you to add up to four MIDI controllers to a preset sound.

Many musicians fill their samplers with a small selection of specially chosen samples, to use alongside MIDI modules that provide a wide variety of bread‑and‑butter sounds to go with them. Using a sampler alone can sometimes feel like working without a safety net. However, Emu have considerable expertise in creating quality General MIDI soundsets, and the new 2Mb and 8Mb GM SoundFonts provided give you the comfort of a familiar set of 'MIDI' sounds when required. If you have upgraded from a standard SoundBlaster card, and have used any of its basic 1Mb ROM sample set, Emu provide the same bank as a CD‑ROM file.

Hard Disk Audio Recording

Here's a selection of the mixer and effect panels available. From left to right: the Reverb Control Panel; a chain of Insert effects added to a single input strip; the MIDI Submix, showing how up to five MIDI channels can be sent separately through individual mixer strips; and the drop‑down menu options for another input strip insert point, showing the available effects remaining.

The four analogue inputs (along with the two stereo digital inputs) can be mixed together, and Emu obviously intend this facility to replace a small external mixer. However, although you can mix up to eight mono input signals in total (four analogue and four digital), only a single mixed mono or stereo output from the mixer can be recorded to hard disk. It's not possible to simultaneously record from several inputs onto several digital tracks, due to the single MME input and output drivers.

Having two of the analogue inputs on the E‑Drive makes it easy to plug signals in without rooting about at the back of the PC. The system's manual shows sample routings with a guitar and mic connected, but this is perhaps a little optimistic. However good the 'studio‑quality' preamps, most guitarists are plagued by interference when they move within several feet of a computer monitor, and the amount of acoustic noise emitted by most computer cooling fans and hard drives will make it almost impossible to record anything useful with a mic unless you are at least 10 feet away!

Having said this, the background noise of all of the inputs was commendably low. It varied somewhat depending on the position of the gain controls, but A‑D background noise (measured using Sound Forge) was ‑93dB RMS. Strangely, however, noise levels varied depending on the sample rate chosen. Files recorded at 48kHz always had the lowest noise figures, but both digital and analogue inputs recorded at 44.1kHz had a small amount of DC offset. Once this had been removed, background noise with a 44.1kHz sampling frequency was ‑91dB RMS for digital, and ‑88dB RMS for analogue. I suspect that this is due to the internal sample‑rate converters (see 'Tech Talk' box). However, these figures are all good, and would further improve by several dBs when A‑weighted. Frankly, since using the 44.1kHz rate only yields 9% or so extra hard drive space, you might be better off sticking to a 48kHz sampling rate when recording (if your applications support this), for marginally better audio quality.

Mixing

The user‑configurable mixer utility allows you to configure, balance and add effects to the various signals available. Input strips (on the left) come in various types, but each has a channel fader with position readout, rotary Pan control (again with a readout of current value), as well as Mute and Solo buttons. There are two tiny Aux bus send controls and an Insert point (see later for details on these two). Multiple faders can also be ganged by clicking on the appropriate Link icons. Mouse‑clicking on any rotary control produces a horizontal or vertical floating fader for more precise control, and you can also increment or decrement the current value directly if desired (although this can be painfully slow).

The following input strips are available:

• Wave: the single stereo output from the 'APS Wave Out' driver.
• MIDI: the combined output from all 32 MIDI channels of the synth/sampler engine.
• Mono Analogue input: four are available (A1, A2, A3, and A4 — one from each of the input sockets).
• Stereo Digital input: there are two of these — one from each of the S/PDIF inputs.

In addition, there are five potential extra channels for MIDI submixes. Each of these carries the MIDI output from one of the 32 MIDI channels so that effects can be added individually. Of course, you can add a little blanket reverb and chorus on the normal MIDI input strip as well.

The Master Output strip has stereo master faders and level meters at the bottom, and a useful selection of mixer tool icons in the centre, which duplicate menu functions such as adding and removing input strips and showing the MIDI submixing window. For recording, the Disk Record rotary control sets the level for hard disk recording, and you can either record the combined mix (from every input strip), or select the combined output from any one of the four Aux busses. The Aux busses themselves can also be individually routed to either the E‑Card analogue Out or one of the two S/PDIF digital Outs (to add external hardware effects, for instance).

Effects

The effect routings are a little confusing at first, but versatile. There are 16 fixed blocks in all. The first seven on the list (Reverb, Chorus, Flanger, Echo‑delay, Auto‑Wah, Pitch‑Shifter, and Distortion) can be selected for any of the four global Aux bus effects, or as individual channel Insert effects. The other nine effects comprise Compressor, four identical shelving EQ blocks (low‑pass or high‑pass, providing +/‑15dB control at any frequency between 80Hz and 16kHz), and four identical Parametric EQ blocks (with similar frequency and gain to the shelving type, but with an additional Bandwidth control calibrated between one and 36 semitones).

Each input strip has two variable post‑fader Aux bus Send controls, and these can be routed to any of the four global effects chosen for the Master Output Strip, or to other hardware outputs, as previously described. In addition, each input strip has an insert point (a pop‑up editing window appears when you click on this), and any combination of remaining effects from the 16 can be added in any order to the chain. Some of the effects in the insert pop‑up strip also have tiny Wet/Dry Mix controls. Each block can only be used once, but this method of allocation is wonderful for creating off‑the‑wall insert chains.

The effects themselves are excellent. The Reverb can be varied from huge, smooth halls to galloping granular delay clusters, through all the usual rooms and tiled chambers. A wide variety of sounds can be coaxed from the Chorus, and the Echo Delay provides left and right delays of up to two seconds, with Pan and Feedback. Distortion has an Edge control for overload, followed by a versatile EQ, and the Compressor also has a wide range of controls. Every effect has a set of presets, and you can load and save your own. Both the shelving and parametric EQs sound good, although you may need to chain a couple together for many EQ duties. There are no presets for EQ, but you can save a snapshot of the entire mixer at any time, for recall later.

Although these effects can be applied to individual inputs, and on up to five individual MIDI channels from the sampler, they can only be applied to the overall stereo audio signal from a MIDI + Audio sequencer. They do not appear as DirectShow plug‑ins inside other applications (like those of the Lexicon Studio, for instance), and the E‑Card driver doesn't provide multiple audio channels (like the Yamaha SW1000XG, for instance) so that you can route individual audio channels from a MIDI + Audio sequencer through the effects.

Currently, the only way to add the APS effects to an individual audio channel inside your sequencer is to record it with effects in the first place. Alternatively, you could mute all but that track during playback and then re‑record the track through the APS mixer and effects, by re‑routing the Aux buss returns to any of the hardware inputs.

Summary

Overall, Emu's APS is a product with a unique set of features, but the company makes it clear that this is primarily a high‑quality stereo sampler card with built‑in effects. Currently you cannot add these effects to individual tracks inside a sequencer in real time, although this should change in the future (when the ASIO drivers arrive). For this reason, it's not initially suitable for those running a MIDI + Audio sequencer who simply want to add Emu hardware effects to take the pressure off their PC processor. Also, although there are up to eight inputs available, only a single mixed mono or stereo signal can currently be recorded to hard disk at any time. This is great if you intend to record and mix simultaneously, but it prevents simultaneous multitrack recording.

The Emu Audio Production Studio is essentially a complete system based around a 64‑voice sampler. It sounds excellent, especially when combined with the wide range of quality effects, and its digital mixing could replace a small external stereo desk. If your music is mainly sample‑based, it may prove ideal.