Subject:Using Emu's 1820M with Acid/Vegas

Posted by: mortalengines

Date:2/21/2004 10:12:36 PM

Does anyone using Acid Pro 4 have an Emu 1820 M soundcard? How well does it work? I am thinking about using Acid with Vegas (for multi-input recording) & want to use a mutlinput soundcard & the Emu seems to fit some of my other needs as well.

Subject:RE: The entire line of EMU's new Digital Audio Systems looks impressive!

Reply by: billybk

Date:2/22/2004 5:30:51 AM

I don't think they are shipping yet. Musicians Friend and audiomidi said, hopefully they will come in this week. I've been looking at the 1820, but also the Emulator X has caught my eye as well. I was checking out the latest March issue of Electronic Musician the other night and came across an eye opening four page advert for the new EMU Digital Audio Systems product line. I was pretty impressed with the cutting edge high-end specs and the low price points. Even their low end $199.00 product, the E-MU 1212M, blows away the competition in it's price class:

Mastering-grade 24-bit, 192kHz converters - the same A/D converters used in Digidesign®''s flagship Pro Tools® HD I/O Interface
Flexible connectivity with 1/4" balanced analog I/O, 24/192 ADAT I/O and 24/96 S/PDIF I/O, MIDI I/O plus a FireWire® port for seamless integration with your entire studio
E-DSP 32-bit Multi-effects Processor offers you over 16 simultaneous hardware-accelerated studio-grade effects with no CPU overhead - plug-in architecture allows you to add new effects as needed
32 Channels of zero latency Hardware Mixing/ Monitoring with super-flexible virtual patchbay - no external mixer needed
Full compatibility with most popular audio/sequencer applications with ultra-low latency WDM, DirectSound® and ASIO 2.0 Drivers
Powerful software studio package

I/O Configuration: Two 1/4" Balanced Inputs
24-bit/192kHz ADAT In/Out (switchable to S/PDIF)
24-bit/96kHz S/PDIF In/Out (switchable to AES/EBU)
MIDI In/Out
Firewire® Interface

http://www.emu.com/products/category.asp?category=754&maincategory=754

The RME's, M-Audio's & Echo's of the world are probably scrambling right now, they certainly don't have anything remotely comparable, in the same price range.

What really interested me though, was the Emulator X Studio for $599.00. It includes the same high-end audio specs as the 1820 (18 input/20 output), but with a 24-bit/192kHz VSTi software sampler, that can playback samples from RAM or do disk streaming from hard disk. Includes an integrated waveform editor and comprehensive sound format support (EOS, EIII, GigaSampler, Akai, HALion, EXS24, SoundFont 2.1, .WAV and many more sound formats) and ships with over 2GB of sounds. If that ain't enough, it also includes all the sounds from the EMU Proteus 2000! It's like a Korg Oasys on steriods, but at a quarter of the original Oasys asking price ($2200). I think I see an Emulator X in my future.

http://www.emu.com/products/product.asp?product=2213&category=631&maincategory=631

I am not easily impressed, but the cutting edge technology offered in this new EMU Digital Audio Systems product line is remarkable at these price points. I mean, mastering-grade 24-bit, 192kHz converters, Firewire, MIDI I/O, 32-Bit DSP Effects, 24/192 Adat I/O, 24/192 S/PDIF I/O, WDM/ASIO support on a "low-end" $199.00 audio card! I'm blown away with EMU right now!


Billy Buck

Subject:RE: The entire line of EMU's new Digital Audio Systems looks impressive!

Reply by: coolout

Date:2/22/2004 8:32:18 AM

i second that...i saving right now.

Subject:RE: The entire line of EMU's new Digital Audio Systems looks impressive!

Reply by: Iacobus

Date:2/22/2004 10:18:59 AM

I don't mean to rain on everyone's parade, but remember if something like this sounds too good to be true, it usually is.

Don't get me wrong: It could be a good audio interface. However, I always caution judgment until you've really gotten your hands on the product and see it for yourself.

Iacobus
-------
RodelWorks - Original Music for the Unafraid
mD's ACIDplanet Page

Subject:RE: The entire line of EMU's new Digital Audio Systems looks impressive!

Reply by: mortalengines

Date:2/22/2004 11:45:27 AM

Yeah, that concerns me as well - I just saw the ad the other day & just the fact that emu is now owned by creative kind of makes me wonder if they aren't somehow hyping this a bit. I guess it will be a wait & see kind of thing.
I'm really looking for a good muti- input card (that I could expand upon in the future) & start with a few loops in acid for a groove to play over & get some friends to jam with & play into Vegas & then edit the crap out of it & Voila! -well... maybe not THAT easily but, something that could be used in a mutli-instrument environment while working with acid as well.

Subject:RE: The entire line of EMU's new Digital Audio Systems looks impressive!

Reply by: coolout

Date:2/22/2004 2:51:35 PM

don't get me wrong...i'll wait for the reviews. but at $199 i would replace my lowly terratec card for better converters and adat for future expansion. i really curious how the dsp on the other card is implemented.

i trust the emu name regardless of the creative ownership. emu knows pro-audio. it seems the creative buyout was a good thing because it forced them to change the product line to reflect the current times. it's looks like they've taken hardware samplers out of the product line. emu not sell a sampler?!?!? i thought i'd never see the day. emu seems to be focused on ROMplers and computer stuff now, which i guess where the demand is.

if they were really smart they would forget trying to sell a virtual emulator and give the people what they really want....a virtual sp1200

this friggin 10 year old,12-bit sampling drum machine is still going for $1000+ on ebay...daily. there is no comparable virtual version of this hardware. surely, emu can stick the sp1200 OS and some same sounding converters and filters on a PCI card and perhaps sell some type of usb pad controller with it. maybe an all-in-one usb audio interface/controller complete with the same buttons and sliders. now that would be cool.

it boggles my mind how every developer is trying to model every obscure synth and effect but no one is taking on the most basic bread and butter tools that every modern producer uses...a good sampling drum machine. all these loop cds (check any "hip-hop" sample cd) and virtual loop ROMplers (stylus, reason, etc.) are just using those machines to create their products instead of giving us what we really need...the tools to create those drum tracks ourselves.

i bought a mpc 2000 for Xmas only because there's no virtual equal. the pads and rock solid timing create a feel that very difficult to recreate using software, but the part that upsets me is that i totally understand it's really just another computer. i already use two pcs and a mac. i already have a dedcated dsp card and good plug-ins. why can't someone stick a basic production tool in one my computers.

a $199 virtual sp1200 would be a big seller.

Subject:coolout what type of music do you make

Reply by: ozzborn

Date:2/22/2004 6:34:36 PM

i think reason achieves the mpc feel.redrum is hot and with the mpc pads you can achieve the same or similar results.

one thing i notice about mp's is that the drums are very punchy but akai's dont have the heavy bottom end.

Subject:RE: coolout what type of music do you make

Reply by: mortalengines

Date:2/22/2004 8:08:25 PM

okay, we're getting a little off track from my original request but, what the hell...I would buy an akai mpc 2000 in a heartbeat if it weren't for the learning curve-
I chose acid & will probably go for ableton live when it comes to playing what i do in acid ( in a live context on a pc laptop) just because of the fact that ableton's learning curve (like acid's) is really low & you can get good results quick (but, if you take the time, you can get great results). The akai & old emu samplers were way more bucks than this guitarist (who spent alot of money on hot-rodded class A/B tube amps that currently gather dust, back in the day) was ever willing to spend on gear- At least with a computer, I could expand into a full blown studio environment when the time was right & move on to some multitrack software. At this time, I am looking for a multi (8 or more analog I/O) in & out sound card that I can use with Vegas (which, I understand is not bad as a 24 bit multi track recording program goes) . I would just like to move into a larger production situation than Acid alone currently allows but, still be able to use it as the looping/groove/ambience tool that it is.

Subject:RE: coolout what type of music do you make

Reply by: coolout

Date:2/23/2004 8:19:58 AM

"coolout what type of music do you make?"-ozzborn

I’d like to think progressive soul music in all of its forms. I programmed my first drum machine at 14 and I’m 30 now. I’ve worked with various artists in various genres. I’ve done everything from r+b, spoken-word, and hip-hop to house, broken-beat and drum n' bass. I’ve even worked with some rock bands and a country artist before, but they all had soul.

I’m just an open-minded guy who grew up on real hip-hop, soul/funk, jazz, and classic rock. I'm also a DJ by profession (as in for a living) so I try to stay up on the world of recorded music. This week I’m feeling a lot of dub reggae, afro beat, old bjork and radiohead, but also some newer hiphop like k-os and jaylib. Oh...the kanye west record is surprisingly HOT. I have over 30 crates of music so I’m really not doing myself justice here.

For the past year I’ve been working on my own left-of-center hip-hop projects...all recorded and mixed in acid pro 4.

ozzborn, you really don't understand the power of the MPC. It’s a 16-bit sampler...it really has no sound. What sounds you put into it is what you get out for the most part. Now the 12-bit ones, namely the mpc-60 and sp1200 DO have a crunchier more raw sound. Most popular music is done using an mpc. Most classic hip-hop...sp1200 and mpc 60/3000. The reason (pardon the pun) why these things are still a successful, popular product is the fact the sequencer has more solid timing than software and the pads capture more immediate dynamics. There are no midi delays or timing issues...sometimes it's blatant, sometimes it's subtle. It’s something you really have to experience for yourself. It almost feels like magic, but all the mpc is really doing is capturing and translating more of your own groove.

6-months ago thought just like you and I was using mostly software. I had to shift and offset tracks to capture the feel I wanted. I wondered why these 5-10 year old machines were still fetching 600-1200 bucks on ebay when rack mount samplers with more features are selling for 75-250 bucks. So I borrowed a friend's mpc2000 while he was visiting family for christmas. After one week I had to have one. Don’t get me wrong. I like reason a lot. It’s a great synth rack, but for drums it's in a whole different world than a MPC.

mortalengines, if you ever used a sampler and any drum machine there's really no learning curve with a MPC. It’s just a very simple sampler and with some drum pads, but it’s really hard to duplicate the mpc feel in acid or live. Throw one of your old amps on ebay and get a MPC...the real deal.

This all goes back to my original post that there really is a demand for a virtual version a sampling drum machine because it's a really useful production tool. It doesn't currently exist and would have to be a hardware/software solution. Perhaps someone is reading this and on the right path.