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.EB1 to .EM1 Format Conversion Workflow

2014-06-22 by guitar5l50@...

Needing to get to .EM1 format in order to wrap .hfe disk images w/ OS layer for use w/ HxC Rev F. in my Emax.

Since .EB1 doesn't have an OS layer like .EM1 why can't HxC software wrap it just the same?
I read the EMXP manual and see that .EM1 has this functionality. Can it be made to support .EB1 in the same workflow?

This will be a very helpful and useful feature for ease of workflow as well as having a value add of flexibility.

Any ideas on workflows that can currently get around this?
The idea being that I can keep a whole stock pile floppy images on the SD card while on the road and not need all of the peripherals to make things work in a flexible manner. I can then load these into RAM and build my own ZIP disks on the road for quick loading in live situations. I don't have a dedicated portable Windows machine capable of building these ZIP disks on the road and tend to rely on the using the on-board interface of the Emax. Less is more approach for live.

I have adopted a similar approach with using my EII for a few years now and it works well as a workflow.
I love that I can simply re-wrap things and get to the music.

Esynthesist, thoughts?
Please advise.

Thanks for your help,
Robert

Re: .EB1 to .EM1 Format Conversion Workflow

2014-06-22 by esynthesist@...

The EM1 and EB1 file layout are only slightly different, so it should be possible for the HxC software to take EB1 files as input format as well (besides EM1).
But that's up to the software developer of HxC (Jean-Francois) - I can contact him about this and provide him with the layout specs but I'm not sure he will add the EB1 format to the HxC software. He tries to keep some distance from the file system specific problems related to any of the computers or samplers supported by the HxC, and I understand and fully support this attitude. The EM1 file format is (except for the additional first bytes) exactly the same as the floppy disk file format, while the EB1 file format must be converted/re-arranged before it can be written to floppy disk. That's why EM1 and EM2 are the preferred and only input format for the HxC.

For EMAX-II files (EM2, EB2) the problems are even bigger, because one EB2 file can cover multiple EM2 files, and a floppy disk or HFE file can contain only one EM2 file. So the HxC software should request the user for an additional parameter: the index number of the disk within the EB2 file. I'm sure that feature will never make it in the HxC software :-)

Perhaps a final remark: while the previous EMXP versions considered the EB1 file format "more important" than the EM1 file format (offering more features for EB1 files than for EM1 files), the newest version 3.00 doesn't really care are anymore - it can copy/convert EM1 files in the same way as EB1 files, and samples from EM1 files can be converted to WAV just like samples from EB1 files. So as an alternative you *could* rely on EM1 files only and build up your sound bank library in EM1 format instead of EB1 format. Converting all of your current EB1 files into EM1 format can be done in one batch operation by EMXP.

///E-Synthesist

Re: .EB1 to .EM1 Format Conversion Workflow

2014-06-22 by hxc2001@...

E-Synthesist : i provide an library to easily add the HFE and others floppy format support to any software.
I think that the best thing to do is to add the HFE support to your software through this library.
The API is quite simple, this is just some FDC-like functions (READ sector, Write sector...).

Contact me if you want more details.

Re: [emax] Re: .EB1 to .EM1 Format Conversion Workflow

2014-06-22 by Robert Van Kuran

Thank you for the response. I understand the details of development but maybe it's worth asking him for this feature.

Can you please share some more specific details as to how to convert these using your EMXP software?

For the sake of flexibility I believe theEM1 format will be my primary format

-RVK

Show quoted textHide quoted text

> On Jun 22, 2014, at 1:17 PM, "esynthesist@... [emax]" <emax@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
> 
> The EM1 and EB1 file layout are only slightly different, so it should be possible for the HxC software to take EB1 files as input format as well (besides EM1).
> But that's up to the software developer of HxC (Jean-Francois) - I can contact him about this and provide him with the layout specs but I'm not sure he will add the EB1 format to the HxC software. He tries to keep some distance from the file system specific problems related to any of the computers or samplers supported by the HxC, and I understand and fully support this attitude. The EM1 file format is (except for the additional first bytes) exactly the same as the floppy disk file format, while the EB1 file format must be converted/re-arranged before it can be written to floppy disk. That's why EM1 and EM2 are the preferred and only input format for the HxC.
> 
> For EMAX-II files (EM2, EB2) the problems are even bigger, because one EB2 file can cover multiple EM2 files, and a floppy disk or HFE file can contain only one EM2 file. So the HxC software should request the user for an additional parameter: the index number of the disk within the EB2 file. I'm sure that feature will never make it in the HxC software :-)
> 
> Perhaps a final remark: while the previous EMXP versions considered the EB1 file format "more important" than the EM1 file format (offering more features for EB1 files than for EM1 files), the newest version 3.00 doesn't really care are anymore - it can copy/convert EM1 files in the same way as EB1 files, and samples from EM1 files can be converted to WAV just like samples from EB1 files. So as an alternative you *could* rely on EM1 files only and build up your sound bank library in EM1 format instead of EB1 format. Converting all of your current EB1 files into EM1 format can be done in one batch operation by EMXP.
> 
> 
> ///E-Synthesist
> 
>

Re: .EB1 to .EM1 Format Conversion Workflow

2014-06-24 by guitar5l50@...

That would be interesting to see this feature develop into EMXP.
I'm totally used to the .hfe format rewrapping and merging workflow using the HxC Floppy utility software, but it would be great to tap into the EMU format exchange power of EMXP this way as well and allow native support for .hfe files.

I am still uncertain of the workflow steps and procedure to go about batch converting .EB1 to .EM1 using EMXP as you mentioned previously in the thread.
Can you please clarify how to go about this?

Also can you clarify, is .EB1 or .EM1 the bank format from Sound Designer for Emax.

Thanks again for your help.
-Robert

Re: .EB1 to .EM1 Format Conversion Workflow

2014-06-24 by esynthesist@...

I will investigate how much effort would be required to add HFE support to EMXP (both as source and target format); I can't promise that this feature will make it in a future version.

For converting a selected set of EB1 files into EM1 files in a fully automated way, the flow in EMXP version 3.00 (latest version) looks like this:
1->1->1->[select source folder and (all of) its EB1 files]->1->2->1->[select target folder]

Neither the EB1 nor the EM1 files are Sound Designer for EMAX compatible.
But the Sound Designer for EMAX files are supported by EMXP as well; these are the EMS files.

FYI:
EM1 files are the so-called EMX files (named after the original EMX program for MSDOS)
EB1 files are bank files (only used by EMXP, compressed version of EMX files)
All of this is explained in the EMXP Reference Manual, but I admit it's a huge document :-)

///E-Synthesist