Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

"Thorsten Marx" <t.marx@h...> wrote:

> I'm thinking about buying an XL7 because I like the idea of
> creating and arranging music without a computer .My question is, how
> good is the sequencer for playing an external MIDI device, in my case
> I would trigger an Ensoniq ASR-X sampler. Is the timing OK? Are the
> functions handy?

nifflas replied:

> No, for controlling your extrenal gear, this is not what you're
> looking for.

In your opinion.  Prove me wrong, but I think you'll find few other
all-in-one boxes that perform as well.  You have full control over what gets
sent to external gear if you set the tracks to external.  You have 32
external midi channels plus 32 internal channels with 128 voices of
polyphony.  You have 16 programmable knobs just waiting to control every
aspect of your external synths.  You have full record on the fly capabilities
with almost nothing that makes you stop the sequencer.  You have complete
interactivity with the arrangement of patterns without having to fit them
into a "style" or flatten them down into a song.  I could go on and on, but
I'll let you read the reviews (Jan 2002 issue of Keyboard gave it a Key Buy).



> * The OS has many bugs and the machine sometimes crashes

I'll be the first to admit that there are a few bugs.  I'm not sure I'd
classify them as "many", but I won't argue there.  E-mu has a strong history
of supporting its users.  We continuously add features and bugfixes, add
provide them free for the downloading.  We not too long ago released updates
for the original E-IV classics, a product that shipped in 1994.  We still are
adding features to XL-7 and are trying to fix as many problems as we can
find.  There's a release scheduled for late February that addresses many of
the issues that you folks have brought up.


> * Stupid re-channelize. If you wish to use a MIDI keyboard to control
> the XL-7 and also the external synths, the midi thru doesn't behave
> as you would expect from a sequencer. Check the other posts for more
> info about this. Also it seems like the EMU guys have no plans to fix
> this, at least not now. (Perhaps they havn't realized how important
> this is)

We're not idiots, you know.  We're aware that more and more people are using
the XL-7 as a controller for external gear.  We've been steadily adding
features to make the more advanced users happy.  We know that this is what
you want and we'll probably give it to you.


> * I have multisetups on my synths that gets messed up if the XL-7
> sends volume, pan or program change messages. Yet it does this
> automaticly if an "out" track is enabled, so I had to buy a MIDI
> filter to filter out such messages.

If you had read the manual addendum, or any of my posts about the subject,
you'd know that if you set a track to external, it won't automatically insert
these events into the track.  You can set any information you want up in the
track list editor.

-Aaron


> I'm very dissapointed with the sequencer part of the XL-7. I
> recommend you to check out the Kawai Q80EXE instead. And there's also
> many other great hardware sequencers.
>
> //Nifflas