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

I bought a virtuoso module with the two roms in it; they are very good. you'd never believe that there's only 32Mb on each one. I have to fully load the ram in my E6400 (128Mb, so twice as much) to come close to what these two roms can do. 
 
there's a lot of variety not only in styles of playing (pizz, trem & so on) but also some of the sounds were recorded in four-channel audio, so that you get close-miked stereo from the main outs & something called "fourth row back" (something like that, anyway) from the sub outs.
 
if you take the time to arrange your orchestral parts properly (i.e. lots of monophonic lines stacked up- 1st violin, 2nd violin, viola, cello & bass, & the same with the woodwinds & brass) & position them in the stereo image correctly, it is as good as it gets. 
but if you just knock out block chords with a "string section" setting, it won't sound as impressive.
 
the XL7 is a good tool to combine with the two orchestral roms, & I'm not sure why emu didn't see this & market a version of the command station with wooden end-pieces & "maestro" written on the lid... :-)  
 
that's exactly how I'm using my XL7 now, to do a film score. I have flash roms in the other two slots, with a custom library of mellotron sounds, found-sounds & effects.
(& so the old virtuoso chassis now has the XL7's rom, a composer rom, a protean drums & another flash rom in it.)
 
creating realistic orchestral parts (that could be played by a real orchestra) is pretty labour-intensive. 
my main instrument is the bass guitar; my keyboard chops are lamentable! so I have a peavey midibase (sic) which I use to write the main monophonic parts on. this works really well as I am able to mimic a lot of the playing techniques of other mono instruments, especially string vibrato/slide, but also wind instruments. 
 
& because I am playing a familiar instrument, I can get the parts down very quickly & accurately & soon build up a composite piece.
the XL7 is ideal for recording/editing this kind of data quickly, either as tracks in pattern mode or as longer parts in song mode.
 
hth-
 
duncan. 
 


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