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

Welcome to the group!  Enjoyed your posts on daw-mac, though I hardly
read daw-mac anymore.

What led you to the PX7, given your already respectable equipment
collection?  

I picked up my XL7 because it appealed to me as a songwriting tool
that was available at a very attractive price (just missed Guitar
Center's dump of the Command Station product line when Emu decided to
abandon hardware products - but did snag some expansion ROMS at
blowout prices just in time, and scored the XL7 off ebay).  It's still
the main tool for coming up with core songwriting ideas.

The Command Stations can do some things that are still unusual
compared to other hardware synths - microtuning of all 127 MIDI notes,
modulation matrix comparable to modular synths (Ian/aeon famously
declared this type of synth being a modular synth masquerading as a
ROMpler), super powerful arpeggiator, etc.  The PX7 may have been
marketed as a drum machine, but it's really a Command Station
(integrated synth/sequencer with drum machine-like UI) with a
different default ROM than the XL7.  I have all four ROM slots filled
in my XL7 and one of the ROMs is the PX7 ROM.  I'm more likely to use
the PX7 sounds in conjuction with sounds from other ROMS than by
themselves.  Having played with real drummers, the last thing I want
to do is try to beat them at their own game.

This is a classic Harmony Central thread which is a gold mine of info
 on the Command Stations - my head still aches whenever I reread the
posts there :):

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/forums/showthread.php?t=554937 

--- In xl7@yahoogroups.com, "alaskahighway" <midizoo@...> wrote:
>
> 
> is it just me or are the sounds on the px7 quite, dare i say it, boring 
> & 'safe'?  i read somewhere a few weeks ago that the px7 was good 
> for 'acoustic & industrial kits'.   where are these industrial kits??  
> and why so many keyboard sounds?  i thought that this was supposed to 
> be a drum machine?
> 
> 
> i've run thru the presets twice now & hear nothing that my alesis dm 
> pro can't do better.  ok, apart from the sequencing & interface!  but 
> as my midi sequencer does that job very well i'm desperately trying to 
> think of a reason to keep this px7.
> 
> seriously dissappointed.
> 
> }:-(
> moose @ midizoo
>