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

I am pleased to discover that the Command Stations are still being used by others. I bought mine off eBay a while ago and thought I was the only one still using it.

Currently I am mostly using it as a sequencer because of its arpeggiators.  The user patterns are incredibly powerful. It is easy to set up multiple patterns of different lengths, create polyrhythms, include triplets and dotted notes, etc. 

The two biggest limitations of the arp user patterns are:
 
1. Limited editing. There seems to be no way to insert a step in the middle of a pattern. To do this, I need to write down the pattern on a piece of paper and manually move all events one step to the right.

2. No Force to Scale. If I create a pattern with major intervals, when I play a C on the keyboard, it plays in C major.  When I play a D on the keyboard, it plays in D major. I think I need to edit the MIDI in a DAW to keep the piece in C major.

Am I missing any CS features to help with the above limitations?  Are there other hardware/software arpeggiators/sequencers that work in a similar way to the CS user patterns but go beyond these limitations?


So far I am not totally convinced on the CS as a sound source but I still want to explore it some more.  I love the flexibility of the patchcords and LFOs but prefer things that sound analog. I think DSP has progressed since the Z plane filters were created. If only Emu continued developing their products....

Does anyone have any favorite filter types that they rely on? I want to have another go at it tonight but it takes a long time to try out 50 filter types.

Regards,
Mike F