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

Hiya Brotha -
Ok, now I am beginning to think we need to put some of this into the FAQ, or
some sort of beginners guide.

I'll give you some basic information but then I am going to send you to a really
good website that covers EVERYTHING.

First things first -
How to get sounds into your computer.

There are two main ways you get sound from place to place,  Analog and Digital
signals.  An analog signal is any signal that represents the sound by changes in
voltage- the voltage changes continuously and IS your sound, if you put it
through an amplifier and speakers you will hear it.  A digital signal is a
representation of your sound broken apart into thousands of little pieces a
second.  This is how your computer stores it.  In order for you to get
information in or out of your computer you can either give the computer a
digital connection or an analog connection.  For an analog connection the
computer has to break the sound into chunks, the more chunks in a second the
better the sound- this is refereed to as  SAMPLE RATE.  A sample is basically a
point where the sound was looked at and jotted down, like on a graph.  The size
of the sample or the BIT DEPTH represents how accurately the sample is
represented.  So, for example:

A sound sampled at 48khz is sampled 48,000 samples a second.
This is better than CD quality at 16bits, noticeably bad at 8 bits.

A sound sampled at 44.1khz is sampled 44,100 samples a second.
This is CD quality at 16bits, doodoo at 4 bits.

A sound sampled at 33.1khz is sampled 33,100 samples a second.
This is Radio quality at 16bits, doodoo at 4 bits, almost CD quality at 24 bits.

Ok, so the thing in your computer that makes it from analog into digital is an
Analog to Digital Converter or ADC
The thing that makes the digital signal into an analog signal again is a Digital
to Analog Converter or DAC

If your soundcard has a digital in (Labeled Digital, SPDIF, or AES/EBU with an
RCA style jack or Optical) you can usually get a SPDIF digital coaxial cable and
plug from the XL7 directly into the soundcards digital RCA (Also called Coaxial)
jack.  Once you have done this, you have to get them to agree on how to send
information in synch.  You do this by making one a master and the other a slave.
You will probably make the xl7 the master and the computer the slave, you will
have to go into the Global menu on the XL7 and choose output format SPDIF (The
default).  On the computer your soundcards driver will probably have a slave
option.  Your samplerate and bit depth should agree with the XL7's, and you will
probably want to set rate locked if it is an option, so that no other software
will accidentally switch it to a different mode while you are recording.

Once the sound is converted into digital on your computer it has to be routed
somewhere.  On the PC this is into the soundcards mixing software, the little
speaker on your taskbar.  If you have the sound off here you won't hear
anything.  If you double click it you usually see a panel of volume levels, If
you go to options-->advanced options you can then select recording mode.   Make
sure your line in isn't muted.  This makes sure your sound is available to
recording apps if it is coming in on the line in jack on the computer soundcard.
To get better sound make sure things like the microphone in recording mode is
OFF, as well as any other inputs you are not using.

To record something in an application there are a few ways that Windows
computers can work with sound:

Windows Multi Media Drivers - This is the default, and every computer with a
soundcard should be able to work with this.  It is slow and can usually only
record 44.1k, 16bit maximum.

Windows Sound Mapper-  uses one of the drivers from the Direct X or Multi Media
Drivers, with better soundcards could be a faster driver such as WMA.

Direct X drivers - This is usually a maximum of 44.1k 16bit, but is much faster
in terms of latency, usually only two channels may be recorded at the same time.

ASIO drivers - These are Cubase based drivers, MUCH faster and very decent.
Usually only available if your sound card supports ASIO, and only applications
which use ASIO will be able to use these drivers.  These drivers support the
full range of bitrates and frequencies if your soundcard hardware supports them.

WMA drivers - These are Cakewalk based drivers, used mostly by Sonar, but can be
used in other applications.  Like the ASIO drivers you get excellent latency
response and they support MultiChannel mode (For things like surround sound)

In your application you will likely have to set up which one you want to use for
playback and recording.  In CoolEdit you would want to go to the preferences and
make sure that the recording source was one of the drivers I just mentioned.  It
would look something like this:

Windows Sound Mapper
Crystal UA440 (MME)
Crystal UA440 (DS)
Crystal UA440 (Emulated)
Crystal UA440 (MultiChannel)
Crystal UA440 ASIO
Crystal UA440 WMA

These options are usually provided by the drivers of your soundcard, in the
example the soundcard would be the Crystal UA440.  Yours will be different.  Any
of these will work but some will work better than others - the best order is

1) WMA
2) ASIO
3) MultiChannel
4) DS (Direct Sound - the Direct X driver)
5) MME (Multi Media Driver)
6) Emulated <--- Avoid this at all costs.
7) Windows Sound Mapper <--- Just uses the other drivers.  Most likely the MME

Now you should be able to record if your quarter inch XL7 main outputs go to the
1/8th inch line ins on your computer (You can get the cable and adapters at
radio shack)

Most home computer soundcards are awful, they are noisy, won't record above
16bits and the connectors are cheap.  Most midrange soundcards work well (Like
the echo Gina or Darla) but require you to put in a PCI card.  There are two
other ways you can put a sound card on your machine without opening the case:

USB - Universal Serial Bus is a way for devices to communicate with your
computer, most newer computers have two USB ports on the back or even on the
front sometimes.  If your computer doesn't have these then you will have to open
the case anyway.  USB lets you record and playback audio, add printers, scanners
etc.  The connection is thin and rectangular. Mark of the Unicorn www.motu.com,
Protools www.protools.com, and mAudio www.midiman.com make USB soundcards that
work well.

Firewire (1392) - Firewire is a Mac based protocol that is included on many
newer PC computers now.  It was originally included for video work but many
people have created Firewire soundcards that work like a charm.  Mark Of the
Unicorn www.motu.com made one of the first and works well.  This has higher
bandwith for multiple channels of recording and playback.

A really good resource for learning all of this is Sound On Sound, a British
magazine that covers things for beginners to the really advanced techniques and
hardware.  Use the search function on their site if you want to learn more:

www.sospubs.co.uk

Hope this helped.  If it did don't forget to return the favor some day when your
famous and someone asks a question ;)

Andre


-----Original Message-----
From: Cornell [mailto:brothacee@...]
Sent: Wednesday, March 12, 2003 8:23 AM
To: andrel@...
Subject: [xl7] PCI card or USB to record audio and burn to cdr (PC-winXP)


Hello Andre,
I could really use your help.  I am like REALLY, REALLY DUMB when it comes to
the technical side of producing.  I have an MP7 and I am able to make some nice
music with it. That's the good part.  I just cannot figure out how to hook my
MP7 up to the computer to record the audio to then put on cd.  I believe that I
need a more powerful computer with a better soundcard.  In fact, I'm sure of
that.  However, I've downloaded a software called CoolEdit which can be used to
record audio from keyboards(in my case MP7) and turn it into .wav files to then
be downloaded onto a cd.  The audio from the MP7 does not transmit to the
CoolEdit software. Does anything special need to be done to the MP7 before it
can transmit audio?  What is USB? I really want to get this figured out.  Thanks
for any info you can give me.
Brotha Cee