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

I picked up an XL-7 yesterday, so I thought I'd share some impressions
as a newbie. I have some familiarity with E-mu boxes - the Morpheus,
UltraProteus, and the Audity2k (which I actually reviewed for
Recording magazine), and we've bought a pile of Proteus 2k's for a
commercial project here. My project studio is currently built around
Korg (two OasysPCI cards), Nord (two MicroModulars) and Max/MSP for
the control stuff.

This seems to be an early XL-7 - it came with OS 1.01, but I flashed
in 1.31 without problems. I also popped in the World Expedition sound
ROM (Techno ROM on order). There's surprisingly little actual hardware
in there (quite a change from the experience of popping the hood on my
Roland Super-JX) and I guess that Xilinx chip does everything...

I've played around with one or two groove-boxes (including the Korg
Electribes) and found them quite fun and accessible but generally
underpowered and too restrictive in terms of the musical and timbral
constraints imposed, so didn't pay them much attention. From another
angle, I'm trying to fill in holes in my live rig: the OasysPCI cards
do gorgeous physical and analog modelling plus sample playback,
multi-FX, mixdown and digital I/O, and the MicroModulars do tricky
self-evolving hardcore synthesis, and I was looking to use the Audity
2000 for high-polyphony rhythmic texturing. The problem with the
Audity is, of course, the user interface, so when I came across the
XL/MP boxes my interest was piqued. I wasn't really in the market for
a TB-style techno beat-box, but the XL-7 isn't one; it's a complete
Audity-style synth engine with a big front panel, half-decent pattern
sequencer and a decent attempt at a control surface.

Compared to the Audity, it seems to be fairly complete, with some
minor architectural alterations. (On the downside, this means it has
the same shortcomings compared to the Morpheus: no random sample ROM
looping, which I actually liked, and the filters are two-dimensional
only. I don't know how E-mu can refer to the scheme as "Z-plane
filtering" when the Z plane was the one they took out.) There's no
XL-7 equivalent to "deep edit", which is a bit of a shame. The front
panel is very nicely laid out, and does make massive improvements on
the Audity editing interface: page navigation is better, and layer
switching has dedicated controls, although I would have liked
dedicated layer mutes. The manual is so-so, seems a little rushed, and
has some typos which suggest it was a cut-and-paste job from the
Audity/Proteus version.

The note pads are nicely usable and send a pretty full range of note
velocities (and poly aftertouch, which I actually have a use for,
having implemented routing support for it for use with the Buchla
Thunder). I was worried about getting pads as godawful as those on the
LaunchPad, but luckily they aren't. Pad transpose does the right
thing: notes can be held while the transposition range is shifted. I'm
not keen on the touchstrip - it doesn't have relative-origin bend -
but I'm spoiled by the Thunder and the Prophecy.

I've worked through most of the machine with only the occasional flick
through the manual. I've not done much with the pattern sequencer, but
really like the grid editing - not a bad design job given the
display constraints. (I'm comparing it with the R-8 which has a nice
"microscope" visual mode; I don't know yet what the XL-7 equivalent
is, if any.) I'm wary of trying to do much with recording or editing
controllers, and I need to investigate the quantize/groove stuff. No
obvious problems interfacing to external boxes: the only minor buglet
I found was that front panel control changes (i.e. local-on MidiA to
MidiP) mark as preset as dirty, but remote MIDI edits don't (nor do
the latter disengage the latch LED's on the knobs).

Overall, I'm impressed, and can't wait to get back into hardcore
Audity synthesis now I have a decent user interface for it; I'm also
going to take it out on stage next month if I can fit it into the live
rack...

Hope this is of interest to any prospective buyers, and sorry for the
ramble...

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com
  upcoming gig at cybersonica, london, june 5th  -- http://www.cybersonica.org

--- In xl7@y..., Nick Rothwell <nick@c...> wrote:
> There's surprisingly little actual hardware in there
> (quite a change from the experience of popping the hood on my
> Roland Super-JX) and I guess that Xilinx chip does everything...

Oh no... the Xilinx chip actually handles very little.  There are no
fewer than 7 high powered E-mu ASICs in there!  To do all the
processing they're doing, you'd probably need several GHz Pentiums!


> I don't know how E-mu can refer to the scheme as "Z-plane
> filtering" when the Z plane was the one they took out.)

Z-plane, contrary to popular belief, doesn't have to do with the
realtime interpolation.  Rather, it refers to the discrete version of
the S-plane, which is a very funky and complicated math thing which
I'd probably have a hard time explaining, partly because I don't
understand it completely myself!


> Overall, I'm impressed, and can't wait to get back into hardcore
> Audity synthesis now I have a decent user interface for it; I'm also
> going to take it out on stage next month if I can fit it into the
> live rack...

Thanks for the endorsement!

-Aaron

> Oh no... the Xilinx chip actually handles very little.  There are no
> fewer than 7 high powered E-mu ASICs in there!

Oh, OK - I didn't notice them! So I guess the Xilinx is the control
chip? (As you can probably tell, I know zilch about digital
hardware...)

> To do all the
> processing they're doing, you'd probably need several GHz Pentiums!

Hmm; wonder how it stacks up against the OasysPCI (which is somewhat
older hardware, admittedly, and has 5 Motorola DSP's).

> Z-plane, contrary to popular belief, doesn't have to do with the
> realtime interpolation.  Rather, it refers to the discrete version of
> the S-plane, which is a very funky and complicated math thing which
> I'd probably have a hard time explaining, partly because I don't
> understand it completely myself!

I've just had a rummage around and found the manual for my
UltraProteus. Sure enough, my mistake, the three dimensions are
referred to as KeyTrack, Transform2 and Morph; "Z-plane" seems to
refer to the actual technology.

Still wish I had that extra dimension in the XL's filters, though... :-(

> > I'm also
> > going to take it out on stage next month if I can fit it into the
> > live rack...

> Thanks for the endorsement!

My pleasure. (For what it's worth, I gave the Audity a thumbs-up in
Recording as well - I liked the architecture and liked the texture of
the sound.) Anyone who's in London next month should feel free to come
along to the gig (link below). All I have to do now is track down a
set of rack ears for the thing...

-- 

  nick rothwell -- composition, systems, performance -- http://www.cassiel.com
  upcoming gig at cybersonica, london, june 5th  -- http://www.cybersonica.org