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

As a long time Emu user, I wanted to kick in some ideas for future
product features.

1. USB on Samplers ? I love me E4Ultra.  But I am using a creaky old
Mac just to dump samples to it using the SCSI port.  SCSI is great,
but in this day and age, it should be possible to use a USB port on
the sampler to get speedy transfer.  If you do this it would be great
to get a new DWAM card that supported it.

2. Filters ? I held judgement until I heard the filters that were on
the XL-7 (had it for a week now).  I have to say that you guys need to
do a bit more work on these.  While they are passable, they should be
much better.  If you folks just need some FIR data from some good
filters, just let me know. I can probably provide them.  I am still
surprised that no Emu product has been able to provide the filter
selection that my Morpheus has, and that product is coming up on 8
years old!  More specifically, I would like to see a 4 pole lowpass
with a lot more phase mutation going on (similar to the Moog ladder).
The current one is OK, but when you put it up against filters from
Access, Waldorf and Novation they don?t quite hold their own.  It
would also be good to see a 2/4/6 pole state variable (cascade) with
adjustable resonance offset.  The OSCar mono synth did this in the
80?s and the Novation synths do it now.  It would be great to see some
filter based of response of the SSM chips found in the early prophet 5
and the PPG. Again, I think the list can probably get you some impulse
response samples if it would help in developing any of these.

3. Greater compatibility ? There is no way my XL-7 will replace my
Ultra, but I find it a bother that my E4 is in some ways less capable
than my P2K modules.  How about adding the ability for E4u?s to load
P2K data (not just the instruments)?  Total dream would be to have the
sampler power of my E4u in an XL-7 case, with all of the Proteus
features thrown in (oh yeah, put in all the Morph filters while you
are at it).

Sorry for the long list, I think they are awesome products, guess I
just want them to be even better.  Back to the orange box of doom!

Bruce

Hi Bruce,

> 1. USB on Samplers ? I love me E4Ultra.  But I am using a 
creaky old
> Mac just to dump samples to it using the SCSI port.  SCSI is 
great,
> but in this day and age, it should be possible to use a USB port 
on
> the sampler to get speedy transfer.  If you do this it would be 
great
> to get a new DWAM card that supported it.
> 

I have an Ultra and I am now more or less SCSI free in my 
computers.  So I faced a similar problem.  My solution was to 
purchase a USB-to-SCSI converter from Adaptec for around $70.  
This product supports not only SCSI drives and the like, but I 
have also found that it works with the Ultra as well as a Yamaha 
A5000.  Best of all if I need to I can use it with a notebook!  Check 
it out.

> 3. Greater compatibility ? There is no way my XL-7 will replace 
my
> Ultra, but I find it a bother that my E4 is in some ways less 
capable
> than my P2K modules.  How about adding the ability for E4u?s 
to load
> P2K data (not just the instruments)?  Total dream would be to 
have the
> sampler power of my E4u in an XL-7 case, with all of the 
Proteus
> features thrown in (oh yeah, put in all the Morph filters while 
you
> are at it).

I also find it erksome that the high end Ultra is under specified in 
regard to the P2K family, especially now that EOS 4.6 is out.  For 
example, the first 8 MIDI controllers are fixed to CC values less 
than 32.  What's with that?  This makes it impossible to use the 
Ultra as a compatible module with the XL7 without changing the 
XL's assignments, which, BTW, are pretty close to standard with 
other manufacturers.  And the Ultra only offers 12 MIDI control 
sources where as the P2K family goes up to 16.

I also agree with the current lack of support for compatible 
patches.  I have the same instruments available in the Ultra that 
are in the XL7 but it drives me crazy that I have to program each 
and every patch up to gain a compatible sound set so that I can 
have more separate outputs or increased active MIDI channels.

drK