need info on E-MU ESI 2000 [ASAP]

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dj_andy

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I know someone who sells it to me for $350, expanded to 128mb. Does it worth it?

I basically have no experience with samplers...
To be honest I don't even know what they are used for... Do they have sounds? And if not, from where should I record sounds to them..? What's their main purpose..?

comparing hardware with fruityloops, what is the sampler there? I know the option "add one>sampler" that enables to open a pre-recorded sound and then edit it, is that what a hardware sampler does? And then does it have this 4/4 steps to arrange when sounds are heard?

I have a CS2x, and just ordered AN100 (this is an expander) and I am gonna just start producing with hardware, the question is, do I need this ESI 2000?

please give me some valuable answers
 
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after looking at the net, I see that samplers don't have their own sounds, but "lend" from sound CDs... I saw these CDs go for around $70... that's a lot :/
what exactly do they have? .wav ?
and how are these transfered into the sampler?
or do I have to leave my computer ON when I use the sampler?
still confused...
can I load other .wav ?
such as vocals etc?
 
The ESI-2000 is essentially an ESI-4000 with a few differences but they both have the same OS, same specs, etc. Basically they differ only in the color scheme. I would advise against a ESI-2000 for several reasons. One, it only comes with 2 sets of outputs from the factory. If you purchase the additional turbo card for like around 400 you get 2 extra sets of output for a total of 4 stereo outs. You also get 19 filters and a very mediocre FX card included in it. Reason #2, it uses the ancient centronic 50 pin SCSI connectors for everything. So you will need to hunt down old SCSI hard drives and CD-ROMS so you can load sample CD's or store samples on banks. I mean you really do not want to be loading samples from floppies all the time. Additionally the Undo function for the on-board sample manipulation features REQUIRES a SCSI hard drive. My advice is to save your money and save up for a second hand E6400. This E6400 can be upgraded to near EIV status with 16 outs and the filters are far superior to those on the ESI. Additionally, E6400 can be fitted for internal IDE hard drives. The optional RFX card for the EOS series is magnitudes better than the turbo card for the ESI. Now don't get me wrong, the ESI-2000 is a fine beginners sampler, its easy as hell to use, sounds great and the few filters it does have are very good. It just doesnt have the potential for upgrade like a stripped down e6400. I own both, and I still use both but I quickly outgrew my ESI-2000 after about a year. Hope that helps
 
One more thing Andy, samplers can support various formats. In the case of th ESI-2000 it suuports ESI, EIV, and AKAI s1000 (NOT S3000 or S5000!) sample formats. ESI-2000 does not recognize .wav format you have to dump the .wav file to the sampler memory. Wavelab, Soundforge and Recycle can dump samples to the ESI-2000 via MIDI (this is kinda slow though) There are programs like Chickensys Translator which convert .wav to ESI format samples which you can burn to CD and load that way. To get the most out of your sampler you will have to use a sequencer like Cubase or Logic Audio, Sonar etc.. or use a hardware sequencer to send MIDI data to the sampler. AkAI MPC series has a built in sequencer but ESI series do not. Sample CD's are a little more complex than just a collection of samples. It containts bank and preset information, and multiple samples for each note and velocity range of a particular preset. A sampler is really an instrument capable of sounding like any popular workstation out there today (like triton, Karma)At their core any PCM sample based keyboard (like Roland XV & XJ series, K2500, Tritons etc..) are really just samplers with the samples on a ROM chip). You didnt say what kind of music you were making, but if its hip-hop, techno, drum and bass, you will be better off getting the best sampler you can possibly afford.
 
first of all thanks for the help and your time!
The music I am into is Progressive House, and Trance.

Some things are cleared now, but I still have some questions...

First I am confused about the SCSI connections.
You said "I mean you really do not want to be loading samples from floppies all the time" what does this mean? That I must have the Sound CD in my driver all the time? Can't I just copy/paste the whole CD to my hard disc? What if I want to use sounds from 2 CDs?
So sounds remain at the PC, the sampler doesn't store them inside it... right? And how does a SCSI cable look?

Second, about the quality... Let's say I have a perfect quality wav of vocals, when I convert it to the format sampler uses, will I have any loss of quality?

Third, will ESI be able to use sounds of my AN100 without having to record them first to pc, convert them and burn them to CDs?

Fourth, What are these sets of stereo outs? Why is it so important to have lots of them?

Finally, will I need a special driver? Or my default PC-CD Driver will do the job?
 
If you dont have a SCSI hard drive attached to the sampler in its SCSI chain when you turn the sampler off you lose of the samples in the samplers RAM. Which means you have to load them all over again via the floppy drive unit on the sampler or through an attached SCSI CD-ROM unit. The SCSI hard drive and CD-ROM you use can be inside your PC's case but they can be external units, self-powered units and attached only to the ESI-2000. Due to the limitiations of older SCSI equipement there is a limit on how much cabling cn be in a SCSI chain. So many people (myself included) use an external SCSI CD-ROm unit and an external hard drive attached only to the ESI. Another thing, Storing your samples on the Hard Drive requires an E-Mu formatted harddrive which only E-Mu sampler can read and your typical PC OS will not. You can straight sample the AN100 through the inputs of the ESI and it can sample in real-time (with 128 Megs of RAM it can sample several minutes of stereo samples ). E-mu samplers are well known for "coloring" the sound of your samples. Many people (myself included) view this as a plus but if you truly want what the sample to sound exactly identical to the original Id probably recommend an AKAI.
It is not a loss of quality mind you just a subtle change in the tonal character of the sound. The reason we want as many stereo out as possible is for two reasons. One, separate stereo out allow you to bus FX onto those outputs. Secondly, if your pour 16 channels of samples playing back through one set of outs it will sound like crap.
 
i c...
and how much does an external hard drive cost?
where can I find one online?

do all samplers need hard drives? (or it is just this one)

I have a hard drive 6gb which I don't use...
So what if I give it power with my pc, but connect it to the sampler? Will this be OK?

and final question... how many midi channels does this sampler has?
 
my $0.04:

i'm a very happy user of the Esi-2000. it's a lovely sampler, and those 19 filter types (as standard with the 2000, but not on the 4000) are beautiful. as for sample cds, i don't use 'em at all. who needs more 'preset' sounds when you can sample any sound in the world? you'll be fine without any sample cds for a very long time. the internet is chock full of quality samples (and crap ones) - i have about 1.6GB of stuff sitting on me hd from the 'net. and it's amazing what this puppy can do with only a few samples.

as to the hard drive: all samplers need a drive of some sort as they store samples in RAM when in use. this data is lost when it's switched off, so it needs to saved, whether to floppy, ZIP or hard drive. (actually a very few samplers use Smartmedia memory and don't need drives, but these don't have the capabilites of te Emu).

i got a HD for my sampler off Ebay for £30 (about $40?). i needed a box to put it in, but these can be bought for about £5 from ebay. samplers use SCSI, not IDE which most PC drives use. this means you can't use your PC drives with it.
 
i have a ESI2000 also. i think its an OK sampler.prest easy too use compared to the others.i have a question though about Recycle! and the ESI. i tried to dump a sample from recycle to the esi but when i go look to attach it in preffences i dont see the ESI or any e-mu samplers. i also clicked the search button and that didnt come up with anything.i would love to use this program with my ESI . i didnt know we could do this. if i can get it to work i will be soo happy. so please help us out.


vartan:monkey:
 
ok:
1. check all the SCSI cables going from computer to sampler are connected.
2. i'd try making sure the sampler is switched on when you start windows. (versions b4 2000 need to detect it at startup).
 
The ESI2000 is not directly supported by Recycle but you can try ESI-4000 via SCSI (since they are practically the same sampler and have the same OS). Try adding the ESI-4000 and see if that works. As last resort setup a SDS sampler in recycle which will allow you to dump samples to the ESI over the MIDI cable..since MIDI has a 1bit buswidth large samples will take a while (i.e. forever) Also, Wavelab and Sound Forge Support MIDI dumping of samples to the sampler. You might consider Chickensys Translator 2.5 which can make Emu and AKAI format disk images with your own samples on your PC which you can then burn and load that way.
 
Thanks for all your info...
This is what I got by far, please correct me.

1) I buy the sampler
2) I buy an external SCSI hard disk (how many gbs would you recommend?)
3) I connect the hard disc to the sampler

the hard disc is empty, right?
so how do I fill it with samples?
do I also need an external CD-ROM SCSI driver only for the sampler?
how do I format the HD so the sampler can understand the format?
is there a possibilty that I have this :
PC (win 98) <--> SCSI HD --> Sampler --> Mixer
so I can load and edit samples to the external HD, and then load them into the ESI...
 
you've got it, Dj Andy.

yes, the hard disk will be empty. but the internet is rife with quality samples. to save them to disk you'll either have to sample into the sampler's audio inputs (the hard way) or just dump them via SCSI to the sampler, then save onto the hard drive. you'll need to get a SCSI card for your PC if you don't already have one. this'll allow you to pull a sample out of the Emu, edit it in Sound Forge, and dump it back into the Emu.

Adaptec SCSI cards are recommended by most people. i'm using a Tekram DC-315U and it also works perfectly.

CDROM: you'll need a SCSI cdrom for your emu if you wanna load Emu format sample CDs. don't worry, old SCSI cdroms are going for about £5 on Ebay. i don't use sample CDs at all, because of the sheer quantity of samples to be found on the internet.

Formatting: there is an option on the Emu to format the drive to Emu format. it's easy.

"so i can load and edit samples to the external HD"
samples are placed first onto the sampler, then saved onto the disk (normally).

if you have any problems with your Esi (assuming you buy it) don't hesitate to PM me or post it in the sampler forum. i'm happy to help. plus i could probably hook you up with some Emu-formatted banks of samples to get you started (no promises!)

HDD size: the Emu'll only accept drives up to 9GB. make sure you get one that's on the compatibility list on the Emu website.
 
I would like to be able to read/write the floppy disc made by the ESI 2000 on my PC running windows 98. Is there any software for the PC that will allow me to do this without having the computer connected to the ESI2000?
 
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