Emax

That would be an interesting approach: monitoring the communication 
between the CDS3 drive and the Emax. 
Mmmm... where can I find a CDS3 drive :-) ?

Indeed: the archive mentions explicitly that CDS3 support was (only) 
added in v3.2, so this probably prooves that the Emax OS has a 
specific set of commands to load banks via RS422 in a faster way than 
via sysex. In fact I can almost not believe that the CDS3 drive used 
the sysex method because that would take too much time to transfer 
full banks.
But maybe Emu added some code to the Emax OS which is similar to the 
EII OS and which supports fast bank transfer when instructed by an 
external device connected to the Emax RS422. To find this out, we 
should indeed have the chance to monitor the RS422 communication...
I also (still) think that the CDS3 drive will be the one that 
instructs the Emax to do something (just like with the EII), and not 
the other way around. Because I have no knowledge at all about a 
function on the Emax to connect to the CDS3 drive. As far as I know 
the only bank load functions on the Emax are behind the "Load 
all"/"Load bank" buttons, and these can only access floppy drives and 
SCSI devices, right ?

///E-Synthesist

--- In emax@yahoogroups.com, tu@... wrote:
>
> According to the Emulator Archive, the same CDS3 CDROM drive was 
initially used with the Emax 
> as with the EII. 
> 
> 
http://www.emulatorarchive.com/Archives/Samplers/EmaxOverview/EmaxCDRO
M/emaxcdrom.htm
> l
> For this to work, the remote control on the CDS3 drive is used to 
initiate and load the bank into the 
> Emax. As you have stated, it is of course possible that this is 
done by the CDROM drive itself, with 
> separate loading of sample data and setup of the preset parameters 
with MIDI sysex commands. 
> But is it possible to load sequences that may be included in the 
bank via MIDI sysex?  
> 
> The later ProCDP CDROM drive provided both RS422 and SCSI 
interfaces and presumably had no 
> remote control. That suggests that the Emux must have been able to 
initiate the loading of the 
> banks from this CDROM drive via RS422. 
> 
> Does anyone on the list own one of these CDROM drives or have 
experience using one? It is 
> possible the protocol used by the Emax to load banks via RS422 is 
similar to or even the same as 
> for the EII. If someone had a working CDROM drive then it would be 
possible to monitor the RS422 
> communications between the sampler and the CDROM drive to determine 
the protocol. 
> 
> I only have access to the Emax OS V3.0 MIDI/RS422 spec. But 
according to the Emulator Archive, 
> CDROM support was actually added in OS V3.2. 
> 
> 
http://www.emulatorarchive.com/Archives/Samplers/EmaxOverview/EmaxOS/e
maxos.html
> 
> So it may be that additional MIDI/RS422 sysex commands are defined 
in in the later software 
> version. Does anyone have the MIDI specifications for the later 
Emax software versions?  
> 
> /Tristan
> 
> Thursday, October 30, 2008, 4:54:21 AM, you wrote:
> 
> >
> For my project I assume that the Emax indeed has no bulk 
load/unload 
> command. But that's not necessarily a problem because it has a 
SYSEX 
> implementation which covers (almost) all parameters available in a 
> bank. So it is possible to use a set of these commands to simulate 
> the load/unload of a full bank. The only question will be whether 
the 
> large amount of SYSEX instructions will be acceptable from an end-
to-
> end response time point of view... That's subject of the 
experiment :-
> )
> 
> It's interesting though to think about how the CDS3 cdrom drive 
> communicated with the Emax. If the Emax behaves like the Emulator 
II, 
> i.e. if the Emax acts as a slave of the device connected to the 
> serial port, then they must have encountered exactly the same 
> problem: either the computer in the cdrom drive could send a bulk 
> load command to the Emax (which means that the Emax OS is equipped 
> with this command), or it had to send individual SYSEX commands.
> But if the Emax OS contains logic which can operate the CDROM drive 
> as a slave device (the opposite), then the Emax may have instructed 
> the CDROM drive in the same way as it did through SCSI.
> 
> As far as I know the CDS3 drives had a computer onboard so that 
they 
> could instruct the Emulator II to execute commands. In fact these 
> drives can be considered to be "very small computers including a 
> cdrom drive" fitted in a handy box with numeric keyboard and 
running 
> a small operating system in order to communicate with the num 
> keyboard, the Emulator and the cdrom drive. 
> Are these the very same drives that also could be used on the 
Emax ? 
> 
> ///E-Synthesist
> 
> --- In emax@yahoogroups.com, John Silveria II <john@> wrote:
> >
> > Yes, the Universe of Sounds collection (I believe that was the 
name 
> more 
> > info on my website) came with a CD-Rom drive that used the RS-422 
> port. 
> > But that's not the same as having the Emax execute a receive/send 
> bulk 
> > dump command via Sysex through the port. Once again I stress this 
> is if 
> > understand all that I've read and been told over the last 20 
years.
> > 
> > tu@ wrote:
> > > Didn't the Emax originally use the RS422 port to load banks 
from 
> a (pre SCSI) CDROM drive? 
> > >
> > > /Tristan
> > >
> > >
> > > Wednesday, October 29, 2008, 11:54:39 AM, you wrote:
> > >
> > > 
> > > I am certainly no expert in this field but I remember a guy an 
E-
> mu 
> > > telling me the Emax and Emax II were missing a key bit of 
Sysex, 
> > > primarily they never assigned a string for sending/receiving 
full 
> banks. 
> > > That is why no software ever implemented that function. If only 
> they 
> > > would release the code for the Emax OS so someone could update 
it.
> > >
> > > esynthesist wrote:
> > > 
> > >> EMXP, I could add some features which are not available in any 
> Mac 
> > >> software. E.g. sending/receiving full banks at once.
> > >>
> > >>
> > >> 
> > >
> > > 
> > 
> > 
> > -- 
> > Yahoo! Messenger: EmaxJS
> > The Silveria Family Website and Emax and Emax II User's Group
> > http://www.silveriafamily.com
> >
>