Emax

>>What other hardware are you using, Elk?

I'm using the following hardware:
1) Emax SE (Baldwin model with black keyboard shell.)
2) Emax II (early 1MB model with mono sample input. I replaced the floppy drive and HD with a   
    CF card reader/writer.
3) EIIIx with 8 MB of ram. (I still think the EIIIx sounds better then the EVI XT)
4) EVI XT 128 MB of ram with an internal CF card reader/writer.
5) Powerbook G3 with Alchemy 3.0 for sample dumps and editing of samples.
6) P4 laptop 1.8 Ghz PC with EMXP.
 
I also use an Otari MX5050 with Dolby SR, and a couple of AKAI tube reel to reel
for sound design/processing and mix down.  The price of tape is making it harder to justify this option.
 
 
I still rely on my hardware samplers for live performance as well. 



________________________________
From: ss <ssws1@...>
To: emax@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, July 15, 2009 12:17:41 AM
Subject: Re: [emax] Keeping track of "source material"...





Yes, Elk and I'm trying to understand this...But in every case it is 
different, a different situation.
With Emax, for example, it is the filters, the dithering, the ability 
to loop highly complex material
that would be impossible to do in Peak or other software programs, and 
the soft attacks and decays
I get from the envelope generators and other analog parts of the 
instrument.

It is very interesting talking with some FL Studio users, for example, 
who curse at me and call me
an "old timer" and ignorant because "everything that used to be done 
with hardware can now be
done with plugins and FL Studio". Well, I didn't hang-out with these 
guys for very long I can tell
you, Elk. Trying to discuss this with them was pointless. And a 
friend of mine said simply: "They're
zealots and wont listen to a word anybody says!"

I've worked very hard to replicate "tape-saturation" in my work by 
using any number of tricks and
tools. I'm really big on tape-saturation because I had a system where 
the EIII or Emax was connected
to an 8-Track mixer and then went stereo-out to a Nagra that was 
custom-built. Quite often I'd flip
the chain around and takes recorded on the Nagra would be re-recorded 
back into the EIII and then
re-designed further.

My mixer and Nagra were super quiet! No noise build-up. So I could 
do this.

So my method would be, and still is, multiple 24-track mixes each 
mixed-down to stereo two-track
mixes and then in the end the multiple stereo two-track mixes are all 
loaded and a final mix-down
is done.

This process adds to the need to be able to keep track of source 
material because in the end it can
become very difficult years later to remember what and where that 
source sample came from....

As a rule I'm burning lots of discs and putting notes with them and 
storing them away.

With the Emax I found that I was taking the source recording many 
times and processing it
through multiple effects-boxes before it went into the Emax. Then on 
the way out to the
mixer it went though another chain of boxes before being recorded.

Now things at every stage of the game right from the working with the 
raw and unprocessed
source material everything is going into Melodyne Studio and I'm 
working with it.

Melodyne Studio after all I'm realizing is a sampler! I never thought 
about it that way, but in
general the limitations that I ran into years ago with Emax can now be 
solved with Melodyne
before it goes into Emax! :-) It is wonderful -- incredible! I 
cannot recommend it enough as
a tool for work with Emax because of the limitations of 1 MG of RAM, 
etc.

I have the Emax HD SE so unlike some lucky folks who were able to snag 
an Emax II I am limited
to that 1 MG of RAM which makes one become very creative to get around 
problems I must say! :-)

The Melodyne PlugIn solves a lot of problems from the outset. People 
don't have to shell-out for
the Studio version, although I would strongly recommend it because you 
will use it -- believe me!
Unlimited tracks, "unlimited undos", the ability to produce all of 
those arrangements on the fly and
then just re-arrange things again.

And I can design the sound for that 1 MG RAM limitation from the 
outset! :-) This makes me very
happy!

[Also, I am not a "shill" for Celemony who make the Melodyne 
Software. I just got involved with
them from the start of their company in hopes of solving a serious and 
horrible problem with a
piece of music I had worked on for two, almost three, years and had to 
throw-out. That's how
I discovered the software. It didn't solve my problem, but in 
learning about the software it opened
all of these doors for me creatively that I am still exploring daily 
and discovering new applications
for the software and the tools in it -- more than I have the time and 
life to explore and work with!
It's like the Spectrum Synthesis and Transform Multiplication in SE: 
you sit for hours pursuing
a path while it processes in that 1 MG of RAM! Now with Melodyne 
designing everything on the
front-end for Emax's limitations Emax is far far more powerful for me 
than it was before! I love
creating a beat with the Spectrum engine and then working with the 
loop in ReCycle and exporting-out
and into Melodyne and changing everything around -- all of the 
pitches, layering the melodic
lines of it, and changing the percussive elements of the SE beat! 
It's just fantastic! Also I can
really create rhythmic loops with beats at the loop-points without 
artifacts or distortion when
altering pitch, or length, etc.!]

Hardware is important for many reasons.

You know I was just looking at Dave Smith's Prophet 8 and how I want 
to snag one of those
before they disappear! Those synths are like Porches of the synth 
world! And the combination
with Emax is perfect, really! Just like the Access Virus and Emax 
combination' s results. Perfect!
Great beats, great strings, great loops! [Don't like the TI's, 
though! Like "Polar"...]

What other hardware are you using, Elk?

Now that I cannot get tape any longer the Nagra is gone from the setup 
for good in my world.

On 14 Jul 2009, at 21:30, Elk Latham wrote:

>
> everything I do with software instruments some how end up in 
> hardware sampler as well.

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