EXS 24 Logic Sampler Users Group

First off, thanks to all who responded to my initial questions. I know that
it evolved into other discussion regarding Akai format import/conversion.
FWIW, here's the question as well as the responses I received from both
emagic and ilio. While they do not give definitive answers, they are
positive, and show that the problems are being dealt with. I know we all
would like v.1.0 of all software to be 100% perfect, but emagic's track
record speaks well to me.

Here's the original questions re:

>--- In exs-users@egroups.com, Shane Fawkes <sfawkes@d...> wrote:

> Particularly, I was intrigued by the 'groove control' percussion examples in
> the promo that ilio included. From what you hear of the 'retro funk' and/or
> the 'liquid grooves' stuff, they seem to be along the lines of what I'm
> looking for, but I was hoping to find some more examples or at least an
> index of them before I put down any coin for them. I may have missed it, but
> didn't find much additional info at www.ilio.com. Do any of you have any
> comments/experience with these products? Any other suggestions that you
> consider worth me looking at?

To which Phil Buckle replied:

>Ineresting that you should mention Groove Control and RetroFunk because I own
>just about every Spectrasonic disc there is. Eric Persing is so amazing and
>those products are worth every cent. So here's the scoop for you EXS24
>owners........I'm not one yet but I've just spent two days with a friend who
>made the purchase and I can convey to you that.............it don't work!!!
>There are two main problems with the EXS24...this is my contention so please
>tell me I'm wrong. The first and biggest is that the Akai conversion does not
>work properly. 1. About a third of the instruments or programs don't show up
>in the EXS24 Akai conversion window. They do show up in Osmosis and
>Interpreter...these are two Akai conversion prog.........they only convert to
>Sample Cell though. 2 Of the instruments that do show up only some can be
>translated. The others simply won't convert. With the Akai S3000 Danny Jaeger
>violin library disk not even a third of the prog could be translated.
>Converting an entire Partition containing 20 instruments resulted in just 2
>instruments being converted. You can't even individually select the other
>instruments and convert......nothing happens. The other main problem....and
>this only occured with RetroGrooves.......is that of the samples that do
>convert. all have an almighty click at the start of them. So your sequence
>sounds like type writers. Ahhhh!!! you say just shorten the "Start Fixed"
>amount and all will be well............no it won't . You lose the dynamic
>attack of the instrument....because the click will disappear from some
>samples and not others so by the time you've shortened the start time you've
>ruined half the samples. The work around is to individually shorten every
>sample in the editor. With Retro Grooves there are sometimes over 100 samples
>in one prog!! Forget it. As someone with a large investment in Akai and
>SampleCell CD roms I am going to wait untill Emagic get this right before I
>purchase. If you can't translate the vast library available then why make the
>investment? Oh by the way Akai S1000 disks translated ok.........but they
>sound so awful these days.....who could be bothered. So I am really saying
>that the S3000 conversion doesn't work yet. Why advertise that it does? Phil
>Buckle.


The response from Emagic:

<snipe>
> > My questions are:
>> 
>> 1) Has Emagic tested any of these products with the ESX-24, and if so, what
>> was the result? And...
>> 
>> 2) If there is problem/bug within the ESX-24 that prohibits compatibility,
>> is there any idea as to a solution schedule? (I'm assuming as the product
>> evolves updates will be handled (via www.emagic.de) in a manner similar to
>> other Emagic products; correct?)
>> 
>> 
>> Thanks in advance
>> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Shane
>
>Thanks for your message. Unfortunately, we have not been able to duplicate
>this problem in our test station in the US. We have forwarded this report to
>Emagic GmbH for investigation.
>
>
>Emagic Technical Support
>support@...


not really getting an answer, I wrote again:


>> I sent and received the following correspondence earlier to you, and would
>> just like to ask for some clarification; The response I received says you
>> could not duplicate the problem, but does not indicate whether it was
>> actually tested (and did or did not work) or not.
>
>We were not able to duplicate the problem because we do not have a large
>collection of Akai sample CDs in this facility.  The few CDs that we have
>used in our test station have worked just fine.
>
>
>Emagic Technical Support
>support@...


My response from ilio:

>Hi Shane,
>
>Thanks for the e-mail and heads up on the user group.  We will respond to
>the group over the weekend regarding the issues below.  Just wanted to
>let you know ILIO and Spectrasonics have been actively working with
>Emagic to make sure the fixes you mention happen.
>
>They have already fixed the sample clicking problem, and now they are
>sorting out the Missing Programs in the directory issues. BTW, this is a
>typical problem that all Akai convert loading ver.1.00 software usually
>misses. They assume the S-1000 and the 3000 are basically the same.
>However, the S3000 can hold much more data in its directory (which is why
>we use it for Groove Control titles). A fix for this problem should be
>posted quite soon on the Emagic site.
>
>I do highly recommend the EXS24.  If you purchase it now, as with any new
>software, you may have to wait a few weeks for some updates.  We have
>been very pleased with Emagic's timely response to the issues and I feel
>quite strongly it is a great software sampler solution.
>
>Please let me know if you have any other questions.
>
>Best Regards,
>
>Shelly Williams
>ILIO Entertainments
>www.ilio.com
>ilioinfo@...

Anyways, thought the list might like to hear the words that came from the
companies involved.



opps..... just check my mail and found the following exs-users response from
ilio. Damn, I hate it when companies respond so fast ;^)

>Hi everybody,
>
>I just joined the list and wanted to respond to a couple of points about
>Akai conversion that came up last week. Indeed, in the first release of
>EXS, there were a couple of problems that popped up, namely clicks at the
>beginnings of samples and samples apparently missing from loads. Both
>ILIO and Spectrasonics are working as beta sites with Emagic and I must
>say, they have been very quick to respond and solve the problems. The
>current beta fixes both bugs. Hopefully, the updates will be posted very
>soon.
>
>When new software is released that relies so heavily on converting
>libraries from other companies, there are bound to be bumps in the road.
>I just wanted to let everyone know that Emagic is "on it" and the
>immediate future is quite bright for EXS users!
>
>Mark Hiskey
>ILIO
>http://www.ilio.com


Regards,

  Shane


-- 
Shane Fawkes, 
Director of Music, 
Walnut Grove Secondary School,
Langley, B.C. Canada

sfawkes@...




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