Anyone still using the ESi 32?

[BongStuff]

...or am I showing my age/era again?  

 BS

[Steve]

I was using mine up to about 3 weeks ago when I damaged the end whilst trying to remove a particularly stubborn  piece of wallpaper just around the firebreast! In the end I had to get a hammer and chisel! 'Course, I wouldnt make this mistake with my Guitar because it's got a proper name....      

(Sorry Bong! This is probably serious stuff here! It's the UpMetal legacy....)

[BongStuff]

Steve - I actually think you don't exist and are a PostBOT that's programmed to follow up everything I post with tangential off-topic nonsense.

Alien Banana Beat Without Woob Woob of Van Club

  BS

ps. auto-follow that, BOT!  

[john]

Hey BS

I've got an ESI 4000 if that's any help...

And I still use it regularly...

Cheers

John

[Steve]

Steve - I actually think you don't exist

My mum said that!

Alien Banana Beat Without Woob Woob of Van Club

Well grumble snaggle me dongle on a quackle wheel...

[Dave]

an old topic - here is my comments. Indeed I do use an ESi32 and why not? But the biggest trick is to get the thing set up so you can upload sounds over scsi from your computer.

This little trick has taken me hours of trial and effort. Also I maxed it out. For me it was a bad purchase, I had a choice make the effort to make something of it, or bin it.

I upgraded the RAM to max for next to no money, bought the lates OS chips for a chap in the states (not much cost), bought a scsi card from the EMU blowout sale, again cost very little. Spent time on eBay and got for little money CDrom drives, Zip drive, Hard Disks, scsi enclosure etc.

Hooked it onto my scanner scsi card in a win95 100MHz PC. After MUCH effort got the whole package to work. So now I collate my wav samples on the PC, when ready upload them to the ESi, save on the hard drive. The system I have is a bit of a hassle but does work well.

My final trick is to burn my own CDroms, everything is in place just need sufficient data (samples) and I'm there.

So now I have a fully working ESi setup and am very pleased with it. I regulary use it for drum loops. No probs but it was a rough ride getting there.

[jrg56]

...or am I showing my age/era again?  

 BS

I just bought one of these on E-Bay it will be my first real sampler, I don't think you can count that little toy Casio thing I bought years ago. Somone actualy posted a MIDI upgrade for the thing in Keyboard magazine I think. I didn't go through with it, I think I still have it in a closet somewhere.

Anyway if your using the ESI32 and have any hints to throw my way I'd appreciate it. The first use I want is to be able to trigger the sound of thunder for use in a song.

JRG

[jrg56]

Wow it showed up today, it appears to be in great shape. Had to work today so I'm to tired to really mess with it. Come tomorow though It came with a SCSI CD drive and 32mb. A lead on sounds it came with a CD from Greytsounds I can only assume it works I'll find out tomorrow. Greytsounds still has a website. The CD I have is "Volume 1 The Best of Everything" THey have an AKAI s1000 version taht should work, mine says it's for the EIII so I'm not sure it will work, from all I've read the AKAI one should work if this one doesn't the sample sound ont the web was pretty good. Not as good as the ones on the Boulder sound page, perhaps it was the song they were playng sounded like turkey in the straw. It was supposed to be rock, and it sounded like several of the rock organs I've heard on a lot of older albums, but the song was the wrong one to showcase theim.

JRG

[jrg56]

an old topic - here is my comments. Indeed I do use an ESi32 and why not? But the biggest trick is to get the thing set up so you can upload sounds over scsi from your computer.

This little trick has taken me hours of trial and effort. Also I maxed it out. For me it was a bad purchase, I had a choice make the effort to make something of it, or bin it.

I upgraded the RAM to max for next to no money, bought the lattest OS chips for a chap in the states (not much cost), bought a scsi card from the EMU blowout sale, again cost very little. Spent time on eBay and got for little money CDrom drives, Zip drive, Hard Disks, scsi enclosure etc.

Hooked it onto my scanner scsi card in a win95 100MHz PC. After MUCH effort got the whole package to work. So now I collate my wav samples on the PC, when ready upload them to the ESi, save on the hard drive. The system I have is a bit of a hassle but does work well.

My final trick is to burn my own CDroms, everything is in place just need sufficient data (samples) and I'm there.

So now I have a fully working ESi setup and am very pleased with it. I regulary use it for drum loops. No probs but it was a rough ride getting there.

Oh wise one, I truly need your help. I got my ESI32 yesterday, it indeed has the SCSI port and came with a SCSI CD rom. The Rom version was upgraded to 3.02 version, not sure if that's the latest. It has 32mb of ROM and I have loaded from the floppy drives so far, 2 of the set of 3 banks work the Orchestral Disk 1 gets a crc error. I need to go out and buy some new power strips to hook up the CD rom as the cord that came with it is extremely short. I know a bit bout SCSI having used it in the distant past. So I understand proper termination and device numbers. I have an old PC with a SCSIi card (running XP) that I used to use with an HP scanner (long gone sadly it beat the pants of some off the newer ones).

Ok so here are the noob questions, (I've never had a sampler before)

First question

You mentioned WAV files are you sampling the wav files from your sound card or does the ESI32 use them directly.

Second question

Are you accessing the ESI32 from your computer as if it's memory were a hard drive to write to, or are you using the import feature from the front panel.

Third question

From the ESI32s perspective what does it see on your computer?

Fourth question

From your computers standpoint how does it view the ESI32 does it show up as another drive in the list or are you accessing it through software of some type?

JRG

[jrg56]

More on the ESI32 Saga,

Wow, so far things are going super well. I went out and bought a SCSI terminator just to be sure I couldn't find docs on the Toshiba TXM3301E1 saw lots of dead links to drivers for it. Anyway hooked the terminator up made sure the device ID wasn't set to 5 the ID of the ESI32 and then got a surprise when I plugged it in, it ejected and it has a CD caddy in it. Wow this thing is old. I put the Greytsounds Best of Everything CD in and spent most of the afternoon in bliss listening to all the great sounds. I still have a ton to learn about this thing but so far other than being a bit out of date I really like it.

I need to hook it up to a computer with SCSI and several hard drives in the SCSI chain. I found a bunch of 2 gig barracuda hard drives that I could put in an old PC case with a SCSI card and have more than enough storage.

Something I haven't figured out: The CD is labeled for the EIIIxp/xs, yet it loads just fine if I use the translate button it says it doesn't find an E-MAX drive. Is that because it's meant to hook directly to an E-max to do the import? Would the same thing happen if I had an AKAI CD in the tray? Something important to know before I buy CDs that are for the AKAI. Is there any chance it would do the same with AKAI CDs as it's doing with this one (working)? AKAI is clearly one of the import modes.

I'm only listening to it through Headphones currently because I need to make room and get more cables to put it into my current setup. It doesn't have much volume which may be easily fixed when its going through the mixer *yes I have the samples set to high volume*. I wonder if the volume knob might have been put back on wrong when they did the OS upgrade. The knob is also very tight an hard to turn.

JRG

[jrg56]

Ok, hooked it into my rig this thing sounds great, I need to figure out how to get more things plugged in. Buy some 4 channel mixers and consolidate some of my stuff? Anys this is about the ESI32 So I found these links on hooking the ESI32 to the computer via the SCSI interface here is the link lots of good info here http://www.tweakheadz.com/scsi_transfer_pc...emu_sampler.htm. I haven't done this yet as I need to get a SCSI HD into the mix and software to transfer the WAV files to the ESI32, this is amazing to me apparently it works so if this is true there are tons of wav files out there that could be used in many interesting (ok only to me) ways. One thing to watch out for is if the newer software that does the Wav editing supports the SCSI transfer. So maybe I will have to dig up some vintage software to go with this vintage sampler, but so far color me impressed with it. I always wanted to be able to play distorted guitar on my keyboard now I can the GreytSounds CD that came with the unit has a bank called metal guitar (not sure that's the exact name) but anyway it sounds great. I also have dibs on an audio input for my computer so maybe (extremely maybe) I'll put something on here for review and let you guys rip me to shreds . As stated earlier I only make music (if it can be called that) for my own enjoyment anyway. Don't want to get of topic, I need to find a thread on the nature of music.

JRG

[jrg56]

The Saga continues, got a SCSI HD for the ESI32 unfortunately it arrived with the wrong cable. So I'm waiting for the right cable to arrive with a new SCSI card So hopefully I'll be able to accomplish my project (hooking the ESI32 to my computer to transfer wavs from Sound Forge) in one fell swoop. Downloaded a program called E-Win that claims to be able to put files on floppy in EOS formatt. I'll get some floppies today and try that as I wait for the mail. It also allows for transfer of banks from the ESI32 or maybe even SCSI HD to image files that can be burnt to a CD I hope so that would be GREAT.

JRG

[jrg56]

Well, E-Win trying to write to floppy was a no go, not sure why. I took the DISK to the ESI32 and formatted it in the EOS formatt E-Win sees it but when it tries to write the imported wav it fails. No idea why. Ah well, SCSI cable still hasn't arrived.

JRG

[jrg56]

So here we are, I have a Computer with XP and a Adaptec 2940UW SCSI controller (ID7) a Toshiba CD Rom TM3301E1 (ID3) a 9Gig SCSI HP Hard Drive (ID1) and an ESI32 32meg (ID5) hooked up in that order. Strange things happen. When I first hooked it all up the Computer saw the CD the HD and the ESI32 but Sound Forge 6 could not write WAV files to the ESI32. ESI-WIN saw all the equipment. I formatted the HD from the ESI32 and it works fine the CD works fine. However now the computer does not see the HD though it does see the CD. ESI-WIN sees the CD and the Sampler not the HD. The HD works I can send WAV files from the computer to the ESI32 for about 3-5 times then I get time out errors. I have to shut the ESI32 down reconfigure it in SoundForge 6 and save the configuration. This works but it gets annoying because I have to repeat the process so often. The Apaptec SCSI card is self terminated internally and on the external chain. When it works it works GREAT but for only a few transfers. Taking it down to just the computer and the ESI32 does not fix the problem. Plus I need the HD hooked up so I can save banks to it that I am loading into the ESI32 (waiting to get all these other bugs fixed before I try that). Anyway I don't think it's a termination issue but am not sure I have no documentation on the Toshiba CD and can't seem to find anything online but broken links. The HD probably isn't the problem as it persists even when it's not in the chain plus other than the computer not seeing it, it works fine.

JRG