Emulator-X...worth the extra dough?

[Ian Dorsch]

I am looking to add a PCI audio interface to my rig...I'm finally sick of my US-428's sketchy latency with Kontakt, Reaktor, etc. I really like the look of the new Emu 1212M and 1812M, and am seriously thinking about plunking down some cash for one or the other. My question to the forum is: does anyone have any experience with the Emulator-X sampler? Is the factory library any good? Is it worth the extra $100 if I already have Kontakt? I have pretty much decided on the interface, I'm just waffling now on whether to spend the extra money on the software.

Thanks in advance for your advice! :)

[NeoDavinci]

Emulator X is great, but I ended up buying Kontakt anyway because I wanted to be able to run GPO with other things and because there are no libraries for Emulator X. There is also this irritating feature that makes you put the CD in every couple of weeks to guarantee isn't pirated, which is awfully strange for a program that needs an EMU sound card to run. :)
There are a lot of sounds included with it that are pretty cool.
So, yes it's easily worth the $100, but I probably wouldn't buy it again.
Mark

[Jake Johnson]

There's a 2-3 page review in Computer Music this month. Could give more detail, but it litst pros and cons. Generally, they like it. The one problem is that no one is sure that emu will release many additional sample sets for it, or that developers will support it, so users will have to rely on the conversion utility, which seems to work fine, according to the review, but requires creating a new file, so large sample sets get doubled on your hard drive.

On the other hand, the review says the sound is excellent.

[marco b]

If you want to enjoy much deeper review, check SOS June magazine.
Very detailed and deep 10-page review!
I think that FM and Computer Music reviews are quite lame, you can get as much as details and info from brochure as from these reviews.
There is some good reviews online like this
http://www.samplecraze.com/audio-tutorials/emu1820m.htm
and about Emulator X sampler
http://www.samplecraze.com/audio-tutorials/emulatorx.htm

[Herman Witkam]

I'm pretty sure this card really sucks. It doesn't have GSIF support (a typical creative thing) and they even threw away their soundfont format. For the price you can get a RME interface which supports all softsamplers. And btw you can't use the FX above 48 Khz sample rate.

[Hardy Heern]

This card was on my final shortlist last month but I didn't purchase it as it doesn't have GS drivers and Creative told me there were no plans for this.

I didn't want to shut this particular (GS) door (just in case it ever comes out!:) )so bought an ESI Waveterminal instead.

Frank

[Jake Johnson]

Computer Music has actually gotten better in the past few months. The reviews aren't as detailed as I'd like, but they don't hesitate to present negative and positive sides to the products. Good for a quick overview.

[Jake Johnson]

Just read the Keyboard review. Also gives it high praise. Neither review says much about the included sounds, though, or the EMU effects.

Anyone able to give us a more in-depth review of the piano? It's on 2 CDs, so it should have enough samples to be good. I learned almost nothing about it from the reviews.

[tothlorant]

I don't understand you. This card has the best A/D interfaces. A hi-quality mic preamp. Gigastudio is an outdated softsampler. And for GS3 you don't need GSIF driver anymore. And there is HALion with perfect GIGA import function. So buying a card just because GSIF driver has now point today.

Buying Emu-X is another question, because there are outstanding samplers on PC nowdays: HALion, MachFive, Kontakt, EXS24

[chickensys]

Emulator X goes head to head with all those other samplers, plus has some great features.

***Has a very extensive modulation matrix that neither EXS nor MachFive have, and is a better matrix than HALion.
***Better interface and easier to use than HALion.
***EXS is awful with programming, Emulator X easily tops it.
***EmuX streams very well.
***EmuX loads the most popular libraries
***Is less expensive than any of those other samplers.
***Has a wonderful librarian built in with search capacities.

Emulator X doesn't have really have keyswitching; that's the only real complaint I think.

Emulator X is highly underrated - it comes with a great sound card, as was mentioned above. It's every bit as good as any other software sampler.

[tothlorant]

Emulator X has minor problems with conversions, but the sampler architecture is quiet amazing. The card worth the money. The sampler does so.

[Joris de Man]

So how is this card's performance in terms of drivers, latency and systemload?
(compared to say, an RME card)

I'm very interested in it; I would mostly use the ADAT connection and not the A/D D/A converter anyway and I'm a huge fan of the EMU samplers (I already have two hardware ones; an E-6400 and an E4k, which is a most wonderful masterkeyboard); the sampling architecture is superb so being able to run it on a PC at high samplerates is a dream come true.

I would get it in a flash except I'm unsure about the performance.
SOS mentions a few things, but I have yet to see real good tests with it.

Anyone who's got the card here like to chime in?

Cheers,

Joe

[torain31]

THE EMULATOR X IS THE BEST BUY FOR THE MONEY YOU GUYS HAVE KNOW IDEA WHAT YOUR TALKING ABOUT. ITS MADE BY CREATIVE ITS THE SAME CONVERTERS MADE FOR THE PROTOOLS HD RIG WHICH COST THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS & GIVES A 120DB NOISE SIGNAL RATIO = PRO RECORDING. CHECK OUT X2 AUTOMATIC SAMPLING OF MIDI DEVICES & BEAT TWISTING.:samurai:

[marce]

and they even threw away their soundfont format.
AFAIK, it can load and deal with SF2 files.

[Trace]

I own an 1820m and Emulator X, though not the V 2 update. The audio card is top notch, although the pres, although transparent and usable are not like a good dedicated amp.

Emulator X is really great. Amazing sounding filters, and solid programming, although, lamentably, no keyswitches.

I do wish developers would take an interest in Emulator X.

[dpasdernick]

I do wish developers would take an interest in Emulator X.

I wonder if this will ever happen. A lot of developers have created or are creating their own players. EWQL, VSL, Spectrasonics. And Kontakt is such a popular software right now. I jumped on the Halion bandwagon when all this stuff first came out. Seems I missed the boat...

I just bought an EMU 1616M PCI which is the successor to the 1820M. I've had a bit of a time getting it behaving properly but it sounds fantastic. Even the built in effects sound really great. It also came bundled with the ProteusX LE which is basically their Proteus X without disk streaming. I also bought the World expansion CD for $49.00. I remember when the hardware equivalent was around $400.00. Times have changed. I'd like to get the Emulator X one day but am not sure whether I should spend the cash. EMU used to be such a player with their libraries. There's so much tough competition out there these days... which is great for us!

Darren

[marce]

for the knowledge guys:

Is Emulator-X "hardware accelerated", loading something in it use less CPU than a regular virtual sampler like kontakt?

[Trace]

Emulator X is not hardware excelerated. However, the effects that come with the package are.

[Trace]

The effects also work as VST plug ins.

[Joris de Man]

Funny, was reading through this post and saw one of my own postings..not realizing it was from 2004!:)
Anyway, I've had the 1820 for 2 years, and though it has served me well, recent issues have made it necessary to give it a back seat. Patchmix is pretty good once you get over the initial high learning curve, and the driver is not too shoddy. But in the last 6 months I've had recurring issues with the dock not being initialized when starting up, requiring a driver reset and another reboot, despite numerous reinstalls of both the drivers and the OS. This has made the card pretty unuseable, as the only time it doesn't seem to do that is if I leave it at the default session and startup settings.
I've now added a fireface 400 which as a lot more stable. In terms of CPU useage I was suprised to find that the emu is pretty darn close to the fireface, though the fireface seems to hold up better at high cpu usage.
I think for the money, the Emu is an amazing product, and I actually like the look of it better than the fireface!:)
One great thing about the emu is the latency settings, which you can switch in 1ms increments.
The emu x2 is good though I've never been a big fan of it's UI. The half windows/half VSTi GUI is sometimes confusing, and loading of multi's and programs sometimes confuses me. Kontakt is simpler in that respect.
However, the cords system and the filters are amazing; there literally is no equal when it comes to Emu's filters and the sounds you can make with them.

[NeoDavinci]

As a sampler, I liked Emulator X a lot better than Kontakt. It was intuitive and very easy to make my sample libraries work—if I was willing to tweak for hours on end since nothing I use (Garritan, Post pianos, etc.) is native to Emulator X.
Eventually, I went back to Kontakt.