Subject: Re: [linux-audio-dev] Reverse-engineering files
From: David Olofson (david_AT_gardena.net)
Date: Fri Dec 01 2000 - 04:25:10 EET
On Friday 01 December 2000 01:55, Jay Ts wrote:
> Paul W wrote:
> > Me too. I'm surprised at the current state of samplers on the
> > market. AFAIK *every* sampler currently sold takes only SIMM
> > memory, which is hard to find except used, and it's overpriced.
>
> Yep. E-mu's products need to use expensive memory for the sound
> ROMs, which needs to be custom-manufactured for them.
Not surprizing. Those machines need pretty high memory bandwidth (64
and 128 voices), and considering that normal SIMMs are 60 ns, while
standard Flash chips are around 200 ns, they can't be using standard
components...
> But what I
> think strange is that their new line of Proteus family synth
> modules do not also include some standard RAM SIMM/DIMM slots, plus
> a quick (USB/ethernet) interface to the computer for downloading
> additional sounds.
That would have been way to usable to be healthy to their sampler
sales! I hardly think that even the E series UI would appear very
friendly compared to SoundForge or similar + something like you
describe. There is a reason why many users actually *prefer* decent
wavetable sound cards to external samplers, and this would be like
the ultimate hybrid solution...
Small, external box, rock solid MIDI, awesome audio quality, loads of
DSP power, fast and easy sample editing with VST and DirectX plugin
support etc, all for the same price as a sampler, decent PC w/ OK
sound card for editing *included*. :-D
No, that would have to be some other company, that doesn't have
dedicated samplers in their product range! :-) The E-mu synths are
just to powerful and to cheap to be allowed to use RAM, for wealth
generation reasons...
> > Likewise I'm amazed how many samplers come with floppy drives
> > considering that internal Zip drives now retail for what, $100 or
> > less?
>
> That, I can sort of understand, because synths are different than
> PC computers. Synths have longer livespans and the 3 1/2" floppy
> is a long-lived and ubiquitous standard format. But of course they
> are also the kind of technology that you'd just wish would die, but
> it doesn't! :)
Kill, kill KIIIIILLL!!!! >:-D
Why not use those 120 MB drives, that can use normal floppies as
well? Oh well, ZIP is the de-facto standard in the class... It's not
about quality or performance; only marketting. (I can't remember ever
seeing anything like an add for something LS-120 related. While
iomega have full color, full-pagers everywhere, all the time.)
> > Some samplers are starting to use flash cards instead, which
> > gives you more storage but less portability (at least right now).
>
> Someone wondered on one of the E-mu mailing lists why E-mu didn't
> use smart memory or flash cards that are becoming common, and an
> E-mu employee responded that the memory isn't even nearly fast
> enough.
Right (see above; do the maths if you like); the data would have to
be copied to internal RAM before use, and RAM is not free...
//David
.- M u C o S -------------------------. .- David Olofson --------.
| A Free/Open Source | | Audio Hacker |
| Plugin and Integration Standard | | Linux Advocate |
| for | | Open Source Advocate |
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`-----> http://www.linuxdj.com/mucos -' `---> david_AT_linuxdj.com -'
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