EMU 1212m/1616m on Windows 7 - The Thread to End All Other EMU Threads!

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Hi guys,

I've been trawling the interweb for the past week trying to find information about whether my trusty old EMU 1616m (PCI, although PCIe can be bought...) will work if I buy a new powerfuller system and run Windows 7 64bit. As those of you who know about this, there are conflicting results as to whether or not it does. So I'm going to try and start a thread which once and for all answers questions about this problem so that in the future we can all sort this a lot quicker!

I have a few questions and hope that those of you who know any information will be able to add and answer:

1. Has anyone got either an EMU 1616m/1616 or 1212m (PCI or PCIe, please specify) working flawlessly on a Windows 7 64bit machine? If so, please tell us how you installed it and the specs of your machine.
2. Does it work better on Windows 7 32bit compared to 64bit?
3. Do IRQ assignments on the motherboard cause most of the problems (BSODs, pops & crackles) that people are experiencing? Would moving their card to another slot help?
4. Does Windows 7's automatic driver install process seem to interrupt the proper driver installation and then cause issues? Is there a way to turn this off so that we know for sure something strange isn't happening when we are installing drivers?
5. Does Windows 7's sound configuration settings (Sound -> Properties -> Advanced -> Set your sample rate) & system sound cause issues?
6. Do certain motherboards/other hardware cause issues? I heard somewhere that Gigabyte boards weren't working well compared to a MSI equivalent.
7. Do the vista 64bit drivers seem to work for most on Windows 7 or have the beta drivers helped more? Perhaps even using the original 32bit drivers would work for some?
8. Does having Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate help compared to having the standard Home edition (limitations in the OS?)?
9. Any more information to share?


Thanks guys, would really appreciate your help with this, as I'm sure would many others!


Thanks,
Dan
[/list]
Howdy!

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e-mu sent some sample cards to the linux alsa team, who added support
for quite a few e-mu cards. In that interim was the actual
e-mu thread to end all threads. There are so many stellar choices
among current and supported hardware, why not sell off the e-mu,
and get a better card, without the drama? :)
Cheers

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I've got an E-MU 1820m that I'd like to get working under Windows 7 so I'll be following this thread closely. I've been tied to XP for too long.

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I have a 1616m cardbus and have had trouble getting it to work reliably on windows 7 x86 or x64 on multiple machines, including one that it works perfectly on running xp, and one that it works perfectly running vista
It installs, and works ok but will have spurious drop outs, and occasional complete crashes, usually resulting in outputting full volume static. I spent a lot of time trying to get it to work but eventually gave up on it.

It's attached to an old xp laptop running live 7 as a kind of fx processor rack, I run my Elektron kit through it, or hook it up to the adat I/O on my mixer.

I use an RME Babyface as my main interface, which is rock solid stable.

I haven't tried one but I remember that the pcie version was rumoured to work, you can get just the (1010) card to use with the 1616m breakout box.

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http://www.productionforums.com/viewforum.php?f=179

might find some help in the topics...

I'll take a guess, and suggest that windows7 has a permissions scheme going,
and a filesystem structure, that is very different from the one existing when the card was developed, and that may require a specic regimen to fix. Some cards required a driver installed prior to the card being inserted, then power off, insert card, reboot, and continue installation at prompts. And a similar specific order to remove both hard and software, while leaving the system in a state where 'proper' reinstallation could take place.

And this assumes the installers and uninstallers were coded by the same team,
and that they work. Folders may need to be created, renamed, or linked to one
in a new location. And none of that addresses any requirements for going from
32 to 64bits, of which I know nothing.
Good luck!

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Yes I have an Emu 1820m that works stable and perfect in windows 7x64

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trusampler wrote:Yes I have an Emu 1820m that works stable and perfect in windows 7x64
Same here, used via ADAT with an M-Audio 2626.

If its a PCI EMU card, I suspect the main issue is more likely to be the motherboard's support of PCI rather than the version of windows...
my other modular synth is a bugbrand

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brokenfor wrote:1. Has anyone got either an EMU 1616m/1616 or 1212m (PCI or PCIe, please specify) working flawlessly on a Windows 7 64bit machine? If so, please tell us how you installed it and the specs of your machine.
1616m PCI, Win7 64bit and tested the 1010 PCIe card from a 1212m with my 1616m MicroDock.
Result - No performance difference between the 1010 PCI or PCIe card. Both cards works well.
brokenfor wrote:2. Does it work better on Windows 7 32bit compared to 64bit?
I think, it does not matter.
brokenfor wrote:3. Do IRQ assignments on the motherboard cause most of the problems (BSODs, pops & crackles) that people are experiencing? Would moving their card to another slot help?
All pci/pcie audio devices can have problems, if other devices use the same IRQ.
Moving to another slot or deactivating unneeded devices in mainbard bios / windows device manager can help.
brokenfor wrote:4. Does Windows 7's automatic driver install process seem to interrupt the proper driver installation and then cause issues?
Had no install probs.
Install first the driver, reboot! Then the app (PatchMix), DirectX, done.
brokenfor wrote:5. Does Windows 7's sound configuration settings (Sound -> Properties -> Advanced -> Set your sample rate) & system sound cause issues
Not if you use the right driver and app (PatchMix) combination, see below.
Select in Patchmix the sample rate and Win7 will follow.
brokenfor wrote:6. Do certain motherboards/other hardware cause issues? I heard somewhere that Gigabyte boards weren't working well compared to a MSI equivalent.
Use a brand with good bios/driver support and a well known working cpu/chipset combination.
Problems often come from exotic built-in devices or drivers.
It could help, before you buy a motherboard, download the manual and look what IRQ's are shared.
brokenfor wrote:7. Do the vista 64bit drivers seem to work for most on Windows 7 or have the beta drivers helped more? Perhaps even using the original 32bit drivers would work for some?
Use the 2.30 beta driver (EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA.exe)
http://support.creative.com/downloads/d ... adId=11913
AND
2.20 app/PatchMix (EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe)!
http://support.creative.com/downloads/d ... adId=12479

Both together works fine with Win7 (incl. sample rate change!).
The files are from E-MU/Creative's 1616m,1212m,0404 PCIe download section and working with the pci line, of course, not offical supported.

Side note:
The "normal" 2.30 driver can produce BSOD with some processors (Quadcore,I7) and performance issues when IRQ conflicts are present.
With the 2.10 app (PatchMix), you must manually set the sample rate in PatchMix, after a program changed it under Win7.
brokenfor wrote:8. Does having Windows 7 Pro or Ultimate help compared to having the standard Home edition (limitations in the OS?)?
For audio PC's, less is more.
You can always upgrade later if you want.
brokenfor wrote:9. Any more information to share?
DPC Latency Checker is a nice tool to check system audio performance, find configuration issues, isolate bad drivers...
http://www.thesycon.de/eng/latency_check.shtml

My favorite, alternative PatchMix skins:
Light Blue skin
http://www.productionforums.com/viewtop ... =30&t=9066
Image

tXz skin
http://www.productionforums.com/viewtop ... =30&t=3480
Image
It`s not a bug... it`s a feature!

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RexXx thank you very much.:)

Now i will have more courage to finally upgrade to Win7 !
[====[\\\\\\\\]>------,

Ay caramba !

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Win 7 64
i5
PCI
works fine, here.
I did find that a 48khz was more stable than 44.1 because of mobo sound device issues, but it was a while ago, and I've forgotten.
..what goes around comes around..

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I have successfully installed the Emu 1212 PCI (not PCIe) on a new Win7 Professional 64bit system - i.e. the 1010 card and the 0202 daughter card. HOWEVER ... it only worked after I installed the following (from the Creative/Emu Support site):
- EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_10_00
- EmuPMX_PCDrv_L6_2_10_00

I bought the 1212 primarily to get my hands on PatchMix ... which is the only reliable way I have found to provide multiple ASIO channels between applications like Sibelius, Notion and SONAR. [VAC never worked for me; ASIO4ALL provides channels to hardware it sees, not between software apps]

NOTE: It was a puzzler to get the 1212 successfully recognized by Windows Media Player, SoundForge, and the built-in GS WaveTable synth as the Default Audio Device. It turns out that I had PatchMix configured at 44.1K and the system was 48K ... as soon as I changed PatchMix to 48K (with Internal clocking, of course), everything worked like buttah. Indeed, even when I play a 44.1K WAV in SoundForge6 at 48K it's nice and clean with no interpolation artifacts. Of course, make sure you have a WAVE 1/2 strip in PatchMix so the audio apps can write to the WDM driver.

Cheers

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Mutant wrote:Now i will have more courage to finally upgrade to Win7 !
E-MU 1212M PCI, Win7 Beta drivers.
Everything works properly in Win7/64 in REAPER and other music/audio production software, maybe some little glitches in few games, but nothing too serious.
[====[\\\\\\\\]>------,

Ay caramba !

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I've got an 1820m running on Windows 7 64 (overclocked Q6600) and a 1616m (PCIe) running on Windows 8.1 64 (overclocked Haswell i7). No real problems, Windows 8.1 necessitated me putting Patchmix in startup manually, not sure why but it had stopped instantiating.

I tried to replace these cards this year and was disappointed. Far newer and more expensive models from well respected companies sounded similar, offered similar performance, had less features and more bugs. These E-mu cards were probably the most bang for buck I've had out of any recording equipment - I bought the 1820m on launch about a decade ago, it still sounds and performs great! Good luck with your new system!

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The Gigabyte issue's probably due to their bundled OC app. I've seen more than one system with DPC issues and out and out driver crashes with a Gigabyte board where the user had installed the Gigabyte OC app from the driver CD. Once that was uninstalled, no issues.

ew
A spectral heretic...

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I upgraded to Window 7 Ultimate 64-bit a year ago and my 1616M and PatchMix seem to settle in pretty well. If I remember right, I may have had to download the "latest" version of the "Beta" driver (or find a long-ago downloaded one, I forget.) Also try to have the latest version of the PDF manual (which is dated 2009).

The problem I've had is that I also updated some of my sound applications, and apparently they don't like the ASIO interface. (Beware, it would be hard to know less about this stuff than I do.) I've concluded that Audacity 2.x is a non-starter with this setup because it does not support ASIO, which I understand is proprietary to Steinberg. I must have had a much earlier version of Audacity under XP.

And the same may be my problem with getting TotalRecorder to hear the 1616. Both show on the list of options (the only other being System default), but both hear nothing whichever option I choose. (TotalRecorder does work fine in "software" record mode.) I am able to get a PatchMix signal into Pro Tools 11, although having to grasp the fine points of PatchMix AND Pro Tools is a project I wouldn't wish on anyone. And using Pro Tools for everyday utility recording would be absurd. (My vendor was nice enough to talk me through setting up I/O in Pro Tools.)

I have a fresh MBox sitting on the shelf. Haven't used it because yet another USB device seems like an invitation for trouble. But it may be time for me to give up on the 1616 and PatchMix ... however strong their potential, they're ruining mine.

I'll email TotalRecorder support and post if I learn a solution. FWIW, Audacity states that it can work with ASIO **IF** you compile it yourself, for your own use only. (I doubt I have the tools for that.)

Any helpful insights are of course appreciated. I hear a Mac and Twisted Wave would be powerful, but I've got 2 PCs, with tons of software of virtually every kind (home office) -- I might switch audio horses, but for now will need to stay the PC Corral.

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