MOTUnation.com

Hi,

I'm looking at Mach 5 apparently it works with, or rather 3rd party commercial sound banks will work with Mach 5.

I have some Emu sound bank DVD's - Pretty much all of them for use with Proteus X2 and or Emulator X3 which will not work with Windows 7.

This would be my primary reason for purchase of Mach 5 so it would need to work flawlessly without any problems.

Forum members here what can you report from real world use? - A demo of the software would be an idea too.

Is it possible to get a Mach 5 demo to test out the EMU soundbanks? - Is Mach 5 iLok protected?

Thanks

Yes, it is iLok protected, and I don't recall any demos. But if there is one, it will be pretty obvious on the MOTU web site. Conversion of 3rd party sounds is pretty good, but not perfect. I've been able to convert Kurzweil patches pretty consistently with M5, as well as some other formats, but there have been a few patches where the conversion did not work.

Assuming you've checked the MOTU site to see that you're particular patch format is supported, you can also drop a question at sales@motu.com

Hi,

According to the MOTU website the update to version 3.02 or whatever is universal without any need for conversion- load anything no conversion -

http://www.motu.com/products/software/m ... ry-support

It looks like it could do the trick and overcome this issue if it does what it says on the tin.

Naturally if MOTU have spent time on developing this aspect of Mach 5 of course it will work to support and substantiate what they write on their pages.

With VSTi's and music tech items there can be at times a lot of frustration when problems occur and don't work as you'd expect

It would be nice to read here that other users have a solutin to this problem. The EMU banks are very popular.

Will Falcon open these? The o/p may want to check out the differences.

Wouldn't hurt to ask UVI that question, but according to Michael in that "other" thread: "The only missing part of M53 is the sampler conversions, Falcon reads MF3 and UVI libraries only, along with SFZ files and the regular audio files"

MIDI Life Crisis wrote:Will Falcon open these? The o/p may want to check out the differences.

Whilst Falcon looks like an amazing VSTi, Mach 5 specifies universal support, almost as if it is a unique selling point -For this to work MOTU would have to have dealt with it specifically in some way in their R&D - But from what I've learned over the years MOTU do listen to their loyal customers

http://www.motu.com/products/software/m ... ry-support

These are the sound banks in question:-Pretty popular, and there must be some folks here who have at least some of these!

http://www.creative.com/emu/products/soundcentral/

How old are these Emu DVDs? What is the sample format?

mikehalloran wrote:How old are these Emu DVDs? What is the sample format?

http://www.creative.com/emu/products/soundcentral/
fraz

They are a few years old or so but EMU products to use with their Proteus X2 and Emulator X3 VSTi's.

I'll find out when I try it if it works or not - Either way though Mach Five is going to be great anyway - I just thought I'd ask here about just in case anyone knew themelves because they've tried it

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Joined: Tue Jul 31, 2012 11:16 am
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It is supposed to work.

http://www.motu.com/products/software/m ... ry-support

Even though E-MU is in my back yard, the only product I own is their PROformance Plus MIDI module. I did ask one of their recently retired engineers and he believes that you should have no problem.

mikehalloran wrote:It is supposed to work.

http://www.motu.com/products/software/m ... ry-support

Even though E-MU is in my back yard, the only product I own is their PROformance Plus MIDI module. I did ask one of their recently retired engineers and he believes that you should have no problem.

Hi Mike, Thanks for taking the time to respond - I'll let you know when I've tried it - If it does work it will be very good - Watch this space

Just so you're aware, there has been no update to MachFive in over a year, recent UVI (it's native sample format) libraries from MOTUs partner company for MachFive, UVI, do not load into MachFive, and UVI have put out a sampler/sample mangler of their own, Falcon, that opens all newer UVI libraries. Unfortunately the only thing missing from MachFive3 in Falcon is it's ability to translate other sample formats. The writing on the wall says IMO that M53 is dead in the water, it's unlikely to be updated anytime soon, and might be on it's last legs. NAMM is however right around the corner, so personally I would advise waiting at least until NAMM before purchasing M53. It's always possible delays are due to other things, but in my experience it's never happened that the partner company who arguably own all the code for a plug in (UVI) release a competing device (Falcon), then continue to support their third party partnership plug in (MachFive 3).

Short of it is, don't buy MachFive 3 before NAMM and thinking about whether or not you're fine with spending money on a product that may never get updated.

Another option, more likely to do a good job of translating your desired EMU sounds is to buy Chicken Systems in the format you want to translate to. If you have Native Instruments Kontakt for instance.
http://www.samplerzone.com/catalog/prod ... ucts_id=55

If you don't have Kontakt then by far the cheapest option would be to purchase the M53 converter and use UVI's free UVI player, which will read the libraries just fine. You won't be able to adjust them much though.

Anyway, I don't want to or have any interest in talking bad about MOTU or UVI really, but it should be mentioned that there's significant information out there that points to MachFive 3 being at the end of it's life. UVI offer a cross-grade from M53 to Falcon which of course doesn't help you at all, but years from now you could I suppose buy Falcon and open all your converted M53 EMU banks.

I would go with Chicken Systems if I were in your boat.

Kontakt can import a number of other sampler formats. EXS24 for example, as well a Akai, Giga, Halion ... It might not be necessary to get a sample conversion app for some format combinations.

Another alternative is the current manifestation of Redmatica Autosampler that is now free with Mainstage. It resamples, so the original sample format is irrelevant. I used Autosampler to move some Proteus 2 and K2000 sounds to MachFive so I could retire the old hardware. It won't work well for sounds from synths with unique algorithms or a lot of complex modulation (unless you are prepared to create huge libraries to cover all the sound variations), but for basic sounds on a keymap, with common controllers, it's usable.

bayswater wrote:Kontakt can import a number of other sampler formats. EXS24 for example, as well a Akai, Giga, Halion ... It might not be necessary to get a sample conversion app for some format combinations.

The OP is talking about EMU which I remember being a particular format that M53 could do but Kontakt could not.

Michael Canavan wrote:

bayswater wrote:Kontakt can import a number of other sampler formats. EXS24 for example, as well a Akai, Giga, Halion ... It might not be necessary to get a sample conversion app for some format combinations.

The OP is talking about EMU which I remember being a particular format that M53 could do but Kontakt could not.

I see. I had some Proteus sounds in Soundfont format which Kontakt did import at least in its earlier versions.