{"id":33,"date":"2024-11-08T11:02:14","date_gmt":"2024-11-08T11:02:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/?page_id=33"},"modified":"2026-05-16T16:26:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T16:26:09","slug":"hardware-software","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/sample-page\/hardware-software\/","title":{"rendered":"These old Samplers…"},"content":{"rendered":"

I am old…<\/p>\n

Back in the eighties I was super impressed by the latest sampler technologies, especially the three companies AKAI, Ensoniq and EMU Systems.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately these machines were both expensive and noisy, the internal SCSI disks sound like small jet planes with a whine.<\/p>\n

I never really could afford to buy them, so time passed and samplers went out of fashion…<\/p>\n

Well, not so long ago I found out that some talented people have built SCSI \/ SD solutions that are both cheap and easy to work with, at the same time that samplers have become cheap and now I’m back in the eighties, with a twist.<\/p>\n

I found the BlueSCSI solution here : https:\/\/bluescsi.com<\/a> it’s really easy to setup and works like a charm.<\/p>\n

The next challenge was to get hold on the good old and well designed sound libraries from EMU \/ AKAI \/ ENSONIQ etc.<\/p>\n

I was searching and discovered that all the nice software was made for the old systems from the past, leaving us stuck in the present…<\/p>\n

Thanks to the AI coding software opencode<\/a> I managed to make a windows application that read EMU E6400 CD ROM images.<\/p>\n

You can download the Windows version EMU E6400 CD ROM Reader<\/a> here :
\n\"\"<\/a>
\nThis is a Windows 11 64bit application, it will possibly run on Windows 10\/64 as well.<\/p>\n

After extraction, you can load the banks into the EMU \/ Creative Labs Emulator X3 Application, it works like a charm ( I haven’t tested I that extensively yet ) so far \ud83d\ude42\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And here is the OS X EMU E6400 CD ROM Reader<\/a>, it was built on a Mac mini M2 Pro Silicon so it will probably not not on Intel Macs<\/p>\n

It can extract EMU Sampler banks to a selected folder and you can then load them into Emulator X3 software or put them onto you BlueSCSI or similar.\"\"<\/a>
\nI since went to Claude Code<\/a> and now I have a OS X Application that will mount BlueSCSI .hda images and also \u00a0E-MU .iso images, so banks and presets can be copied, moved and exported, so it’s super easy to work with the E-MU Exx classic samplers<\/p>\n

You can get you copy here, it’s an early stage version so there is probably some bugs :
\nEMU3DiskManager<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Feel free to support my geekery
\n<\/form>\n

I also bought a couple of Gotek Floppy emulators and flashed them with the open source Flash Floppy firmware : https:\/\/github.com\/keirf\/flashfloppy<\/a>
\nthis one requires a bit of geeking around, but it’s not that hard ( as even an old dude as myself can do it…)<\/p>\n

I bought a couple of EMU Systems E6400’s, as I am deeply in love with these machines, great hardware builds, and the software is a breeze to navigate and use, too bad that both EMU and Ensoniq was bought and buried by Creative Labs, not that creative after all…
\n\"\"<\/p>\n

I refitted the E6400’s with a BlueSCSI and a Gotek and in one of the E6400’s and I also replaced the rather noisy 40mm stock fans with a Noctua NF-A4x20 FLX fan
\nso the machine are now almost noiseless, and loading banks and samples is a breeze.<\/p>\n

I also made a 3D model for the BlueScsi V2. so I could fit it into one of the option slots in a EMU E6400 sampler<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The model is here :
\nEMU E6400 Option Slot Combo.<\/a><\/p>\n

Furthermore, I made the model so it also fits into the Floppy mount in the front of The E6400, for this I need to trick the sampler to “believe” that a floppy drive is present, while its not, this save me a fair amount of loading time when the sampler is looking for the floppy drive.<\/p>\n

This trick is simple, cap the following jumpers on the floppy connector :
\n9-10
\n15-16
\n25-26
\n31-32<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\nI have since made a USB mount with this 3d Model holding both a BlueSCSI and a USB nano extension that mounts into the back of the model :
\n\"\"\"\"\"\"\"\"
\nThe model is here :
\nEMU E6400 Option Slot Combo<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Next geeky part is to get the BlueSCSI connection while it’s sitting in the E-MU Sampler.I use the OS X Terminal command
\n‘screen \/dev\/cu.usbmodem1234561 115200 -echo’ after I run this command ‘ls \/dev’ to find the BlueSCSI on the usb line
\nthis particular BlueSCSI is named cu.usbmodem1234561, another will have another name.I don’t turn on the E-MU Sampler, as I don’t want it to try and read the images on the SD card while I manipulate it from my computer.
\nIf I do ( yes, off course I tried that ) the sampler will loose the connection to the image \/ drive and I will have to powercycle it before using it.<\/p><\/form>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I am old… Back in the eighties I was super impressed by the latest sampler technologies, especially the three companies AKAI, Ensoniq and EMU Systems. Unfortunately these machines were both expensive and noisy, the internal SCSI disks sound like small jet planes with a whine. I never really could afford to buy them, so time […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":2,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-33","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":42,"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":231,"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/33\/revisions\/231"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhyno-audio.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}