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Emulator II : Sound Designer
Overview
The first software product developed by DigiDesign was a Mac based sample transfer and editing program, called Sound Designer for the Emulator II. This allows visual editing of the EII samples - as well as acting as a remote control front panel. This version of Sound Designer is specifically just for the Emulator II.
This legacy software is essential for any EII owner. It enables you to do without unreliable diskettes, edit samples using a computer, and keep an infinite library of sample banks that take just a few seconds to load. You need an
old Mac, a serial cable and the software.
Sound Designer developed into being a generic sound editing software as Sound Designer II, but only the original software has EII front panel controls, and allows a whole sample bank to be
transfered and saved to Mac disk. It is by far the best software to use with an Emulator II.
 Sound Designer for Emulator II Digidesign initially produced
a dedicated Mac sample editor called Sound Designer for Emulator II. They also produced dedicated versions for a variety of different samplers (Emax, Akai, Ensoniq, Prophet 2000), and also ported
them onto the cheaper Atari platform. Sound Designer supports a range of sample rates, but only monophonic samples. Samples are converted to 16-bits for editing and storage on the Mac.
Important!! Emulator II's with Rev 0 Logic Boards (serial numbers
below approximately 990 (dual drive) and 460 (single drive) require an upgrade that converts the serial interface to RS422 to work with Sound Designer. This is a simple replacement of the old RS232
driver chips with new RS422 chips. E-mu Systems produced this on a small daughterboard which is no longer available. You may be able to get a service centre to do this upgrade for you as the
changes are small - see the RS422 schematic manual.
Both Emulator II EPROM's must be at Version 2.1 or higher, the OS diskettes must be at OS Version 2.2 or higher. OS 2.3 is HIGHLY recommended.
Some Rev 1 Logic Boards may also need correcting (probably serial numbers from approximately 950 to 1100 ), but with a different modification.
Please read the SD for EII Troubleshooting Manual before using the software.
MIDI Setup When Sound Designer is being used MIDI must be
enabled and set to channel 1, and ideally no MIDI cables attached to the EII (or ensure there is no MIDI data present whilst the EII is under Mac control).
 Sound Designer Universal Digidesign sensibly introduced a generic sample editor called "Universal", so that samples could be exchanged between a wide range of different samplers. This
software supports RS422 serial communication as well as MIDI sample dump. The Emulator II and Emax are supported. Sound Designer was also enhanced to support playback and recording of samples using the new Digidesign Nubus sound cards.
Universal will work with the original Sound Accelerator card, but not any of the later AudioMedia cards. Sound Designer Universal supports a range of sample rates, but only monophonic samples.
Samples are converted to 16-bits for editing and storage on the Mac.
Sound Designer II Digidesign continued to improve the
software, and moved into two track, and then multitrack computer based recording market (Sound Tools, then Pro Tools). Sound Designer II was introduced with improved computer editing and
DSP functionality, and with more samplers supported than ever before. However as Sound Designer II was further developed, after version 2.5 sampler support was dropped completely.
SD II supports a range of samples rates, 8 - 24 bits, mono and stereo samples. The Emax (RS422), Emax II (RS422), Emulator II (RS422), Emulator III (SCSI) and SP1200 (Sample Dump over MIDI) are full supported.
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Manuals
* SD for Emulator II
* SD for Emulator II
