Emu 1820m: Best Drivers in 2018 for Windows 7 64bit

[Gelic]

In another thread Nana recommends an Emu 1820m driver combo that caused me big trouble!
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=1548961
EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_10_00.exe +
EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA.exe
I beg to differ.

I've been using the 1820m for a decade+. The above worked at first, but began to be attended by intermittent audio failure and needless heartache. That combo pits the latest beta Emu PCDrv driver with an older PCApp PatchMix version regression. The Beta is much newer and needs a newer patchmix version. Nana's combo caused general windows audio freezes and recording in Reaper and Cubase tended to fail quickly. HOWEVER, the latest 1616m Patchmix app is MUCH newer and has been tested far more on Windows 7 architecture. Use it: it WORKS GREAT with the Emu 1820m on Windows 7 64 with the 1820m beta driver. I've posted both installs: PatchMix and Driver here: http://TheGuy.com/Emu

What you want is this combo!
EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe + (Notice the 2-20!)
EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA.exe





On the page, look at the folder comparison of dates for the latest 1820m Patchmix vs the latest 1616m Patchmix. YEARS newer. I've been running the latest 1820m Beta driver (can't find it on Emu anymore) with the latest 1616m PatchMix app. I've hit Cubase, Reaper and all kinds of Firefox/Chrome Video playback and played many videos at once, even while Reaper and Cubase were open. NO PROBLEMS YET.

With Nana's setup I could do none of this very long without crashing, especially as the days progressed on an install. I was constantly reinstalling the PCDriv, which fixed things, for a while. Nana's combo was not sustainable. I spent a year of my life scratching my head at why my new windows install had buggy audio AND video and even firefox was affected, since content relies so heavily on audio these days.

I'll keep the driver zip file up for a while. It contains the combo I recommend, the one that works very well indeed: 1820m Beta Drv + latest 1616m PcApp (meaning PatchMix).

You can find the latest 1820m and 1616m stuff below. But you will NOT find the 1820m Beta Driver anymore. At least I could not find it on Emu's website.
http://www.emu.com/index.php/support...test-downloads
http://support.creative.com/Products...37&prodID=9871

Also, you can extract the driver and app files from Emu using Winrar, into folders. Keeps you from having to run the exe, which extracts first, then installs from a directory created temporarily before deleting the extracted files. Hope this helps someone and saves some pain! I can't live without the sound of this Emu 1820m card. I've tried other nice stuff, but there's a sound quality I find intoxicating from the Emu's preamps and "vintage," circuitry.

By the way, the two infamous "Bad capacitors" did fail on two of my Emu 1820m's. But I bought some Nichicon caps off Ebay, pulled the bad, soldered in the good and Voila! Like new! I posted about that journey here: https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=135850

I hope if we keep the 1820m going, they will do a REISSUE of this gem!

Happy Recording!

[jiff 41]

Thank you very much for posting this!

I use a 1616m & when W10 was free I thought it must be better but I found things went quickly downhill?,,,,, I tried loads of things but realized the best option was to stick to W7 so back I rolled!

I shall try this combo see how it performs on my machine?

Again many thanks,,,,,,,, I love my E-MU

PS; Is there an order they should be installed?

[Bob Headroom]

Originally Posted by jiff 41

PS; Is there an order they should be installed?

Driver first, app second is best.

I do have a few comments and reflections on the OP, but haven't got the time right now... Watch this space...

[Bob Headroom]

Firstly - great work Gelic! But how uncanny! I've been on XP up until a couple of weeks ago. Aside from fear of change, one of the main reasons for staying with XP was some of the horror stories I had read about people trying to get the 1820M to work in that OS. Anyhow, I kind of HAD to change to Win7 a couple of weeks ago, and as such the 1820M in Win7 research started afresh. Two days later and with a whole essay documenting what I found, I finally, finally reached the same conclusion as you (well, nearly; see below).

So very strange that after all of that your post should appear... Parallel universe maybe?

A quick minor correction first. Although I agree that you point to the right app download, you list it in the post as EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_20_00.exe. I don't think that exists. The "L6" part should read "US". So it should read EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe.

It might seem that I'm being pedantic, but the reason the research took me so long is because getting the right info and the right drivers is a quagmire that beggars belief. What a minefield. There were a number of factors for me which contributed to all of the confusion:

- There are different EMU sites/web address locations from where to download drivers; even sometimes the same driver!
- The EMU nomenclature is not clear so you have to look closely at the filenames.
- Drivers from one device work for another where you might not expect they would. (including the PCI Express driver being recommended for PCI Standard cards).
- People in forums are not always clear about what they are recommending.

On top of that, some links that people give in forums seem to take you to a version that is different to the one they are saying they recommend. For example, whilst someone might say they recommend the 2.30 BETA, and even give you the full name of the 2.30 BETA file you should use, the link they give you then takes you to a NON BETA driver. This happens on a few occasions on forums. I think (guess) this is due to the EMU site, and that perhaps they have made some weird changes. So the forum links would have originally taken you to the proposed downloads, but no longer do. I might be wrong, but I cannot think what else would be going on. Head scratching stuff indeed.

To be continued later...

[Gelic]

Originally Posted by Max Dread

Firstly - great work Gelic! But how uncanny! I've been on XP up until a couple of weeks ago. Aside from fear of change, one of the main reasons for staying with XP was some of the horror stories I had read about people trying to get the 1820M to work in that OS. Anyhow, I kind of HAD to change to Win7 a couple of weeks ago, and as such the 1820M in Win7 research started afresh. Two days later and with a whole essay documenting what I found, I finally, finally reached the same conclusion as you (well, nearly; see below).

So very strange that after all of that your post should appear... Parallel universe maybe?

A quick minor correction first. Although I agree that you point to the right app download, you list it in the post as EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_20_00.exe. I don't think that exists. The "L6" part should read "US". So it should read EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe.

It might seem that I'm being pedantic, but the reason the research took me so long is because getting the right info and the right drivers is a quagmire that beggars belief. What a minefield. There were a number of factors for me which contributed to all of the confusion:

- There are different EMU sites/web address locations from where to download drivers; even sometimes the same driver!
- The EMU nomenclature is not clear so you have to look closely at the filenames.
- Drivers from one device work for another where you might not expect they would. (including the PCI Express driver being recommended for PCI Standard cards).
- People in forums are not always clear about what they are recommending.

On top of that, some links that people give in forums seem to take you to a version that is different to the one they are saying they recommend. For example, whilst someone might say they recommend the 2.30 BETA, and even give you the full name of the 2.30 BETA file you should use, the link they give you then takes you to a NON BETA driver. This happens on a few occasions on forums. I think (guess) this is due to the EMU site, and that perhaps they have made some weird changes. So the forum links would have originally taken you to the proposed downloads, but no longer do. I might be wrong, but I cannot think what else would be going on. Head scratching stuff indeed.

To be continued later...

You are RIGHT Max Dread! Although Nana uses the L6 nomenclature, I was in a hurry and neglected to realize the versions I installed were prefaced with "US" instead! I've changed the post to reflect this. On the latest i7 with Windows 7, the LAZY POWER AND SPEED!!! With 16gb of memory, XP seems a bit frowzy :-) Like you, I clung to my XP like Charleston Heston clung to his rifle! But I had to let it go. Now I'm clinging to Windows 7!

As to our endeavoring orbits having just the right timing to be useful... Indeed, I call that force the Author's Pen! It's a quill that puts gashes in planets, fission in stars and sonority in our ears. :-)

I thought someone might want to see a comparison of the files and lo and behold, what do we have here :-)







All of the above are also at http://TheGuy.com/Emu

Norwich seems saturate with HISTORY!

[ivansc]

Well done both of you. Max - glad to see its all working out for you mate.

Made me nostalgic for my "1212m with ADAT pres" days

[Gelic]

Originally Posted by jiff 41

Thank you very much for posting this!

I use a 1616m & when W10 was free I thought it must be better but I found things went quickly downhill?,,,,, I tried loads of things but realized the best option was to stick to W7 so back I rolled!

I shall try this combo see how it performs on my machine?

Again many thanks,,,,,,,, I love my E-MU

PS; Is there an order they should be installed?

You complete me Jiff! :-) The Emu is PACKED with features nearly all others lack! I use the EQ and compressors when just listening to most anything on the internet, and most others do not have this ability. The driver (PcDrv.exe) must be installed first. Only then can the Patchmix (PcAPP.exe) find its way :-) By the way, I'm not sure if this applies to the 1616m, but if yours is one of the later models, then you are sitting pretty! Because the 1616m has the latest of everything since it ran in production after the 1820m was being phased out. On my page (theguy.com/Emu) I give a link to the arguably latest drivers for the 1616m. I say arguably because sometimes they hide the beta stuff or even withdraw it, as in the case of the 1820m, at least from my eyes. You should have ZERO PROBLEMS with your 1616m and Windows 7. I could never go to windows 10 voluntarily because of the telemetrics invasion. ;-) The cosmos seems to hate privacy. HAPPY RECORDING in WALES Jiff :-)

Are there lots of nice modern techy shops in Wales selling the latest and greatest Daw stuff? Wales has always seemed rich in history and aristocracy but on a turned back clock in ways?

[Nana]

Originally Posted by Gelic

In another thread Nana recommends an Emu 1820m driver combo that caused me big trouble!
https://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?p=1548961
EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_10_00.exe +
EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA.exe
I beg to differ.
[...]
What you want is this combo!
EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe + (Notice the 2-20!)
EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA.exe

Hi.

I've run my driver/patchmix combo now for years on Windows 7 x64 Ultimate and it also runs perfectly on Windows 10 x64 Pro for about a year now. Even the recent update to 1803 didn't cause any problems. All under almost constant heavy load in my studio.

The issue it has (and btw. that's more a feature than a bug) is it's lack of samplerate conversion from MS-Soundmapper/DirectSound and the patchmix.
On the Windows side the samplerate needs to match the samplerate of the card. If both are not equal, there will be no sound and windwoes will throw an error, because the driver reports not being available at Win's samplerate. For multimedia use, it works fine to set Windows to 44k1 at 24 bit and the hardware samplerate to 44k1, either by internal or studio clock. Media players and Firefox can handle this with internal samplerate conversion. This includes DirectSound and MMX.

ASIO is natively completely unaffected by this.

With the patchmix 2.20 there are several issues which cause audio quality being degraded remarkably by routing all playback and recording channels through sample rate conversion, worst of all, this is done even at matching rates! Interpolation/resampling adds aliasing artifacts and can add channel phase correlation error.

Now the tradeoff:
Having nice clean professional audio at the cost of changing two sample rate settings: one in patchmix (or the studio clock), one in the Windows audio settings (Plus: any word clock/sample rate mismatches are instantly thrown up)
-- or --
having a comfortable multimedia soundcard with average quality due to constant resampling and interpolation.

And the other thing is stability. 2.20 just licks off under heavy load. Guess why.

So after all:
Both setups have their right to exist. One for studio use, one for a multimedia/gaming/internet computer.


The standard download from creative "EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe" with the filesize of 9,46 MB (9.926.344 Bytes) is not complete, because needed elements from manual are missing. Where did http://theguy.com/emu/ get his files from?

Download EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00.exe here:
http://support.creative.com/download...wnloadId=11912
Download EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_10_00.exe here:
http://support.creative.com/download...wnloadId=10587
Download EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA.exe here:
http://support.creative.com/download...wnloadId=12479

peace? please.

Nana

[Nana]

btw: What is that ongoing troll legend of 1820m's capacitors failing without any reason?

Seriously, the original high quality capacitors should be decades away from death by age.

If the power stabilisation caps blow or leak, this origins from a foul pc power supply constantly screaming or spiking on the power rails!
Or maybe a lightning strike or similar unusual event.
Or maybe constant overheating due to obstruction (rack mount)?

As I dig through the internet, I find always the same people spinning the same prayer wheel again and again.
How many 1820 are out there? How many have failed?

I use my 1820ms with phantom powered mics, MIDI, full connections and up the maximum workload now for many years and they are still as good as new. I just make sure they get enough air convection to stay cool and have high-quality power supplies (good old Enermax, passively cooled) with current supplies matching the systems' requirements.

[ivansc]

+1 to the above. The ONLY reason I moved my 1212m on was bwcause I coudlnt use 2 8 way Adat pres with it.
Tremendous bang for the buck.
Ironically Im now back to one ADAT 8 IO & could have kept the 1212m!

[drumphil]

Originally Posted by Nana

btw: What is that ongoing troll legend of 1820m's capacitors failing without any reason?

Seriously, the original high quality capacitors should be decades away from death by age.

If the power stabilisation caps blow or leak, this origins from a foul pc power supply constantly screaming or spiking on the power rails!
Or maybe a lightning strike or similar unusual event.
Or maybe constant overheating due to obstruction (rack mount)?

As I dig through the internet, I find always the same people spinning the same prayer wheel again and again.
How many 1820 are out there? How many have failed?

I use my 1820ms with phantom powered mics, MIDI, full connections and up the maximum workload now for many years and they are still as good as new. I just make sure they get enough air convection to stay cool and have high-quality power supplies (good old Enermax, passively cooled) with current supplies matching the systems' requirements.

Mine failed. It was the caps. Same thing with my delta 1010.

[Nana]

And now think on. Two different soundcards fail.

How old is the other hardware you use?
Usually soundcards are taken from system to system over many years, because they don't age as fast as CPU, GPU and motherboard do.
And then there's the power supply. They also get many systems to run in, before they get old.
Who knows, if the power supply is really as good as it seems to be. Frying the soundcards over years.

And yeah, there may be other causes frying the capacitors. Lightning, transients, as an example....

Please, don't spin the prayer wheel. E-MU soundcards are not of bad quality.
Go on, buy and fry something else!

[drumphil]

All high quality systems. Good quality PSU's, and no other components failed.

Building DAW systems is part of what I do for a living.

All electrolytic caps wear out eventually. I'm not saying EMU doesn't make good stuff, but the other stuff in the same system didn't die, and it did. The delta card wasn't in the same system. For what it's worth, I have a SBLive card that I got when they first came out, and it refuses to die.

[Bentleyousley]

Originally Posted by Nana

Please, don't spin the prayer wheel. E-MU soundcards are not of bad quality.
Go on, buy and fry something else!

Congratulations on not having a problem with the capacitors! If you ever have this problem, isn't nice to know someone has already sorted it for you? I have two 1820m units ... both have had the capacitor issue. No one is saying the unit is of "bad" quality ... why would we hang onto them so long if they were?

[Gelic]

Originally Posted by Nana

btw: What is that ongoing troll legend of 1820m's capacitors failing without any reason?

Seriously, the original high quality capacitors should be decades away from death by age.

If the power stabilisation caps blow or leak, this origins from a foul pc power supply constantly screaming or spiking on the power rails!
Or maybe a lightning strike or similar unusual event.
Or maybe constant overheating due to obstruction (rack mount)?

As I dig through the internet, I find always the same people spinning the same prayer wheel again and again.
How many 1820 are out there? How many have failed?

I use my 1820ms with phantom powered mics, MIDI, full connections and up the maximum workload now for many years and they are still as good as new. I just make sure they get enough air convection to stay cool and have high-quality power supplies (good old Enermax, passively cooled) with current supplies matching the systems' requirements.

Hi Nana! I REALLY appreciate your knowledge and your posts on the 1820M. Just wanted to say I have two 1820 docks, one is not the M series. And BOTH had the failing capacitors. I used the online guides, heated the 2 suspects on each board up, pulled them out and replaced with the best I could find. Working great again! It's no myth or legend :-) At least not for me, but I've had them for 20 something or close to it years. Take care Nana!

[Gelic]

††† Nana may just be EXACTLY right. I tested quite a bit last night. I published my experimentation in pictures to show exactly how to use the Emu 1820M in 2019 with Windows 10 Pro. http://TheGuy.com/Emu

The article below does not include the newest info on a BRAND NEW CREATIVE DRIVER developed by Creative and Microsoft and able to be merged with your old Emu Drivers!!! This hybrid driver fixes quite a few flaws in the 1820M and others in this series. There is even a script to merge the Creative and Emu Drivers for you! All that's at this link:

http://theguy.com/Emu/articles/KVR-A...soft-2019.html

But to get your 1820M and Reaper to work great on the last old release from Emu read on. I used Reaper and Windows 10 Pro running Intel's i7 6700k, 32gb ram, Asus z170-a, an M.2 Samsung SSD and my 15+ years and running hard Emu 1820M!!! (I did replace the infamous bad capacitors, incidentally, to great success! http://TheGuy.com/Emu/Caps).

Nana helpfully describes two driver combinations and both work for me. She describes the all Beta Emu driver/Patchmix combo as providing reduced sound quality because of resampling though this combo is fine for general PC browsing and youtube.

She says the latest Beta driver used with the slightly older Vista PatchMix resamples less or not at all and should be used for studio work and recording:

Older PatchMix Combo
EmuPMX_PCApp_L6_2_10_00-Vista-64bit.exe
EmuPMX_PCDrv_US_2_30_00_BETA-for-Windows7-64bit.exe



I trust her! But I'd like to know how Nana knows this so intimately? Does she know the developers or compared wav samples perhaps?

But the logic goes: the reason one might prefer the latest Beta/Patchmix is this combo seems to switch sample rates more easily when changing sources while the latest Beta with the slightly older Patchmix seems to experience troubles fluidly switching sample rates as music sources change between 44100 and 48000, et al. The very latest combo that more readily switches between sample rates is this:

Newer PatchMix Combo
EmuPMX_PCApp_US_2_20_00-from-1616m.exe
EmuPMX_PCDrv_2_30-Beta-Win7-64-from-1820m.exe



Frankly, I'm always switching the sample rate when music stops playing and 9/10 times it fixes things!

I tried the Beta with the Older PatchMix Combo last night as Nana suggests and I got great recordings!! from a Mogami Gold MXL mic. I tested on Win10 first - just fine. But on Win 7 ultimate, SUPER PERFECT SMOOTH with not even a hint of sound artifacts.

I think in the past I did not know I needed to SWITCH SAMPLE RATES MANUALLY on both Reaper Project Settings AND in Patchmix! So I got crackling and pops. When I MADE SURE the sample rates matched in both Patchmix and Reaper and left the "request sample rate of 441000" unchecked in Reaper/Preferences/Device, I had no failures at all!!! Win 7 can interpolate between rates but Win 10 just can't seem to do it with the Emu 1820M.

I had so many issues not knowing that on Windows 10 the sample rates do not always auto switch as they used to for me in Windows 7.

==How to Match Sample Rates in ALL THREE PLACES==

In Reaper open Project settings and SET THE SAMPLE RATE to 48 or 44: your choice. BUT YOU MUST MATCH THIS in TWO OTHER PLACES. One is the Options/Preferences/Device section: DO NOT REQUEST 44 hz if you are running 48hz.

As long as your Project settings match the device settings, this is 2/3rds of the solution. The other part is in PATCHMIX. Open it and click the 0 upper right which opens session settings.

Here you MUST CHOOSE 44 OR 48 to match your Reaper or other Daw's Project/Device/request sample rate. Fail in this, beg for problems.

In Reaper Options/Preferences/Device you'll see an ASIO CONFIGURATION button. Hit it and see the ASIO BUFFER LATENCY? Start with the max! For me that was 100ms. This will eliminate problems from not having enough buffer. But after I made sure I was matching the sample rate, I recorded in stereo using an Asio latency buffer setting of only 2ms. But Reapers "Audio Device Information" display (it has to be enabled) in the farmost upper right hand corner never changed from ~6.8/5.7ms ASIO.

But in WINDOWS 7 this display did go down to 2ms!!!!! Just not in Windows 10.

==Lower your bitrates when testing basic functionality==

I also tried lower bitrates in Project settings starting with 112k. Then I went straight to 360k and got a robot voice. Odd. So I slowly brought up the bitrate to 192, 256, then 320k again and this second time worked just perfect. The robot recording anomaly was odd, like it was really struggling to record at all. But that was the only glitch in all this testing once I manually matched sample rates as described.

==One Odd Unsolved Issue==

In older Reaper versions any window movement of Reaper or other windows produced sound spikes in Reaper, but not in the Emu Patchmix window, but I could hear them over the Reaper Monitor, but not on Patchmix. The lateste version of Reaper does not have this bug.

So, the EMU1820M LIVES!! in all its raging glory even in 2019. If I do step up, I'm thinking Antelope Audio's latest Discrete 4 SYNERGY release of 2019. But will it sound better than the visionary, no expense spared, Emu preamps dusted with magic inside?

Love,
Gelic

[organgrinder]

Finally retired and got my recording computer back to running...mostly. Have an EMU 1820m. Used the suggested beta drivers and Patchmix combo in Windows 8.1 prom 64. Works fine. Will get a pre-1903 version of Windows 10 next week.

My question is, under Windows 7 and 8.1, recording resolution goes only to 48k. In XP 64 I could see it all (new midi software etc. forced me to upgrade to a higher version of windows). Has anyone else been able to get 96k under newer windows? Don't know that I will go that high, but I'd like to know. Thank you!