Creative's E-MU 1820 Goes Home Studio Pro

In Practice, In The Studio, Continued

The driver normally used by Cubase and any other musical software is an ASIO 2, which enables "direct monitoring." The link between Cubase and Patchmix is sometimes a rather strange one but, with a little effort, we were always able to get it to work right. You need to look at the drivers available in the "Setup" and choose - except in very special circumstances - the E-MU ASIO

Last, but certainly not least, the sound quality was quite amazing on the 1820 and ought to be even better on the 1820M. The dynamic seems to be very good - you should install a good speaker system correctly to take full advantage of it.

Some users will be irritated by the impossibility of using the E-MU card for games, and for DVDs, the E-MU 1820 can only play back those with stereo sound. So the only solution for games and DVDs with surround sound is to install a second sound card. We used a USB sound card, but it should be possible to get a Creative Audigy card (such as the Audigy 2 ZS to stay at the same level of quality) and an E-MU card to work side-by-side. This would enable you to get the best out of both of them for your own personal configuration.

Conclusion

Although still not widely known because they are so new, E-MU cards certainly deserve a higher stature. Without even mentioning their association with the EmulatorX sampler, they offer a range of features and surprisingly high quality for the price. However, a few software and driver upgrades would be nice - E-MU has already promised to deliver some of them soon. You can allow yourself to be tempted!