Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[WhiteWarlock]

Searching for the Editor & Drivers for the Original SampleCell
Recently rebuilt my ancient 7100 broadcast box with Protols 442 & Radius VideoVision Telecast
have Digidesign Samplecell & AudioAcceleratorII in the orginal digi box
SampleCell is not recognizing with SampleCell Editor v2.0+
says cycle power to search for card
having some issue with TurboSynth 2.0 not playing back
also having some problem with cubase/score/vst freezing on splash screen
could be issue from slapping G3 upgrade card in 7100 before it went into cold storage for ages
upon starting this little "project" realized this old Mac Fucking rules with vintage samplers versus modern options
seems like my little nostalgia adventure is way more than fleeting interest
going through the control panels/extensions shuffle for days
any help is appreciated

BTW
Ancient Hotline Server Veteran
have backups of studio warez archived from way back in the day
been digging through all of them recently playing Herbert West Re-Animator with the 7100

[IIO]

and you forgot to mention youre from australia but i can tell because the missing commas.

seriously, if you havent used this machine for many years, it is best you reinstall the OS, third party drivers, and software because otherwise you simply dont know where you are.

[WhiteWarlock]

spent so much time on that "ancient" Protools 7100 machine
plus the 040 Quadra 950 used for Protools before that
& the SE30 used for sequencing Synths&Samplers before that
didn't take long for remembering
well aware of where eye am with that machine now
rebuilt 3 scsi drives with OS already
pulled apart my old 10k rpm barracuda media raid
also have my working emergency EZ drive OS
not from OZ m8
telegraph style for sake of rapidity
not here for writing thesis PHD paper
well comprehend MLA  "English" comp rules
my real question is:
will the original SampleCell 8mb nubus even operate on 7100 PowerPC/G3?
Dankes furs Antwort(response)

[Syn-Fi]

hi

i have samplecell working in a 840av but cannot get my audio Accelerator card to work...it could be that the 840av is at nubus 90 and the accelerator needs to run  at the earlier speed but i'm sure i have a later revision of Accelerator card.

Have you managed to get them to work on the 7100?

best

[macStuff]

if anyone has any good photos of the nubus card id love to get one
i think the other images online are very lowres + crap
i still want to get a nubus mac someday
i should just get a 7100 or 8100 and be done with it
the FX machines always cost $$$

[WhiteWarlock]

Sample Cell 1 is in 7100 nubus slot...
can take some pictures when get extra time if making the request
no clue if the ram in it is "correct"
have big static bag filled of that style ram for samples and such
yet it's not recognizing most likely because lack anything near the DAE/init
suspect need extensions
have that box running 2.95 with 442 rack/PT3.2 SDII Peak
sound accelerator II nubus card doesn't get seen either by OS
couldn't find any drivers and only found sample cell v2 editor
those nubus digidesign cards were used in IIfx
counting myself fortunate that my old 442 is functional anymore

sample cell 1 pictures:




those are from an old ebay auction....
if want better
can pull the card out for taking picture when have extra time
it's not recognizing anyways

[Astroman]

nice pictures 
there are likely not too many users of this card, so you may at least partly answer your question by one of the Nubus tools that check the bus for devices.
If it shows up there, a driver missing is most likely.
In case it doesn't appear in the list, 2 possibilities apply - not compatible at all or one of the custom chips failed. In those days PALs (programmable array logic) were common elements and often a source of trouble. Big trouble if the company was out of business...

You probably know the power-cycle trick (which guarantees instant wizzard status by customers who called you for support):
shut down the machine and unplug the powercable. Now switch on/off a couple of times.
Wait a moment to increase drama. Replug the cable and boot... 
This frequently cures the most bizarre errors, because it also discharges the capacitors (which may buffer erroneous states) by the dummy on/off procedure.
Fingers crossed...

[macStuff]

awesome! thanks so much warlock!
very professional photos!

[WhiteWarlock]

Eye need the fore mentioned Nubus Tools for inspecting if it is even showing up in card slot!

[WhiteWarlock]

SampleCell Uses 30 pin SIMM1 @ 80nS or faster – 0Mb stock – 8 SIMM sockets – Can be expanded to 8Mb via eight SIMM1 – SIMM chips must be installed in pairs.

[macStuff]

great info whiteWarlock 
thanks for adding that

[rvense]

I accidentally this today:

https://www.ebay.de/itm/AVID-Digidesign-888-Audio-Interface-Protools-diverse-Karten-jh/264251451063?hash=item3d869d26b7:g:T8UAAOSwcGtclfK2

The price seemed good, just hope it all works. I'm mostly interested in the SampleCell to begin with... Have a Quadra 700 I've been wanting to something with. But I just realized I don't know if it'll work alone or it needs the TDM cards too, in which case I don't have enough slots /o\

It's not here yet, will post.

[Astroman]

Afaik the SampleCell will run as a sample editing/playback system without Pro Tools, but it cannot record on it's own.
The bundle would be best used with PT and the NuBus connection card and 888 converter box.
A Nubus expansion chassis is worth considering and will only set you back for something in the 50€ range.

[rvense]

I have the SampleCell working in the Quadra. Had to fiddle around with the memory a bit to get it to work, but it seems to be fine. It came with like 5 PCI ATTO SCSI controllers, a Formac PCI graphics card and a SAS drive of all things. Truly a grab bag.

The Quadra needs a bit of love, though, fans and drives are unacceptably noisy, and I've only got 20MB RAM in it.

The two other cards are "Elvis" and "DSP Farm". I need both for it to be a real ProTools III system, right? I can't just use Elvis for the audio I/O? I've got the TDM cable and terminator.

A chassis is an interesting proposition, but I'm thinking digging up a 7100 would make more sense.

[Astroman]

Not necessarily so... the PM7100 is clocked up to 80 Mhz only and a lot of the old software is 68k code - which may run faster in native mode on the Quadra's than in PPC emulation at that clock rate.
Dunno bus and memory clock speeds though, but I remember a PM6100 was as a true snail back in the days.

[rvense]

I've been playing more with the SampleCell card, maybe I should start a new thread, really, but here are my initial thoughts after a few brief sessions:

As far as samplers go, it's really quite basic. There's a modulation matrix, but not a lot of interesting sources/destinations by the looks of it. It has tempo-synced LFOs which I like. The filter is only low-pass and quite dull sounding. It works for rolling off a bit of top end, but if I want squelchy analogue leads I'll definitely look elsewhere. Pitching things down sounds great on any sampler of course, and this is no exception. I don't know which interpolation algorithm it uses, but I'd say it has maybe a bit of crunch to it, but it's not a "character sampler" IMO.

I like the way you set up multis, load an instrument off disk or make a new one and set the channel. It's very straight-forward and nice to work with. The interface is obviously in many respects miles ahead of a vintage hardware sampler by virtue of the larger screen, and file management is fantastic, since you basically use the Finder to organize. I've not actually used software samplers much, but I have to admit it is a lot easier to keep track of what goes where than on my hardware E-mus and Yamahas.

The absolute killer feature is Turbosynth though, and the integration between the two. TS is offline, but you'd never know it with the SampleCell - if you turn on the auto-update samplecell option in TS, any time you save the output of a Turbosynth project, it's uploaded and ready to play, including updates to existing samples. It takes a second and causes a glitch if you're currently playing, but if you're not on stage or going live to tape it's as good as seamless, even on a 25 MHz Quadra 700 (although maybe with more complex patches the limited CPU will begin to show). TS is obviously an endless source of new digital waves and textures, and extracting envelopes from samples is also a pretty great feature. There's a lot of room for experimentation just with layering and different envelopes in the sampler I think.

I've been running TurboSynth, SC Editor, and Cycling 74 M as a sequencer in 20MB RAM with a little to spare (under 7.6).  M sees the Samplecell directly through OMS, as will any other capable sequencer.

I've had a few glitches occasionally when reloading Samplecell banks after boot up, but no crashes and generally it feels quite dependable and responsive.

[ppuskari]

Looks like I found a new home to join in on!

I have several of the Digidesign nubus rigs and cards and expansion chassis still operational.  I'm in the process of setting back up some of the original Digidesign cards in a machine as well.

I believe I have the original nubus SampleCell card as well as the ProTools audio accellerator and accellerator II cards and the Grey Matter Response Scsi cards for them and the analog and digital interfaces.  Then also have the newer stuff after that.  A lot of my gear will be coming out of the storage unit and back to the house finally.