E-MU 1616m, 1212m, 1820m, 0404 Audio Interface - Complete Windows 10 (1903 & Above) Installation Guide

[planetearth]

Oh my, yesterday my old EMU1820m did a loud noise like you would hear a radio turned on and no channel selected. Then i openend the breakout box and saw that all the soldering is completely messed up, like a little river going here and there. Some of you guys have any idea, how to solve this mess?

If something basically exploded inside your 1820m and got it hot enough to melt the solder, you can't fix the 1820m. The only way to "solve" this issue is to replace the interface.

I'm sure that's not what you wanted to hear, but if "all the soldering is completely messed up, like a little river going here and there", then you really can't fix it. And if the solder really did melt, you can be sure some of the components burned up, too.

Steve

Oh no, i did a photo of the opened up device , that soldering is not too bad maybe? see the attached pics....

Due to the glare, it's difficult to make anything out in the photos, but what I can make out in the soldering doesn't appear to be anything out of the ordinary.

Considering you said that the interface "did a loud noise like you would hear a radio turned on and no channel selected", I don't think what's on the soldering joints is the issue. It appears that's been there for some time. You can clean the PCB, but my guess is a capacitor finally died. The ones near the power supply usually fail first. Look for bulging and/or scorch marks on the tops, sides, bottoms, or even underneath.

Steve

[auron]

WhatsApp Image 2021-04-03 at 10.29.23.jpeg

Hey Steve, thanks for your answer ! I did another photo and yes , at least one capacitor is bulge! Looks like i have to buy a soldering station

[planetearth]

Glad you found it so quickly! You should replace all the similar caps as long as you're going through with it. The rest would fail soon, anyway.

Steve

[auron]

Ok Steve, seems like getting the right capacitors and replacing them is sort of an adventure and could fail. What do you think , is it worth the hassle or get a new interface (like focusrite 1818i etc.)?

[planetearth]

Ok Steve, seems like getting the right capacitors and replacing them is sort of an adventure and could fail. What do you think , is it worth the hassle or get a new interface (like focusrite 1818i etc.)?

It's not too difficult to do -- I did it on my own 1820m for less than $10 in capacitors and shipping (plus another $25 for a soldering kit). That said, mine didn't exhibit the same problem yours did right before it failed. With yours, there might be more to the problem than just the capacitors.

The Focusrite 18i8 is a nice interface (and Focusrite's bonus of giving away some decent software every 6-8 weeks is a nice treat!), but do you really need that many inputs and outputs?

Steve

[auron]

No i dont need so much inputs/outputs actually . So an audient or focusrite around 180 bucks should do it. Anyway thanks for your opinion.

[planetearth]

No i dont need so much inputs/outputs actually . So an audient or focusrite around 180 bucks should do it. Anyway thanks for your opinion.

Good luck!

Steve

[sherwoodsound]

Hello all.

First of all thank you for the kind words. I'm glad we're all continuing to use our EMU audio interfaces far beyond their official OS compatibility. Maybe one day Creative will update us with a driver package that just contains the steps we have here, but I doubt it.

I just wanted to offer a few basic practices to keep your systems clean, fresh and working perfectly, especially when Windows 10 updates can ruin our EMU audio interface...

1. Pause Windows Updates for the entire 35 days so you can update manually when not in a critical working period.
2. Clean install Windows 10 (not as an update) via a USB stick at least once a year, or at your own convenience when a new Windows 10 version is released. This will keep your system running smoothly. Remember to backup your files stored on this drive first.
3. Keep all non-OS/program files on a separate drive away from the Windows OS drive (C:). Not only will this improve performance, but it will also help if there is a failure on the OS drive.
4. Backup any non-OS/program drive regularly, preferably after completing a project. If possible, run these drives in a RAID 1 array so if one drive fails you can replace it without losing data.

If this is any help to you at all, please leave a like.

[hitbyatruck]

Hello, all.

I just had one damned forced windows update blow up my EMU1820 install. Even following the procedures, I don't get the EMU DSP device name on the Device Manager and I now can't seem to have a way to uninstall the current drivers.

Could someone, please, let me know the location of the drivers when installed on the system drive, so I can manually delete them and try again? Every time I try to reinstall the driver it just tells me the drivers are already installed and up to date and I don't have the option to remove the drivers from the Programs and Features on the Control Panel.

I get a Multimedia Audio Controller device listed on my Device Manager and I don't believe it should be named like this in order for the drivers to work out.

Thanks in advance.

[Reticular]

Hello, all.

I just had one damned forced windows update blow up my EMU1820 install. Even following the procedures, I don't get the EMU DSP device name on the Device Manager and I now can't seem to have a way to uninstall the current drivers.

Could someone, please, let me know the location of the drivers when installed on the system drive, so I can manually delete them and try again? Every time I try to reinstall the driver it just tells me the drivers are already installed and up to date and I don't have the option to remove the drivers from the Programs and Features on the Control Panel.

I get a Multimedia Audio Controller device listed on my Device Manager and I don't believe it should be named like this in order for the drivers to work out.

Thanks in advance.

I've had some techniques with 1616m.

I used DDU uninstaller in safe mode(Audio- Creative) to clean any drivers, also did a clean uninstall prior to that from the windows(w7 x64).

The deal is, to restart after each installation(driver and Patchmix) and also i got the best result with L6_10 versions of soft and driver.

I hope you have w7, otherwise for w10 there is a bit longer workaround because automatic drivers, using scripts and such.

I dont know have i ever updated anything except Virus software on pc and Whatsapp on mobile. If it works..

Good luck!

[EddySearch]

Thank you! Brilliant advice! Very disappointed that Creative had not posted this fix. I've wasted hours wondering what the 'fault' might be, reinstalling drivers, app, checking leads, hardware, etc Clearly my E-MU1820 must have stopped working following a Windows 10 update - telling me there were not sufficient resource to run the application.
I followed the advice given (uninstalled drivers and app via Control Panel) and now (May 2021) all seems to be working fine with previously saved sessions intact. Working with latest Windows 10 Pro 20H2 OS Build 19042.964.

[Reticular]

Thank you! Brilliant advice! Very disappointed that Creative had not posted this fix. I've wasted hours wondering what the 'fault' might be, reinstalling drivers, app, checking leads, hardware, etc Clearly my E-MU1820 must have stopped working following a Windows 10 update - telling me there were not sufficient resource to run the application.
I followed the advice given (uninstalled drivers and app via Control Panel) and now (May 2021) all seems to be working fine with previously saved sessions intact. Working with latest Windows 10 Pro 20H2 OS Build 19042.964.

Glad to help!

I figured out that DDU with CCleaner(even if it is a bit malware) in combination with Safe Mode can delete a lot of stuff, including registry junk files, best is to make a registry backup prior to that or a restore point. Also, removing the PCI card and deleting/cleaning stuff afterwards can be benefitial too, so there is a "fresh" start when you try to reinstall it back in.

E-mu old series are great, i really dont want an USB interface coz bad latency, so great value for what it can do still today, if you are ready to play with drivers. I think Companies have to move foward and adjust to the circumstances to survive, that is why us having an old gear is not what industry wants, understandable.

Also, other new interaces can have buggy drivers, proplems with sleep-wake and such, in my case 1616m does not have any problems as of right now and i can take latency very low. What is there to complain.

[subharmonic]

Anyone noticed exporting mixdowns being poor recently? I've got this odd thing happening where my exports from Studio One 4 sounded rubbish compared with the audio from within S1 - wondering if it's an issue relating to (yet again) Windows updates...

[temporalsounds]

First of all thank you for the kind words. I'm glad we're all continuing to use our EMU audio interfaces far beyond their official OS compatibility. Maybe one day Creative will update us with a driver package that just contains the steps we have here, but I doubt it.

If this is any help to you at all, please leave a like.

Thank you so much for this thread Martin!

[eq1]

Before I forget, as I read through more of this thread, I came across this post from a little less than a year ago, and have an idea... There's a couple images in the original, including Reaper audio settings, that are relevant:

...My ASIO is working at 44.1k and 48k, but Reaper refuses to connect at anything above, such as 96k....PatchMix will switch to a 96k session but as soon as anything tries to access ASIO at 96k it tells me something is trying to change back to 48k and forces it down. Not essential as I rarely use anything above 48k, but occasionally I might - if anyone has any ideas?

It's possible simonsifi's REAPER project is set to 48k, while he has the 'allow projects to override device sample rate' enabled in the global settings window. Pretty sure that in such a case the project sample rate overrides both the 'global' setting and the sample rate in EMU PatchMix.

I read a couple pages past the original and didn't see the problem solved, though it could have been... Just saving the world, one irrelevant, obscure issue at a time.