i've got a 1820m. the fx are pretty average, and its probably not a good idea to get one just for this. also you cant use fx at 96khz and 192khz sampling rates (although as someone pointed out on another forum, not many hardware fx processors support anything higher than 44.1 anyway). you can integrate the fx with your vst host by sending the audio signal to the effect and then the return comes back in on the same channel the effect is on. it does the job but means you can't automate the parameters, but is good for send effects.Wow, I'd never heard of those EMU cards. What are the onboard DSP effects like? How versatille are they - how easy is it to actually use them in a VST environment?
the real beauty of these cards is the patchmix dsp software that comes with it. you really can route any audio to anywhere, it took me a couple of hours to get my head around it completely but now it is second nature. if you have any other questions you are probably better off asking them here:
http://www.productionforums.com/emu/
another thing that is great with these cards is the support from emu, they are being honest about any problems with the drivers and really listening to users regarding new features and errors. look out for posts by "ICHi" on the above forum.
if you are on about the fx here then, this kinda got out of hand. some people on a forum somwhere requested proper vst interfaces for them, ICHi replied with "We are looking into it". Then all over the net people were saying that proper vst fx / interaces that use the dsp would be in the next updatethey're good, but a bit of a pain to use (although there are rumours they're gonna do a software release to fix that).
