Ezbus Combo Thingy, And the EZ8 PCI card, too Options

[BusError]

Manufacturer

Anyone has any experience with the EZBus on OSX ? Are the drivers stable? How do you like the device?
It looks very nifty on paper, but I'm curious as how it works on OSX.

Anyone know where I could buy it using Paypal, to be delivered in UK?

What about their new EZ8 PCI card? it looks nifty (I imagine you can feed EZbus optical in it, and have 8 channels as well as not overload the USB bus!) Any idea if it's OSX compatible?

[FuzzyLogic]

Yes it does have an OSX driver the problem is most its functionality is geared to Windows and ME or XP at that. Made my Win2000 just reboot.

It did work with my mac but the OSX apps are lacking. I tried with sound studio.

However you are basically just using it as a digital mixer and thru USB. I'm not sure I have it figured out cause it doesn't come with a manual.
and it sounded a little distorted.

If you read the box and said cool, you would be a little disappointed when you got it home. I'm debating taking it back and picking up a 828 Motu.

[BusError]

Well, I just bough one actualy, and I beg to differ; the piece is absolutly amazing.

I've been playing with it for like 4 hours and the possibilities of the device are incredible.
For one thing, it sounds *great* even it's compressors are only audible at near to max.
I can re-route any input to *anywhere* and send any output/send to any/none of the physical outputs. I can monitor the main & alternate mixes with any of the outputs.

The USB sound just "worked" on OSX. I can select either 24 or 16 bits. I launched Reason, and it just worked. I kept the system sound on the system audio, and routed the usb-audio to 2 faders. Just cool; I didn't even read the doc.

Same for the MIDI, it was just recognized; no driver needed. just plug. The device is seen as In+Outx3 (2 are externals, the third is to backup/install mixes to the host)

Amazing. And that for about $600. And then, when they adapt the EZ8 card, I'll be able to forget about the USB audio altogether and route 8 channels via the optical link directly to it.

Amazing, i tell you.

[Levon River]

Oh, man, is that ever music--literally--to my ears.

I've been taking a long squinty-eyed look at the EZBus and asking everywhere I've gone to find somebody who knows what they're doing who has hands-on experience with the machine.

I was just where you were earlier--it looked really good on paper.

I'm trying to find a dealer close who has one in stock.

Thanks very much for the report. Any other info on it as you get to know it would be very welcome.

[BusError]

Well, after mucho playing, recording, fidding etc I'm still in love with the thing. I have terrific fun with it really. I managed to so silly things like play something at 24 bits and record it simultaneaously in 16 bits over USB. Completely useless, but it gives a good idea of the sample rate converter. The result is neat. Nothing audible anyway, and that was on a very busy USB bus!

The 32 mix memory are very handy; what I do is that I for a 'main' mix, I setup a couple variations on the next 2 mix memories. For example, all 3 have the same main mix, but the alternate one mutes some inputs etc just for recording, while the third one has a different output config and/or return setup. It's extremly easy to change mix memory so you literally multiply the possibilities.

Also, I can backup/restore any number of mixes with "SysEx Librarian" it's pretty straigthforward.

I havent played a lot with the control surface part of the device, maybe I'll write another message when I get to play with it.

[BusError]

Oh., that EZ8 card. Event told me that they didn't support OSX, and were wondering if it would be of any use to do so. I proposed them to send me the technical data on the card. if it's not a month-sized-job I'll make a driver for it.
A cheap alternative to the *$(*($#*$(# expensive motu!

Currently the sell the Ezbus + the EZ8 for PC for about $650 with the new promotion they have, that beats *everything* as far as quality/price is concerned.

[Levon River]

Ouch. And after me singing the praises of the EZBus.

I just fired off an e-mail to Event about this no OS X support for their EZ-8 card matter: one more voice alone in the darkness, but what the heck.

I'll have to go and amend a message I *just* wrote about the EZBus device, responding to someone shopping for an audio interface, because I was cheerleading about the EZ-8 card option adding 8 channels of digital I/O to the EZBus's USB capabilities.

Of course I still think the EZBus alone is impressive, even without the digital I/O options being supported in their own card. (It seems, though, since the main EZBus unit has digital I/O built in, that it would likely work with other digital I/O cards that *do* support OS X, no?)

Awfully brave of you to volunteer to write a driver; I hope Event will be responsive, and hope others will write to them and let them know that there IS a Mac market for their digital I/O card.

I too have been staring squinty eyed at the EZBus (when not staring slack-jawed at the digi002). And i'm thrilled to see some positive reviews of it. Beyond the OS X issue, i have one other question: there don't seem to be ASIO drivers for the thingy. True? So how is its performance as a control surface?