Emagic EMI 6|2 m review

At first glance, Emagic's emi 6|2 m appears to answer many musicians' prayers: it's the size of a VHS cassette, connects to your Mac via USB, and functions as both an audio and MIDI interface in Mac OS X.

It's audio only for OS 9 users, but there's still just enough in this box to bless them, too.

The device looks identical to the emi2|6 but has six analogue inputs and two outputs. Included are coaxial digital input and output, headphone socket (with volume control) and two downstream USB sockets. So if you're overwhelmed by USB dongles, the 6|2 m can accommodate them too.

The front panel has switches for analogue or digital operation and clock source. Along the top, LEDs reveal status and show input and output activity. When used at 96KHz, the two LEDs that indicate either 44.1KHz or 48KHz are both lit. Recording and playback bit depth are also indicated.

Due to the limitations of USB, six channel operation at 96KHz isn't possible: it works in stereo only. However, there are various input and output permutations enabling the unit to function as a six-channel input device at 16-bit and 24-bit resolutions at 44.1KHz and 48KHz.

In OS X the emi 6|2 m performs its audio and MIDI tasks under the control of CoreAudio and CoreMIDI respectively. Even at 24-bit/96KHz, the latency is minuscule with Logic Platinum 5.5.

No glitches

However, the same can't be said for the OS 9 version. Here, EASI and ASIO drivers are provided and Sound Manager is supported. In tests with Cubase VST/32 5.1, Logic Platinum 5.5 and Digital Performer 3.1.1, the latency needed to be cranked up to 1,024 samples to achieve glitchless, six-channel audio recording.

Smooth 24/96 operation in OS 9 demanded double the latency, which wasn't available on Logic's EASI driver, so the ASIO driver had to be used instead. Deselecting software monitoring can eliminate latency, and this is worth considering with OS 9. It's also worth noting that USB audio devices are not yet fully supported in Cubase SX.

Incoming signals are routed to the output, which bypasses the delay inherent in the host sequencing application, and allows them to be monitored directly. However, in practice, only input channels one and two are heard this way. Channels three to six were not heard at all using hardware monitoring, although they are heard with software monitoring.

The manual, which goes to great lengths to discuss the pros and cons of hardware and software monitoring, overlooks the two channel-only, hardware monitoring limitations. It's a pity input pairs can't be selected for monitoring from a control panel.

MIDI interfacing on the emi 6|2 m is quite a neat trick. Using two cable adaptors, the digital interfacing becomes the MIDI in and out. The emi 6|2 m pane in OS X's System Preferences switches the unit between digital audio and MIDI functionality. In our tests, this feature worked perfectly, and even allowed Logic to sync to incoming MIDI time code, at the same time as recording tracks on all six inputs from a MiniDisc multi-track. In OS 9, recording the six inputs in our test applications worked fine after latency adjustments.

Boost it up

What the emi 6|2 m lacks is any microphone pre-amplification -all analogue connections need to be at line level. Because of this, the emi 6|2 m requires a mixer to boost microphone levels. Also, when it draws power from USB it's not very reliable on a hub. However, you can remedy this by using an optional power supply, which makes it much more robust all round.