Moving EXS-24 files from PC or Virtual PC to Mac

An EXS-24 Instrument is made up of two or more files; one .exs file, that contains all the information concerning keymapping, tuning, loops, and program parameters, and one or more .wav or AIFF files, which contain the wavedata.

So, to move these files to the Mac, it's generally easy: just write them to a DOS formatted medium (floppy, ZipDisk, hard drive, CD-R, whatever), or transfer them over a network. The Mac reads DOS disks correctly (see below for exception).

However...
The .exs file has to know what sample files to load in, and where they are on the disk. There are two pieces of information stored in the .exs file, the filename (for example, brass.wav), and the path (for example, c:\Logic Audio Platinum 4.8\Samples\).

When Translator creates the .exs files and sample files on your PC, it writes the path and file name information into the .exs file so the .exs knows where the sample files are so it can load them in. However, if you move these files to the Mac, the path information will no longer be valid.

The good news
Both the EXS-24 Windows version and the Mac version are very smart. If the path information in the .exs file is invalid, or the file isn't where it says it is, the EXS-24 starts looking for it. It starts in the Folder where the .exs file is; if it's not there, it searches through the whole drive. If it finds more than one file with the names that are referenced in the .exs file, it'll give you a choice. From there, if there's more referenced files in the .exs that it can't find, it looks in the first indicated directory without asking and loads what it can find.

Application
So... with Translator, if you plan to move files from the PC to the Mac, it's OK to choose whatever method you want to organize your samples, You can choose to put the sample files in the same directory, or you can choose the sample repository method. Either way, when you move the files to the Mac, the EXS-24 program is intelligent enough to find the samples for you.

Remember, the EXS-24, in the "spaceship" pulldown menus, pays attention to .exs files stored in your Sampler Instrument folder, or any aliases or shortcuts to the .exs files placed in that folder/sub-folder.

It doesn't matter to the Mac on the "typing" of the .exs file. If it's an .exs file, with the extension or not, it'll see it.

The bad news
IMPORTANT! Sample File Names MUST be exactly the same in the Mac as on the PC!
This is important; otherwise, the .exs file with never find your sample files. If a sample file is called "Bruce George Fred.wav" on the PC, on the Mac the file name must also be "Bruce George Fred.wav," not "bruce~1.wav." The .exs file wants to see "Bruce George Fred.wav" - only.

The exception here is case-sensitivity. Case does not matter to the EXS-24 PC or Mac.

This is a common problem regarding two issues, mainly revolving around burning CD's. First, when you burn your CD on the PC, you must specify JOLIET format. Only CD's burned in Joliet format can retain "long file names," which means any file that has more than 8 characters before the last period, does not have spaces, and does not have certain other "non-DOS" characters, such as paratheses, etc. If it's not in Joliet format, you'll know it by when you look at the directory of the CD on the PC, you see the long file names truncated to the"bruce~1.wav." type of thing.

You have to be compatible on the other end too. Surprisingly, Mac out of the box DO NOT support Joiliet-formatted CD'ROM's. They'll see them, but it'll see only the short names ("bruce~1.wav"). If your Mac is like this, you'll need to get a third-party extension that supports this. There are free ones; we recommend www.versiontracker.com to find one.

Once that's installed on your Mac, there should be no problem moving your EXS-24 from the PC to your Mac on CD.

Virtual PC
Generally, the same things apply to Virtual PC as well. The easiest way of transferring the files is to use a "shared folder" within Virtual PC (check the VPC manual on how to do this). It shows up as a drive within VPC. Either translate the files into that folder/drive, or move them there after the fact. Then go back to the "Mac side" and you'll see the files; move them out to the Mac hard drive and you should be fine. Shared folders work well with long file names so there is no concern for that issue.