ok it’s really intelligent by myself to ask this after ordering the package 
… but simply i hope everything (ASIO and EmulatorX as VST) working fine with Renoise …
nevertheless - any experience?!?!
It seems like nobody here has this card yet… But please, do not hesitate to post more info when you get yours 
I’m currious…
twilek … i will do it … i’ve informed me in the net … but i found only 2 reports about … if the emulatorX and 1212m works with renoise like with cubase … i’m more than happy!!!
IT WORKS!!! AND THE CARD IS GREAT!! 32 hardware asio-channels in Renoise … unbelivable routing possibilities … if you missing a mixer in Renoise … the patchmix dsp can do it … also the hardware-dsp fx are ok …
the emulatorX softsampler works as well (also in Renoise as VSTi)… a little bit cpu-intensive but the controller possibilities are great and the inlcuded 2 gigs sounds are good - great strings!
about the soundquality … really no noise and really clear … FOR A PRICE OF 199$ (or $299 with EmulatorX) E-MU 1212m beats all pro cards in this and higher price-sections … and the routing possibilities are a real dream!
ok i will test it more… i only checked some basic stuff: working with Renoise a little bit and so on and i realized that i must read the f***ing manual (so much possibilities)
P4 2.4 Ghz (overclocked via FSB mod to 2.8ghz) …
where did you buy this soundcard?
and… hmm… which is the real use for multiple outputs?
Obviously you can route a track to another device. Like a hardware mixer or hardware FX etc.
In this case the soundcard has virtual outputs/inputs and a huge mixer with onboard fx. So you can route a track(s) from renoise to the fx track(s) on the sondcard.
wow ok, so the new question for Alexander is:
can the software mixer presets for each song be saved anywhere?
do the mixer effects sound oh-my-gosh-professional? 
and still… where did you buy the soundcard?
What is somehow “suspect” for me about this kind of stuff is that, by using it your song will become “hardware dependent”, which is just the opposite of what we’ve always thought a tracker should be.
I mean… ok now it’s May, 20th 2004 and I own my beautiful EMU 1212m and my song sounds great… Next year I will buy another soundcard… so what? I have to remake the whole effect rack?
I’m making too much questions these days… I feel so noob 
edit:
Thanks for your pioneering, Alexander: we need such courageous men who buy things to see if they work properly 
i think software mixing in audio-apps is ok but if you compare it to hardware mixing and seperate channels - i think there is a difference in sound quality … and the audio-app don’t need the cpu-usage for calculating the mix i think.
another thing my workflow. i never make a final mix in Renoise. some basic track-fx like reverb i switch off in Renoise before i render the seperate channels and after rendering i mix the song in a hd-recording/mixing app - adding my final fx, adding the vocals and so on.
with the 1212m and the really nice hardwareDSP-fx of the card i can add such temporary fx without any cpu-usage. (e.g. a good vst-reverb-fx needs much cpu-usage - i can save this cpu-power now for instruments on music creating)
a little bit annoying is that the E-Wire plugin won’t work in Renoise. normaly with E-Wire it’s possible to route the hardwareDSP-fx back to the ASIO output-channels (in Renoise) - but with my normal workflow i don’t need this really and if i decide to use the fx of the card i can add it later in the hd-recording/mixing app.
and another thing of the real use of multiple outputs is simply that a mixer is missing in Renoise!!! 32 Asio-channels are enough and the E-MU mixer is really powerful and has a good (not perfect) usability. u can save every mixer setup and so on …
i bought the card at www.thomann.de (international shop - multilanguage)
here are some interessting links:
EMU 1212M RightMark Audio Analyzer test
E-MU 1212M, 1820M Digital Audio Systems - Report on Extremetech.com
yes.
- i would say: the fx are very good not perfect but good. 32bit hardware. sounds like fx from professional hardware keyboards … the expensive and totally pro vst’s (e.g. waves/tc) are better but nobody has the money and cpu-power for this plugs !!!???
for me trackers are only sequencers and in 20 years Renoise and your old kontakt-softsampler vsti won’t run on your new 128bit-cpu PC and WINDOWS 3000 XP ULTRA VERYLONGHORN ??? AND THEN?! 
except the E-Wire plug … and don’t buy the card if you don’t use ASIO. 32 Channels are only available for ASIO not WDM. the wdm-support of the card (or better the wdm-drivers) is really poor. only one wave-out - only on 44/48khz. within ASIO all features are available.
the hardwareDSP fx are working only on 44/48khz too.
i hope e-mu is enhancing the drivers but - i don’t really need it. i’m working now with asio only.
i also noticed some asio-init problems of Renoise on 96khz and it seems that renoise-asio don’t supports 192khz
(all small problems and some small missing features are unimportant if you see the low price and what you get for it - and the most important thing is the soundquality - and the soundquality is simply professional )
Hmmm… so there is no way to get the E-wire plugin to work?
What happends?
I heard the next driver update will have WDM 96khz support… but there is no ETA on that update.
Just to talk abit more about HW vs SW…
I just have an impression that not so many people in here render their tracks seperatly.
There is no way you can get the very top notch quality using only realtime software. You need 100gHz cpu.
But you can of course get at least as good software fx as hardware fx. Its a matter of cpu.
So as Alexander said, harddisk streaming is the only way out the next 5-10 years at least.
An app like cool edit has no problem playing 50 32bit waves at once.
Try it… and you can get much higher quality using only the very best plugins. Use wet and dry waves of each track… and you will have semi realtime controll…
My dream app will be a Renoise like tracker that also has a harddisk multitracker in the same arranger. A merging of renoise and cool edit… yummy
don’t know … the sound on this renoise/asio channel stops if i add the plug and in the e-wire-plug editor-window it’s only possible to choose a return channel not a send channel.
the e-wire plugin should do the simple thing to send the audio-output of an asio channel (of Renoise or any other asio-app) to the hardwareDSP and after this back to an asio-channel back into the software.
if this is possible it should be possible too that you can insert an external audio-source to Renoise and adding VST-fx … great idea - but e-wire don’t work 
… but i will test it more … maybe i find a solution
Yeah… that was what I had hoped for too…
Anyway… I can live with only using the onboard fx in the end of the fx chain (not returning to renoise)… but it still would be fun to add vst after the emu fx in the fxchain.
But adding any asio channel into the E-wire plugin was what I was dreaming about in the first place.
Go Alexander! Make it work plz
i’m on the way (but i think it’s impossible) … at the moment it’s clear for me: the reason is not Renoise only. the reason is the the e-wire plug and the asio-driver inits too … and i think the asio support in Renoise isn’t perfect. there is no asio-input feature coz it’s not needed in Renoise at the moment.
nevertheless … a great audio-card
And now to the ordeal by fire: how low latency do you get?
on 48khz:
5ms … 5 different vsti instances - CPU load 25-35% (on my p4 2.4ghz overclocked to 2.8ghz)
20ms … on a heavyweight song (10-15 VSTi instances) - CPU load 70-80%
but 20ms are not a good value for working on this song … so much cpu-load and so on … but it plays without any crackle
not bad or what?! … i don’t tested it really hard with different buffersizes / 96khz and so on at the moment … but if i compare to my Terratec - the EWX wasn’t able to play the meant heavyweight song - only in directsound mode with 100ms latency
it’s a little bit annoying that’s not possible to setup 192khz in renoise 
coz 24bit/192khz is possible with this audio-interface
but wouldn’t 192kHz not mean 4 times more cpu-cycles needed than with 48khz…?
i guess that would blow your computer even with your leight-weighted song…
indeed a smart card for the price, but at the moment I will still keep my pulsars.
Does the Emu X use the hardware on the card to run or does it just use the
CPU?
How good is it compared to Kontakt/Halion (if you’ve used them)?