Alesis QS8, QS7 manual Your First Session Chapter

Your First Session: Chapter 2

Your QS is an expandable system using the two PCMCIA EXPANSION CARD slots on the back panel. There are three different kinds of Sound Cards available through your Alesis dealer or directly from Alesis:

•SRAM cards: The Alesis Virtual Composer card provides an additional four banks of Program/Mix memory. All banks can be stored to by the user, and it comes with additional Programs and Mixes pre-stored.

•QCards: These read-only memory cards provide actual samples, plus the Programs and Mixes that use them in a single card bank. Available QCards include a Stereo Grand Piano card, a Pop Rock card that includes high-quality guitar, drum, bass, and keyboard sounds, a World/Ethnic card and a Rap/Techno/Dance card.

•Flash RAM cards: If you want to burn your own custom sample cards, Flash RAM cards are available in 2 MB, 4 MB, and 8MB sizes. Alesis Sound Bridge software (see next section) will translate from Sample Cell format to Alesis QS Composite Synthesis format, and then you can write your own custom Programs and Mixes that use these samples.

To use a sound card with the QS:

¿Hold the card with the front label facing up and insert the exposed contact end gently into either of the QS’s PCMCIA EXPANSION CARD slots, [A] or [B].

¡Push the card in until you the slot’s eject button extends outward, and the card will not go any further.

¬To remove the card, press the eject button adjacent to the card slot and gently slide the card out of the slot.

The QS’s two PCMCIA EXPANSION CARD slots can accommodate any combination of these three card types. You can combine QCards and Flash RAM cards that store up to 8 MB of samples each, giving you a total of 16 Mb of sound ROM expansion and effectively doubling the internal 16 MB of sound ROM for a total of 32MB!!

When storing Mix and Program Banks to external cards, the maximum number of accessible card banks is 11. This is because the QS’s grand total of banks possible is 16, and 5 of them are already built into the QS. The 11 card banks can be split among the two PCMCIA EXPANSION CARD slots. Under normal situations, this will not be a limitation (remember, each bank has 128 Programs and 100 Mixes; 11 banks gives you 1408 additional Programs and 1100 additional Mixes).

In other words, if you have two SRAM cards (256k each, capable of storing up to 4 banks), you will have 4 banks available on each card for a total of 8 banks; well below the maximum. However, since it is possible to purchase third-party 512k PCMCIA cards and burn these yourself using Sound Bridge software, it is possible to physically insert two 8 bank cards which combine for a total of 16 banks. In this situation, only the first 11 banks will be accessible beginning with slot [A]; i.e. you’ll be able to access all 8 banks from the card in slot [A] and the first 3 banks from the card in slot [B].

QS7/QS8 Reference Manual 19