Samplers / Sampling

Not content with adding a huge raft of improvements to their already comprehensive Emulator X soft sampler, Emu have also removed the need to use it with their own soundcards, so now everyone can get in on the fun.

Emu's range of soundcards offers an unprecedented level of flexibility, DSP power and sound quality for the price — with the added bonus of a very impressive software sampler.

The market for hardware samplers may be on the wane, but Emu aren't abandoning their hardware customers; their RFX32 effects/mixer card can add tremendous processing and routing power to any of their Ultra samplers.

The sheer power of Emu's three ESI samplers has endeared them to many home musicians on a budget. However, it can be tricky to get the most out of these machines, so here are some power-user tips to help you.

With rival sampler manufacturers currently battling it out at the lower end of the market, Emu's latest bid for budget supremacy is the successor to their ESI32 and ESI4000 — the ESI2000. Paul Farrer takes it easy.

Billed as the most afordable Emulator yet, the E5000 Ultra is Emu's new contender in the middleweight professional sampler stakes — and it's a force to be reckoned with.

Is it a synth, a sequencer or a sampler? The answer to all three questions is an emphatic 'yes', as Paul White finds out when he takes the E4XT Ultra into his studio.

The high quality converters and resonant filter imbue the 16-bit Emax II with a musicality and sonic character second to none.

Emu's latest sampler release is a new budget module to replace the ESI32. But with recent price drops from Akai and Yamaha's return to the sampling fold, have the company done enough to fend off the competition?

A new expandability has come to Emu's professional range of samplers. Paul Wiffen lifts the bonnet of the top-of-the-range model and finds an e6400 lurking inside.

Hot on the heels of the ESI32 and EIV samplers comes Emu's latest mid-price unit. We sent Paul Wiffen to find out how the E64 differs from its siblings

Once upon a time an Emulator was all eights: 8-bit, 8-voice, 8-outs, but that was a decade ago. Ten years on and the latest Emulator has more of the 128 about it: 128 voices, up to 128Mb of RAM. Paul Wiffen finds out if everything else about the EIV is 16 times as good.

News of the ESi32 has set the hearts of ambitious but fiscally challenged samplists beating faster. Mike Barnes brings you this exclusive review of the machine which packs EIII sampling power into a box costing under £1200, and wonders 'Is it too good to be true?"

Emu took up the opportunity of a whistle-stop Autumn press tour to announce new products — including their lowest-priced sampler to date — which set the company's agenda for the coming months. Derek Johnson previews the new kit on the block.

Emu took up the opportunity of a whistle-stop Autumn press tour to announce new products — including their lowest-priced sampler to date — which set the company's agenda for the coming months. Derek Johnson previews the new kit on the block.