E-mu Emulator

The emulator I was one of the first commercially available samplers.

The emulator I was brought in 1981 by the company E-MU Systems on the market, and until 1984 about 500 units were built in two series. E -MU developed the Emulator to catch the outgoing royalty payments from the sale of the successful prophet 5 of Sequential Circuits. He appeared in a time in which the Fairlight CMI was the only available sampler. In order to offer the emulator cheaper than the Fairlight, confined themselves to a mere sample playback (you can not therefore speak of a real competitor to Fairlight ). It lacked both a VCA and a VCF, ie, you could not even change the sound - volume history of the sample. The first models were two -to eight- voice polyphony, depending on the configuration. Technically based the emulator I on a Z80 processor with DMA microcontroller.

In 1982 a revised version of the emulator I. The Mark 2 included in price now lowered a VCA and a software sequencer. End of 1983, production was stopped, only appeared in 1984 with the E -MU Emulator II, the much more successful successor.

• Keyboard
• Sampler