The Emax II replaced the original Emax in fall 1989. It is a true 16-bit sampler with more polyphony and digital filters, priced from $3,595. The Emax II Turbo of 1990 added 8 MB of built-in sample memory and an internal SCSI hard disk. It stayed in production until 1995, one of the longest runs of any E-mu product.
The Emulator II, released in 1984, was E-mu's second sampler. It stayed an eight-bit machine but improved fidelity with companding converters and a 27.7 kHz sample rate, and it added resonant analog filters, more flexible editing and far better real-time control. At about $8,000 it was priced like the original, and far below a Fairlight.
The Drumulator is a fixed-sample, floppy-driven drum machine built to undercut the Linn LM-1 — not match it. It gives you eight gritty 12-bit hits, real-time or step sequencing, and Apple II editing. It withholds sound editing, velocity, swing, and any expansion beyond its ROM.
The E-MU E4XT Ultra is a 1999 hardware sampler. It delivers verbatim audio playback, 128-voice polyphony, and studio-grade reliability. It has no onboard effects, shallow editing, and fixed storage. It belongs in a rack—not a laptop bag.
The E-mu Systems E6400 is a hardware sampler built for radical sample transformation — not faithful reproduction. Its strength is in routing: the modulation matrix and modular-style processing blocks (quantize, flipflop, diode, lag) let users rewire signal flow in ways few samplers allowed. Its SCSI support exceeds its 9GB spec — users ran 18GB drives. Its DACs are transparent; its ADCs are not. It includes Z-plane, formant, phaser, flanger, Doppler, bitreducer and Convolver tools — and its reverb uses impulse response sampling. It ships with EOS 3.00b and 1MB CPU RAM. It is for sound designers who treat samples as raw material to be corrupted, rerouted and convolved — not archived.
The E-mu Emulator III is a 1987 digital sound production system. It was E-mu's biggest and most professional sampler-synthesizer before the 1990s. It was the first sampler to offer 16-bit, 44.1 kHz stereo or mono sampling. RAM is 4 MB expandable to 8 MB. It includes extensive sample editing features including looping and rate conversions. Its on-board 16-track sequencer and arpeggiator are superb. It is equipped with MIDI, SMPTE, SCSI, a built-in disk drive, and multiple outputs. A Macintosh can be hooked up for graphical editing because the LED screen is so tiny.
The E-mu ESI-32 is a 1994 16-bit desktop sampler. It delivers 32-voice polyphony, stereo sampling at 22.05 or 44.1 kHz, and real-time editing including Doppler, exciter, and transform multiply. Base RAM is 2 MB—11 seconds at 44.1 kHz stereo—but expands to 32 MB (six minutes). Auto-looping, auto-truncate, and auto key placement streamline sampling. It requires SCSI peripherals and Turbo Expansion for digital I/O and extra effects. It does not support variable sampling rates, higher bit depths, or modern connectivity out of the box.
A foundational but bare-bones sampler that traded sonic refinement for accessibility.
The E-mu Modular System is an analog modular synthesizer introduced in 1972 by E-mu Systems as a competitor to ARP and Moog modular synthesizers. It featured a microprocessor-controlled polyphonic keyboard and sequencer — claimed by E-mu to be the first of its kind — and allowed sound creation via patch cord routing among user-specified modules. Users could store configurations using 'firm-wire' patches, and the system was capable of producing any popular synthesizer sound of the era, noted for a 'cleaner' sonic character than competitors.
The Emax is a line of samplers introduced by E-mu Systems in 1986 as a low-cost version of the Emulator II. It stored samples on 3½" floppy disks — more reliable than the Emulator II’s 5¼" disks. Models include the HD (with 20 MB hard drive), SE (with additive synthesis), and Plus (with SCSI). All models retain 512 KB of sample memory.
A foundational sampling drum machine introduced in 1985. Built for immediacy, not refinement.
The E-mu SP-1200 is a sampling drum machine introduced in August 1987 by E-mu Systems. It uses 12-bit linear sampling at 26.04 kHz, drop-sample pitch-shifting, analog SSM2044 lowpass filters on channels 1 and 2, volatile RAM loaded from 3.5" disk, and offers 10 seconds of total sampling time—with a 2.5-second limit per sound. It succeeded the SP-12 and offered integrated sequencing and sample looping in a single unit.