E-mu Emulator III (1987–1991)
The Emulator III was E-mu's flagship sampler of the late 1980s, the successor to the hugely influential Emulator II. It came out in 1987 and was a big step up in fidelity. It sampled at 16 bits with a 27.5 kHz rate, and it had a 76-key velocity- and pressure-sensitive keyboard with aftertouch and 16-voice polyphony. Sample RAM was 1 MB standard, expandable to 8 MB. It also had a built-in 40 MB internal hard drive and a 3.5-inch floppy drive. Eight independent analog outputs and an S/PDIF digital output made it a proper studio instrument, and a built-in sequencer came along with it. The original price was $9,995, though some sources list it at $8,995.
A 1990 ad campaign in Mix (1990, p.54) pitched the Emulator III as "a complete, affordable digital sound factory" - more precisely a 16-bit audio computer and SMPTE-based event sequencer that records, edits, and plays back sound. The same campaign noted that an optional Macintosh interface provided graphic waveform editing, SMPTE cue lists, and direct-to-disk recording. It also said a Remote Controller could operate one or more Emulator IIIs from the Mac. By 1992, Mix (1992, p.93) previewed the Emulator III Expander, a rack-mount version priced at $7,995. It had 8 MB RAM (expandable to 32 MB), 16 stereo or 24 monophonic voices, sigma-delta A/D converters with 64-times oversampling, 44.1/48 kHz sampling rates, and AES/EBU digital I/O.
Later revisions, the EIIIxp and EIIIxs, shipped standard with 8 MB and offered expansion to 32 MB, as noted in EQ (1994, p.90).
Known specs:
- 16-bit sampling at 27.5 kHz
- 76-key velocity- and pressure-sensitive keyboard (aftertouch)
- 16-voice polyphony
- 1 MB RAM standard, expandable to 8 MB
- Built-in 40 MB hard drive, 3.5-inch floppy drive
- 8 independent analog outputs, S/PDIF digital output
- Built-in sequencer
- MSRP: $9,995 (1987), though some sources list $8,995
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