E-mu Audity (1978–1980)

The Audity is one of the great unproduced synthesizers — a late-1970s E-mu project that was cancelled in 1980 before a single unit ever reached a customer. E-mu's own history describes it as an "expensive test bed" for technologies that later showed up in the Emulator II and the SP-12, and it's been a touchstone for retro-synth discussions ever since.

Here is what the record shows. The Audity was planned as a 32-voice polyphonic instrument with a fully digital control system running analog oscillators, filters, and VCAs. The design called for a central computer with dual floppy disks, a remote programming console, a 16-channel polyphonic keyboard/sequencer, and up to 16 voice cards. Each card held a complete analog synthesizer under total computer control, with two VCOs featuring PWM and hard sync per voice. Polyphony (November 1980, p.14) reported the system's announcement, describing the voice-card architecture and the computer-controlled voice definition. The project was halted because the cost of building something this complex would have pushed the retail price to an estimated $30,000 - $40,000. That is E-mu's own figure. Another source floats $25,000.

The spec sheets conflict on some details. Oscillator counts and keyboard size vary depending on which retrospective you read, and with no production units, there's no authoritative final configuration to settle it. The concept lives on in E-mu's design lineage, and clone/plugin developers still cite it. No original hardware survives beyond a few prototypes or mock-ups.

Known specs (as documented):

- 32-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer, fully digital control system

- 16 voice cards, each with two VCOs (PWM, hard sync), filter, and VCA

- Central computer with dual floppy disks; remote programming console

- 16-channel polyphonic keyboard/sequencer with dedicated disk storage

- Estimated price: $30,000 - $40,000 (E-mu's figure; one source says $25,000)

- Never released; project cancelled 1980