E-mu Emulator I

The $15,000 machine that put digital sampling in reach of working musicians - before the Emulator II made it practical.

Overview

Before the Emulator II became the favorite of mid-80s pop production, there was the Emulator I. It proved E-mu Systems could build a digital sampling keyboard at all. At $15,000 it wasn't cheap, but it put digital sampling into studios that couldn't otherwise get it. The Emulator I was the original model in the Emulator line, and the Emulator II, III, IV, and X all trace back to it.

The Emulator I arrived while the synthesizer market was splitting into two camps. One camp was analog purists who trusted voltage-controlled oscillators. The other was a new breed of musicians who wanted real sounds - drums, vocals, found objects - manipulated digitally.

At £8,000 in the UK, the Emulator I was priced like a new car, and contemporaries made that exact comparison. It wasn't a tool for the bedroom musician. It was an investment for professional studios and serious touring acts. It also showed that sampling was no longer out of reach for a working studio.

Historical Context

The Emulator I is the first model in the Emulator series, the machine that set the template. The Emulator II followed, then the III, IV, and X, each adding memory, improving fidelity and expanding polyphony. But the Emulator I was the one that proved the concept could work in a marketable, playable instrument.

E-mu Systems wasn't a giant corporation when the Emulator I shipped. It was a gamble: a digital instrument priced high enough to demand real commitment from buyers, built by a company still finding its footing in the commercial market. It succeeded enough to spawn a multi-generational product line.

At £8,000, the Emulator I was marketed to professional studios, film composers, and touring acts - people who could write the expense off as a business investment. The "price of a new car" comparison wasn't hyperbole. That was what professional audio gear cost in the early 1980s. The Emulator I was the entry point for anyone who couldn't afford the stratospheric prices of the systems that dominated the high end.

The Emulator I was superseded quickly. The Emulator II followed later, and the original felt dated. It was still the proof of concept, the machine that showed E-mu and the industry that sampling could be a viable commercial instrument, not just a laboratory curiosity.

For collectors and historians, the Emulator I is historically significant, but most working musicians passed it over.

Mix Magazine (September 1993, p.83) noted that E-mu's pioneering use of technology in its earlier models carried through to its later instruments. For anyone who wants to know where sampling came from, the Emulator I is the starting point.