Its little brother, the SP-12, and its successor the SP-1200, were based on a similar concept but simplified things for use as a dedicated drum sampler.
Further models in the Emulator range remained on sale until 2002. Around 500 units were sold before the introduction of the improved Emulator II in 1984. The Emulator was an 8-bit device and sounded quite unrealistic by modern standards, but its combination of sampling, filtering and sequencing proved popular from the word go.
#Mpc emulator hardware series
Slightly more affordable samplers arrived in the early '80s, most notably in the form of the Emulator series introduced in 1981 by the Californian E-MU Systems.Īffordable is really a relative term in this case, seeing as the first generation Emulator still cost around $10,000 on release (the equivalent of around $28,000 in today’s money).Įven so, the Emulator was a lot cheaper and more user-friendly than the Fairlight and went on to shape the music of the early '80s, being used extensively by bands such as Depeche Mode, New Order and Genesis. If you want to try out Fairlight sounds today, a plugin emulation such as UVI’s Darklight IIx or Arturia’s CMI V is probably the easiest option. Check out this great clip of jazz legend Herbie Hancock on Sesame Street demonstrating his Fairlight to a group of delighted kids. Even the ability to record a sound and play it back immediately at a different pitch was shockingly exciting in the early days of sampling hardware. In reality, the Fairlight was quite a limited device by modern standards, but at the time, its power was astonishing. Artists including Stevie Wonder, Kate Bush and Jean-Michel Jarre were early adopters, expanding their sonic palettes with digital sounds as soon as the Fairlight came on the scene. It was incredibly advanced for its time, but its price meant it was only really used by the most wealthy musicians of the day.
#Mpc emulator hardware full
The CMI isn’t just a sampler but a full computer-based instrument with sequencing and synthesis features. Even so, it cost around $25,000 when it went on sale in 1979, the equivalent of about $77,000 in today’s money. The Fairlight CMI is widely considered to be the first (relatively) affordable commercially available sampler. A handful of sampling computers were built during the 1970s, but these devices – among them the EMS MUSYS system, Computer Music Melodian and Synclavier – tended either to be incredibly expensive, incredibly rare, or both.