E-mu Systems
More info
- Creator
- Dave Rossum, Scott Wedge
- Released
- 1971
- Owner
- Creative Technology (from 1993)
- Type
- Sampler and synthesizer maker
Californian company that made the sampler affordable for ordinary studios, and whose SP-1200 became the backbone of hip-hop.
Dave Rossum and Scott Wedge started out building modular synths in Santa Cruz in 1971. The Emulator arrived in 1981 at a fraction of the price of a Fairlight CMI or Synclavier, and the 1984 Emulator II ended up on film scores and countless pop records. The 1987 SP-1200 sampled at 12 bits and about 26 kHz, with ten seconds of memory in total. Those limits produced a gritty, compact drum sound that producers still chase with bitcrushers.
The Proteus modules of 1989 sold ready-made samples in ROM, the rompler in its purest form. Creative bought the company in 1993, and E-mu's know-how ended up in the EMU10K1 chip of the Sound Blaster Live! and in the SoundFont format. PC MIDI audio had its best years thanks to a pro brand.