E-mu Systems
E-mu Systems was a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments and sound engineering equipment. The company was founded in 1971 and is considered a pioneer in the field of synthesizers and samplers . It was taken over by the multimedia hardware manufacturer Creative Labs in 1993 and later merged with Ensoniq , which was also taken over in 1998 . From 2004, E-mu Systems began selling software samplers and matching sound cards, which were based on the development of the previous two decades. Today the name only exists as a brand for audio accessories.
Synthesizers and patents
The students Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum started building modular synthesizers around 1970. The company founded as Eµ Systems (short for Electronic Music Systems) developed a digitally scanned polyphonic keyboard in 1972, which was patented. The licensees were the manufacturers Oberheim (Four Voice, Eight Voice) and later Sequential Circuits (Prophet-5). Together with Solid State Music (SSM), special ICs for (modular) synthesizers were developed, which were installed by various manufacturers, but were also used by hobbyists.
E-mu itself built around 125 large modular systems that were sold to schools and universities as well as well-known musicians such as Herbie Hancock and Frank Zappa . For clients like the band The Grateful Dead , they experimented with various available microprocessors, for example in 1975 with an early Intel 8080 , which the developer Ed Rudnick had procured. A suitable 8-bit processor was found in July 1976 with the Zilog Z80 . It was to be installed in E-mu products for the next ten years. In 1977 a keyboard with 16 voices and a sequencer for 6,000 notes were developed. From 1979 sequencer data could be saved on 8 ″ floppy disks .
The 16-part Audity, which in 1978 already had digitally controlled oscillators, was developed from the license income. The sales price should be around 70,000 US dollars (actually 30,000 dollars had been projected). It stayed with a built example, which was shown at the AES in 1980 and later sold to Peter Baumann from Tangerine Dream . However, the prototype was never completely finished. Today the Audity is in a museum in Canada. Peter Baumann only received a few components, which his team completed into a system.
Bad news ended the Audity project prematurely: Dave Smith from Sequential Circuits switched from SSM chips to CEM with the Prophet-5 model, and revenues collapsed. In 1979 the company was reformed, borrowed capital and a marketing specialist was hired.
Sampler
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After the license income was decreasing and the Audity project had proven to be a failure, it was decided to make a virtue out of necessity and develop a sampler. At around $ 10,000, the price should be significantly cheaper than the Fairlight CMI , whose base model cost $ 35,000 (although prices above $ 100,000 were not uncommon).
The first version of the emulator series came onto the market in 1981; data could initially be stored on 5.25 ″ floppy disks . Versions with four and eight voices were available with 128 kB of RAM. The two-part version was a flop, only one copy was sold to the competitor Yamaha. The very first buyer of a production model was Stevie Wonder . A little later, the emulator was revised due to disappointing sales figures and marketed with the addition of Mark 2. Now there was a built-in sequencer, a sample library on floppy disks, and the price had been cut by 20 percent.
From 1983 the expensive drum computers from Oberheim and Linn were attacked with the drumulator, which could be offered for less than $ 1,000. It had a memory of 64 kB for 12 sounds, which even with an 8-bit resolution only allowed very short samples. The other features, such as real-time programming, auto-quantization as well as a volume control and analog filters for each sound made the product a success. From 1984 a - then new - MIDI interface was also installed.
The emulator, which had been produced around 500 times by 1983, was followed by Emulator II in 1984 . This immediately became an economic success, sold over 3,000 times and had a decisive influence on the electronic music of the decade. Customers included a. Depeche Mode , Tony Banks from Genesis , Yes , Jean-Michel Jarre , Vangelis and New Order . Success was urgently needed because the Emulator II was actually six months too late and the company was slowly running out of money. The Emulator II was further developed until 1987, at last a 20 MB hard disk and samples were available on CD-ROM.
1985 appeared as the successor to the drumulator the SP-12 (for 12 bit) and in 1988 its little modified successor model SP-1200, which was reproduced in 1993 and 1997 due to its great success. Both devices are now considered a rarity, as they are still very popular with hip-hop and dance producers due to their rough lo-fi sound and hard timing .
Now that the company was earning money for the first time, the workforce was increased, moved into new premises and in 1987 presented the Emulator III , which could sample in CD quality. It had 16 voices, 4 or 8 MB RAM, an internal 40 MB hard disk and could address external storage media via SCSI. But the reliability left a lot to be desired at first and so the first instruments delivered had to be recalled and modified at great cost. Problems with the hard drives and storage put a strain on the manufacturer's reputation. Once again you got into financial difficulties.
In addition to the SP-1200, the first Romplers (see below) turned out to be saviors in an emergency . They gave the development team time to develop a new generation for the filters (H-Chip) after a new G-Chip for playing back the samples. Orders for 5,000 units were received within a very short time. Nevertheless, the quality disaster with Emulator III had far-reaching consequences, the company was restructured again and the goal was to quadruple sales to $ 100 million. The G-Chips from the first Romplers have now also been built into sound cards from IBM , Digidesign and Turtle Beach . A suitable buyer was sought for an even better version. After talks with Steve Jobs failed, an agreement was reached with Creative Labs in 1992 .
In 1993 E-mu Systems was completely taken over by Creative Labs and co-founder Scott Wedge was dismissed. The new owner now relied on Dave Rossum.
The E IV series was introduced in 1994 as the successor to the Emulator III. This sampler family, which can be expanded using plug-in cards, was offered in various expansion stages and options (e64, e6400, e-Synth, later also E5000 Ultra) and further developed over several generations (E IV, E4X, E4XT Ultra), becoming its E4 Platinum around 2000 to reach the final stage of development. The E IV was mainly offered in rack versions with three height units, which inside resembled a 486 generation PC . There were key versions of the E4X (1996, as E4K) and the e-Synth (1997).
The EOS operating system received numerous updates that could be downloaded from a floppy disk. With later models it was also possible to build in sounds from the Rompler series as a plug-in card and thus have a certain basic stock of sounds always available regardless of the loaded sample bank. The E IV offered up to 128 voices with as many filters, a maximum of 128 MB RAM, up to 16 analog and 16 digital individual outputs, 16 to 32 MIDI channels and optionally a complex multi-effects processor (“RFX board”). The E IV was u. a. Used by Roger Waters in the studio and by Genesis live.
In addition to the emulator series, E-mu also produced slimmed-down samplers in the Emax (1986–1995) and ESI (from 1994) series. Basically, the models were based on the technology of the already discontinued or aging emulator models, such as the Emax on the Emulator II, the Emax 2 and the ESI series on the Emulator III (but without analog filters). Due to the much cheaper price, they were popular and made a significant contribution to the survival of the company until the takeover in 1993. Due to the downward compatibility of the E IV, which can read the data format of the Emulator III (and thus also of the ESI series), old sample banks can be ported to the newer or larger model. With the omission of some functions, this is basically also possible the other way round, since an E IV can also write the E-III format.
The first device in the ESI series was the ESI-32 with 32 voices and a maximum of 32 MB RAM. He was deployed u. a. by Daft Punk . The successor was the ESI-4000 (1998), which could manage up to 128 MB RAM and had 64 voices. The last device in this series was the ESI-2000 (1999), which was technically identical to the ESI-4000, but had a different color scheme and was delivered with a much more extensive sample library.
expander
Furthermore, the company produced a number of successful, because inexpensive and at the same time versatile rack modules under the name "Proteus" based on high-quality ROM samples ( Rompler ).
Other devices in this line included a. Orbit, Carnival, Extreme Lead, Planet Phat and Mo Phat, which were used in many dance, techno and hip-hop productions from the mid-1990s. Internally, all devices are practically identical and often only differ in the ROM modules used, in which the sounds are accommodated. A major advantage of these devices over comparable systems was the extensive setting options for the synthesizer and filter sections as well as the so-called beat mode, in which prefabricated drum and sound patterns were played independently. In addition, pure stand-alone operation was possible, as a song list based on linked links could be stored on one of the beats. This made it possible to connect several devices without external MIDI sources, run them in parallel and mix the sounds in the style of a DJ.
The later devices in this series had ROM slots in which modules with additional sound material could be retrofitted. These modules could also be used with samplers from the E IV series.
Software sampler
As early as the mid-90s it became clear that E-mu could no longer keep up with its competitors Roland and Yamaha. A digital workstation (Darwin) and a mixer (Mantis) had failed. Creative had also bought Ensoniq in 1998 and merged with E-mu. The Romplers sold ten-year-old technology with constantly new sounds (including from the star of the scene Rob Papen) and new front panels. Company founder Dave Rossum now worked more for Creative than for E-mu. From 2000 this business model collapsed.
After the production of hardware samplers was completely discontinued in 2002, a number of software samplers were initially sold under the name Emulator X from 2004. Incl. In the second version, Emulator X2, which was presented in 2006, a sound card (models 0404, 1212m, 1616, 1616m, 1820 and 1820m were available) acted as software dongle . From version Emulator X3 (2009) this protection was no longer applicable.
The software was based on the last operating system of the E IV (EOS 4.70) and was most recently available in a 64-bit version with a sampling rate of 192 kHz. Sample banks from the E IV can also be used in the software. The support from the manufacturer has now been discontinued. Emulator X was designed for Windows versions XP and Vista and a driver for Windows 7 in beta status was released for the sound cards.
Current business activity
Today Creative sells professional audio accessories for computers under the E-mu label . B. Sound cards and MIDI interfaces.
Web links
- Website of E-mu
- Creative website
- Timeline of products
- Review of 40 years of E-mu Systems , discussion with Dave Rossum and Scott Wedge
- Peter Grandl: How to become an Emu. Interview with Dave Rossum, June 2015.
- Part 2: Golden Years, Whap Whap Whap. Part 3: From Emax to Proteus.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Rob Keeble: 30 Years of E-mu. ( Memento of March 14, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Sound on Sound , September 2002.
- ↑ E-mu Systems Modular on vintagesynth.org
- ↑ E-mu Systems Audity on vintagesynth.com
- ↑ E-mu Systems Emulator II on vintagesynth.org