Hands on: EMU E4X Sampler
I got myself an E-MU sampler to see what the hype about the 'emu sound' was all about. I also justified the acquisition with the change to a more hands-on approach to production instead of mere mouse and keys. I'd been planning on it for years, and finally went for what I thought to be a good deal - price paid was 300 in late 2009 - 1/10th of the original price 12 years ago. I've had a good few months to get to know the machine and because I'm way too hyped to write a proper review, I'll go with a more subjective approach and try to explain how it has changed my work methods and possibly the sound of my productions.
First some technical stuff. This is not a top of the line sampler, but instead a very vanilla model with 64MB of RAM and a 2GB hard disk. Both seem incredibly limited by today's standards but I haven't run out of either yet. Although I have to say that I haven't sampled very long riffs or lines, usually I just record single hits or maybe 4-5 second synth/bass sounds that get looped and processed further. The amount of RAM translates roughly to 380 seconds of 48KHz stereo recording. The inner workings are very much alike any software sampler on the market today; Banks are formed by a collection of presets that in turn are constructed from samples. Only 1 bank can be loaded into the RAM at a time, but the presets can be assigned to any of the 16 MIDI channels. There's also a built-in effects unit with 2 different effects possible, both of them can be routed to any of the possible 4 output pairs. I haven't used this possibility yet since I only utilize 2 outputs due to my mixer limitations, but in practice it means you could have a chorus on a synth pad and a room reverb on drums, just as an example. One notable limitation on this model is that it only has 1MB of CPU flash RAM (whatever that might be), which prevents me from upgrading the operating system - EOS as they dubbed it - to higher than 3.0. The current 4.7 version offers more LFO types, new filters and some other minor changes. The banks included were nothing special, but I was pretty amazed to find some classic sounds found in tunes, games and movies from along the years, like the Civilization 4 sound effects when a religion is founded. Some of the banks were not even remotely useful and I simply deleted them to save space on the disk. There's also a floppy drive and an SCSI connection but I don't have either in my current computer.
My setup is simple. 2 mixer auxes connect to the sampler inputs, allowing me to sample anything that comes into the mixer with the flip of 2 knobs. The sampler main outs are hooked to mixer channels, and the mixer has a Rec out going to my computer inputs. This routing is problematic when recording back into the computer, but that's the subject of another post.
Recording is easy enough. A few clicks, set time, set recording treshold, arm the inputs and press play on the source. When the treshold is crossed, the recording begins. Creating presets or banks isn't much harder, but the first few times it's useful to have the manual handy for navigating the system. I've learned to use the machine quite well, but setting up sounds still takes a bit more time than with a computer. Also the sample editing functions (cut, loop, copy, compress, gain, exciter etc) take a while to calculate compared to modern DAWs, and while it's still only a few seconds, it's sometimes enough to distract one from the task at hand. Once the samples are lined up, it's modulation time. There's filtering, 2 LFO's, enveloping, tuning and stuff like that that are quite easy to comprehend and tweak. There are a lot of options for modulation routing, so much I haven't tested half of them yet. The envelopes caused some minor headache first but after I understood how they work (they're actually AADDRR envelopes), a simple ADSR seems suddenly very limited.
The result is worth the time spent. There is definately a difference in tone to the original sounds, and while my crappy mixer probably contributes to the tone as well, it's not a bad difference at all. Things generally sound a bit darker, and some samples benefit hugely from the sample editor's Exciter function to bring back that sparkle. Even so, I think the headroom available has a much more dramatic effect on the sound. I find you can push sounds a lot harder compared to mixing inside a DAW, and things like mixer preamps and channel EQ's become more evident in the signal chain. In fact, this is the first time I've heard preamps affect the sound. I will definately be expanding the setup to accommodate all the outputs from the sampler.
The conclusion: There are clear drawbacks to using hardware samplers, more so in 'vintage' units, as they simply lack the computing power of modern day DAWs. They also take a lot more room on your desk and weigh more than Audacity ever will. But at least for me, the sound it has makes it worth the hassle. Setting it up sample by sample is not an option when you hit a fountain of creativity, so I end up having separate sampling and preset creation sessions when I'm not in a inspired mood but still want to get my hands on music. Most of all this sampler has brought the fun and exploring into production for me.
In retrospect: It is really hard to use this piece as a beat machine, because the timing is off. Just by a few milliseconds, but enough to make it audible in drumwork. I have unearthed ancient texts that propose ITB and OTB midi will not mix very well (precisely the reason why most oldskool producers went completely ITB in the turn of the century), and there will be timing issues. Haven't really researched for a solution in the form of new midi timing method, but in the meantime the sampler still has a good use on everything else - bass, pad, synth, lead, fx - anything that is not as crucial on the timing... I still like to just bounce through old funk breaks and some other beats I've made (but lacked something in the sound). I just sample them in, maybe use the exciter, and resample them into the pc - maybe just clipping slightly on the mixer preamps on the way, and it's just magic. Of course there are the Z-Plane filters too which let you morph between 2 filter settings. That's the sound that very few software filters can do, and that's a huge part of that '99 techstep sound.
First some technical stuff. This is not a top of the line sampler, but instead a very vanilla model with 64MB of RAM and a 2GB hard disk. Both seem incredibly limited by today's standards but I haven't run out of either yet. Although I have to say that I haven't sampled very long riffs or lines, usually I just record single hits or maybe 4-5 second synth/bass sounds that get looped and processed further. The amount of RAM translates roughly to 380 seconds of 48KHz stereo recording. The inner workings are very much alike any software sampler on the market today; Banks are formed by a collection of presets that in turn are constructed from samples. Only 1 bank can be loaded into the RAM at a time, but the presets can be assigned to any of the 16 MIDI channels. There's also a built-in effects unit with 2 different effects possible, both of them can be routed to any of the possible 4 output pairs. I haven't used this possibility yet since I only utilize 2 outputs due to my mixer limitations, but in practice it means you could have a chorus on a synth pad and a room reverb on drums, just as an example. One notable limitation on this model is that it only has 1MB of CPU flash RAM (whatever that might be), which prevents me from upgrading the operating system - EOS as they dubbed it - to higher than 3.0. The current 4.7 version offers more LFO types, new filters and some other minor changes. The banks included were nothing special, but I was pretty amazed to find some classic sounds found in tunes, games and movies from along the years, like the Civilization 4 sound effects when a religion is founded. Some of the banks were not even remotely useful and I simply deleted them to save space on the disk. There's also a floppy drive and an SCSI connection but I don't have either in my current computer.
My setup is simple. 2 mixer auxes connect to the sampler inputs, allowing me to sample anything that comes into the mixer with the flip of 2 knobs. The sampler main outs are hooked to mixer channels, and the mixer has a Rec out going to my computer inputs. This routing is problematic when recording back into the computer, but that's the subject of another post.
Recording is easy enough. A few clicks, set time, set recording treshold, arm the inputs and press play on the source. When the treshold is crossed, the recording begins. Creating presets or banks isn't much harder, but the first few times it's useful to have the manual handy for navigating the system. I've learned to use the machine quite well, but setting up sounds still takes a bit more time than with a computer. Also the sample editing functions (cut, loop, copy, compress, gain, exciter etc) take a while to calculate compared to modern DAWs, and while it's still only a few seconds, it's sometimes enough to distract one from the task at hand. Once the samples are lined up, it's modulation time. There's filtering, 2 LFO's, enveloping, tuning and stuff like that that are quite easy to comprehend and tweak. There are a lot of options for modulation routing, so much I haven't tested half of them yet. The envelopes caused some minor headache first but after I understood how they work (they're actually AADDRR envelopes), a simple ADSR seems suddenly very limited.
The result is worth the time spent. There is definately a difference in tone to the original sounds, and while my crappy mixer probably contributes to the tone as well, it's not a bad difference at all. Things generally sound a bit darker, and some samples benefit hugely from the sample editor's Exciter function to bring back that sparkle. Even so, I think the headroom available has a much more dramatic effect on the sound. I find you can push sounds a lot harder compared to mixing inside a DAW, and things like mixer preamps and channel EQ's become more evident in the signal chain. In fact, this is the first time I've heard preamps affect the sound. I will definately be expanding the setup to accommodate all the outputs from the sampler.
The conclusion: There are clear drawbacks to using hardware samplers, more so in 'vintage' units, as they simply lack the computing power of modern day DAWs. They also take a lot more room on your desk and weigh more than Audacity ever will. But at least for me, the sound it has makes it worth the hassle. Setting it up sample by sample is not an option when you hit a fountain of creativity, so I end up having separate sampling and preset creation sessions when I'm not in a inspired mood but still want to get my hands on music. Most of all this sampler has brought the fun and exploring into production for me.
In retrospect: It is really hard to use this piece as a beat machine, because the timing is off. Just by a few milliseconds, but enough to make it audible in drumwork. I have unearthed ancient texts that propose ITB and OTB midi will not mix very well (precisely the reason why most oldskool producers went completely ITB in the turn of the century), and there will be timing issues. Haven't really researched for a solution in the form of new midi timing method, but in the meantime the sampler still has a good use on everything else - bass, pad, synth, lead, fx - anything that is not as crucial on the timing... I still like to just bounce through old funk breaks and some other beats I've made (but lacked something in the sound). I just sample them in, maybe use the exciter, and resample them into the pc - maybe just clipping slightly on the mixer preamps on the way, and it's just magic. Of course there are the Z-Plane filters too which let you morph between 2 filter settings. That's the sound that very few software filters can do, and that's a huge part of that '99 techstep sound.
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