emusonacid!

In the mid 90's, although Akai undeniably ran the European sampler market, Emus became THE sampler for drum and bass.
They are still often preferred over excellent software alternatives by many DnB producers today.
Why is this?

Because the sound of Akai's is not as punchy and software samplers
dont cut it for DnB.

Akais sound okay for drums.

But they can't really do bass like an Emu. In fact, nothing can really do bass like an Emu :)

The Akai was 'The Jungle' machine !! chaotic chopped up breaks and time stretching. Brilliant machine for beats allowing one to easily assign individual drums outta 10 outputs. Sounded pretty thin tho an not much character, this wasn't much of a problem if using dedicated outboard gear to alter the character of the akai, every bit of outboard has its own sound, either dark, gritty, clean meaty mean etc.

The EMU is 'The D n B' machine due to its heavy and dark sounding bass hence the darkside stuff in 98 an onwards when ppl started to catch on an use the EMU. Anything sounded fat an dark straight out the back of the machine without any external processing.

If u have the money u have both machines. Both are brilliant machines in their own right.

I like the way the akia sounds. But I would us it for low fi kind of sounding drums.

I like my emu on my breaks. The kicks hit right in the gut. And the bass lines I make (patches) sound wicked.

Has this happend to you guys yet. You get this question."How long have you had your emu?"

My reaction is usually a blank stare and my response is; "Ever since I can remember."

snh

ok this kinda fits with what i heard about emus when i was last thinking about buying a sampler (way back in 1999 when i opted for the yamaha a3000 - was way cheaper at the time!).

does anyone know anyone using it for hip hop? i'm guessing that if it sounds good for drum and bass it'll be just as fat for hip hop, but still, worth asking...

The fat boys use a room full of them exclusively.

middleman wrote:does anyone know anyone using it for hip hop? i'm guessing that if it sounds good for drum and bass it'll be just as fat for hip hop, but still, worth asking...

i'm really not that up on it myself, but most of them are convinced that (besides MPCs and SPs) older Ensoniq (EPS-16+, ASR-10 especially) machines are the only way to go as far as hardware samplers. i know some people on the MPC forums use older Akais (s950, etc) as well, i've heard just a couple say they use E-mus. they're pretty slept-on in that regard, but i think there's generally alot of ignorance and 'gotta have what he's got' in that genre...