E-mu Systems
Encyclopedia
E-mu Systems, Inc. is a synthesizer
maker and pioneer in samplers
and low-cost digital sampling
music workstation
s.
, that were used by both E-mu and many other synthesizer companies. In 1979 E-mu released the Audity
, their first non-modular synthesizer. With a price of $69,200 (over $200,000 in 2009 terms when adjusted for inflation
) only one machine was ever produced. In this same year, Wedge and Rossum saw the Fairlight CMI
at a convention and set about making a less expensive sampler. The Emulator
debuted in 1981 at a list price of $7,900, less than the $30,000 Fairlight.
Following the Emulator II and III, the company also began producing a line of rackmount modules called the E-mu Proteus
, containing pre-recorded samples in ROM
. At its introduction, the Proteus had a relatively large library of high-quality samples priced much lower than the competition. In 1987, E-mu's SP-1200
drum sampler offered an "all-in-one" box for sequencing not only drum sounds, but looping samples, and it quickly became the instrument of choice for hip-hop
producers. In 1993 E-mu was acquired by Creative Technology
(the Singaporean parent company of Creative Labs) and began working on PC soundcard synthesis. Throughout the 1990s E-mu made many different rackmount keyboard-less synthesizers. In 1998, E-mu was combined with Ensoniq
, another Creative Technology acquisition.
In 2001 the Proteus line of modules was repackaged in the form of a line of tabletop units, the XL7 and MP7 Command Stations, which featured 128-voice polyphony, advanced synthesis features, and a versatile multitrack sequencer. A complementary line of keyboard synthesizers was also released using the same technology. Subsequent products from E-mu were exclusively in software form.
In 2004 E-mu released the Emulator X
, a PC-based version of its hardware samplers with extended synthesis capabilities. While a PCI
card is used for audio input and output, the algorithms no longer run on dedicated hardware but in software on the PC. Proteus X
, a software-based sample player was released in 2005.
E-Mu is based on Green Hills Road in Scotts Valley, CA, a Silicon Beach offshoot of Silicon Valley
. Notably, Green Hills Road hosts and hosted many other Silicon Beach high tech companies including Borland
, FREDNET, NaviSite
, OC96 Networks, RainMaker, Seagate Technology
, and Thuridion.
product until the 1616 and 1616M were released (A PCI version of the 1616/M later followed). All of the cards have drivers for Microsoft Windows
2000
and up (32- and 64-bit). Apple Macintosh support appeared to be pending, but may have been affected by Apple's migration towards Intel.
While the core DSP chip (EMU10K2) of the cards is the same one designed by E-MU and used in Creative's Sound Blaster
Audigy2 cards (and hence capable of 24-bit 192 kHz PCM
sound), official press releases for the E-MU sound cards have emphasized Creative's lack of input on the design, and the in-house development of the cards and drivers — that is, they wanted to distinguish their "own" series from Creative's signature Sound Blasters. Notably, the cards and drivers entirely omit internal wavetable
MIDI synthesis, Creative's proprietary EAX
sound routines and basically anything commonly associated with the parent company. Although the cards were rushed into market and originally came bundled with fairly raw drivers (which have subsequently received periodical major improvements and even additions beyond the advertised specifications), they have generally met with rather favourable reviews.
Synthesizer
A synthesizer is an electronic instrument capable of producing sounds by generating electrical signals of different frequencies. These electrical signals are played through a loudspeaker or set of headphones...
maker and pioneer in samplers
Sampler (musical instrument)
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
and low-cost digital sampling
Sampling (music)
In music, sampling is the act of taking a portion, or sample, of one sound recording and reusing it as an instrument or a different sound recording of a song or piece. Sampling was originally developed by experimental musicians working with musique concrète and electroacoustic music, who physically...
music workstation
Music workstation
A music workstation is an electronic musical instrument providing the facilities of:*a sound module,*a music sequencer and* a musical keyboard.It enables a musician to compose electronic music using just one piece of equipment.-History:...
s.
History
Founded in 1971 by Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum, E-mu began making modular synthesizers. During this time they also created the digital scanning keyboard (1973) and with Solid State Microtechnologies developed several synthesizer module IC chipsIntegrated circuit
An integrated circuit or monolithic integrated circuit is an electronic circuit manufactured by the patterned diffusion of trace elements into the surface of a thin substrate of semiconductor material...
, that were used by both E-mu and many other synthesizer companies. In 1979 E-mu released the Audity
E-mu Audity
The E-mu Audity was a digitally controlled, analog synthesizer made in 1978. It was inspired by Tangerine Dream's Peter Baumann, and eventually evolved into a state-of-the-art, 16-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with an included digital keyboard and sequencer that was intended to compete with...
, their first non-modular synthesizer. With a price of $69,200 (over $200,000 in 2009 terms when adjusted for inflation
Inflation
In economics, inflation is a rise in the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy over a period of time.When the general price level rises, each unit of currency buys fewer goods and services. Consequently, inflation also reflects an erosion in the purchasing power of money – a...
) only one machine was ever produced. In this same year, Wedge and Rossum saw the Fairlight CMI
Fairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI is a digital sampling synthesizer. It was designed in 1979 by the founders of Fairlight, Peter Vogel and Kim Ryrie, and based on a dual-6800 microprocessor computer designed by Tony Furse in Sydney, Australia...
at a convention and set about making a less expensive sampler. The Emulator
E-mu Emulator
The Emulator is the name given to a series of disk-based digital sampling keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1982 until 1990. Though not the first commercial sampler, the Emulator was among the first to find wide use among ordinary musicians, due to its relatively low price and its size,...
debuted in 1981 at a list price of $7,900, less than the $30,000 Fairlight.
Following the Emulator II and III, the company also began producing a line of rackmount modules called the E-mu Proteus
E-mu Proteus
The E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured in the late twentieth century.-History:E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable Emulator sampler, and subsequently pioneered sample-based synthesis technology with the Proteus...
, containing pre-recorded samples in ROM
Read-only memory
Read-only memory is a class of storage medium used in computers and other electronic devices. Data stored in ROM cannot be modified, or can be modified only slowly or with difficulty, so it is mainly used to distribute firmware .In its strictest sense, ROM refers only...
. At its introduction, the Proteus had a relatively large library of high-quality samples priced much lower than the competition. In 1987, E-mu's SP-1200
E-mu SP-1200
E-mu SP-1200 is a classic drum machine and sampler released in August 1987 by E-mu Systems, Inc. as an update of the SP-12, which was originally created for dance music producers...
drum sampler offered an "all-in-one" box for sequencing not only drum sounds, but looping samples, and it quickly became the instrument of choice for hip-hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
producers. In 1993 E-mu was acquired by Creative Technology
Creative Technology
Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singapore-based global company headquartered in Jurong East, Singapore. The principal activities of the company and its subsidiaries consist of the design, manufacture and distribution of digitized sound and video boards, computers and related multimedia, and personal...
(the Singaporean parent company of Creative Labs) and began working on PC soundcard synthesis. Throughout the 1990s E-mu made many different rackmount keyboard-less synthesizers. In 1998, E-mu was combined with Ensoniq
Ensoniq
Ensoniq Corp. was an American electronics manufacturer, best known throughout the mid 1980s and 1990s for its musical instruments, principally samplers and synthesizers.- Company history :...
, another Creative Technology acquisition.
In 2001 the Proteus line of modules was repackaged in the form of a line of tabletop units, the XL7 and MP7 Command Stations, which featured 128-voice polyphony, advanced synthesis features, and a versatile multitrack sequencer. A complementary line of keyboard synthesizers was also released using the same technology. Subsequent products from E-mu were exclusively in software form.
In 2004 E-mu released the Emulator X
E-mu Emulator X
E-mu Emulator X is a software-based audio sampler produced by E-mu Systems.The sampling software runs on a PC running the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. For the software to run, a particular soundcard used to be required...
, a PC-based version of its hardware samplers with extended synthesis capabilities. While a PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...
card is used for audio input and output, the algorithms no longer run on dedicated hardware but in software on the PC. Proteus X
E-mu Proteus X
E-MU Proteus X is a Virtual Sound Module produced by E-MU Systems that is a software-based audio sample-based synthesis product that includes the complete library soundset of the popular and legacy Proteus 2000 MIDI Module, as well as additional sounds/samples....
, a software-based sample player was released in 2005.
E-Mu is based on Green Hills Road in Scotts Valley, CA, a Silicon Beach offshoot of Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley
Silicon Valley is a term which refers to the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area in Northern California in the United States. The region is home to many of the world's largest technology corporations...
. Notably, Green Hills Road hosts and hosted many other Silicon Beach high tech companies including Borland
Borland
Borland Software Corporation is a software company first headquartered in Scotts Valley, California, Cupertino, California and finally Austin, Texas. It is now a Micro Focus subsidiary. It was founded in 1983 by Niels Jensen, Ole Henriksen, Mogens Glad and Philippe Kahn.-The 1980s:...
, FREDNET, NaviSite
NaviSite
NaviSite, a Time Warner Cable Company, is a provider of complex hosting, application management and managed cloud services for enterprises, founded in 1997. NaviSite provides a suite of managed services, including Application Services, Enterprise Hosting, and Managed Cloud Services for enterprises...
, OC96 Networks, RainMaker, Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology
Seagate Technology is one of the world's largest manufacturers of hard disk drives. Incorporated in 1978 as Shugart Technology, Seagate is currently incorporated in Dublin, Ireland and has its principal executive offices in Scotts Valley, California, United States.-1970s:On November 1, 1979...
, and Thuridion.
Non-Creative sound cards
During 2003-2007, E-mu designed and published a series of high-fidelity "Digital Audio Systems" (computer sound cards), intended for professional, semi-professional and computer audio enthusiast use. They were released under the name E-MU, however bearing a "Creative Professional" label. The card names are number-coded for the amount of physical inputs and outputs: 0404, 1212m, 1616, 1616m, 1820 and 1820m, where 1616 is a CardBus version and the rest for PCI, while "m" denotes extra high-quality analogue outputs and inputs. The 1820m was touted as the series' flagshipFlagship
A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, reflecting the custom of its commander, characteristically a flag officer, flying a distinguishing flag...
product until the 1616 and 1616M were released (A PCI version of the 1616/M later followed). All of the cards have drivers for Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
2000
Windows 2000
Windows 2000 is a line of operating systems produced by Microsoft for use on personal computers, business desktops, laptops, and servers. Windows 2000 was released to manufacturing on 15 December 1999 and launched to retail on 17 February 2000. It is the successor to Windows NT 4.0, and is the...
and up (32- and 64-bit). Apple Macintosh support appeared to be pending, but may have been affected by Apple's migration towards Intel.
While the core DSP chip (EMU10K2) of the cards is the same one designed by E-MU and used in Creative's Sound Blaster
Sound Blaster
The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95, which standardized the programming interface at application level , and the evolution in PC design led to onboard...
Audigy2 cards (and hence capable of 24-bit 192 kHz PCM
Pulse-code modulation
Pulse-code modulation is a method used to digitally represent sampled analog signals. It is the standard form for digital audio in computers and various Blu-ray, Compact Disc and DVD formats, as well as other uses such as digital telephone systems...
sound), official press releases for the E-MU sound cards have emphasized Creative's lack of input on the design, and the in-house development of the cards and drivers — that is, they wanted to distinguish their "own" series from Creative's signature Sound Blasters. Notably, the cards and drivers entirely omit internal wavetable
Wavetable synthesis
Wavetable synthesis is used in certain digital music synthesizers to implement a restricted form of real-time additive synthesis. The technique was first developed by Wolfgang Palm of PPG in the late 1970s and published in 1979, and has since been used as the primary synthesis method in...
MIDI synthesis, Creative's proprietary EAX
Environmental audio extensions
The environmental audio extensions are a number of digital signal processing presets for audio, present in Creative Technology's later Sound Blaster sound cards and the Creative NOMAD/Creative ZEN product lines...
sound routines and basically anything commonly associated with the parent company. Although the cards were rushed into market and originally came bundled with fairly raw drivers (which have subsequently received periodical major improvements and even additions beyond the advertised specifications), they have generally met with rather favourable reviews.
Timeline of major products
| 1989 - Proteus 1 (Pop/Rock) | |
| 1994 - ProteusFX | |
| 1997 - Plannet Phatt (Hip-Hop) 1996 - Orbit (Techno/Electronica) |
|
| 1996 - Launch-Pad controller for Orbit |
|
| 1998 - E-mu Proteus 2000 | |
| 2000 - Xtreme Lead-1 (Techno/Electronica) 2000 - Mo'Phatt (Hip-Hop) 2002 - Turbo Phatt (Hip-Hop) |
|
| 2001 - E-mu PK-6 (Pop/Rock) |
- 1973 - E-mu Modular SystemE-mu Modular SystemThe E-mu Modular System is an analog modular synthesizer built by E-mu Systems in the early 1970s. It competed with synthesizers such as the ARP 2500, ARP 2600, and Moog modular synthesizers, although E-mu designed the instruments for mostly universities and notable musicians who submitted custom...
- 1979 - AudityE-mu AudityThe E-mu Audity was a digitally controlled, analog synthesizer made in 1978. It was inspired by Tangerine Dream's Peter Baumann, and eventually evolved into a state-of-the-art, 16-voice polyphonic analog synthesizer with an included digital keyboard and sequencer that was intended to compete with...
- 1981 - EmulatorE-mu EmulatorThe Emulator is the name given to a series of disk-based digital sampling keyboards manufactured by E-mu Systems from 1982 until 1990. Though not the first commercial sampler, the Emulator was among the first to find wide use among ordinary musicians, due to its relatively low price and its size,...
- 1983 - Drumulator
- 1984 - Emulator II
- 1985 - E-mu SP-12 Drum SamplerE-mu SP-12E-mu SP-12 12 also known as the “sampling drum computer” was designed in 1985 and widely released in 1986 by E-mu Systems. Although the SP-12 was quickly superseded by the more powerful SP-1200, the SP-12 is often regarded as the first commercially successful drum machine and sampler.-History:The...
- 1986 - EmaxE-mu EmaxThe Emax was a line of samplers, developed, manufactured, and sold by E-mu Systems from 1986 to 1995. Sold alongside their more expensive Emulator II and III samplers, the Emax line was conceived after the release of the Akai S-612 and Sequential Prophet 2000, and was designed to compete for the...
- 1987 - Emulator III
- 1987 - E-mu SP-1200 Drum SamplerE-mu SP-1200E-mu SP-1200 is a classic drum machine and sampler released in August 1987 by E-mu Systems, Inc. as an update of the SP-12, which was originally created for dance music producers...
- 1989 - Proteus 1E-mu ProteusThe E-mu Proteus was a range of digital sound modules and keyboards manufactured in the late twentieth century.-History:E-mu Systems came to prominence in the early 1980s with their relatively affordable Emulator sampler, and subsequently pioneered sample-based synthesis technology with the Proteus...
- 1993 - Morpheus
- 1994 - Emulator IV / e 64
- 1998 - Proteus 2000
- 1998 - E-mu APS (Audio Production Studio)
- 1999 - E4 Ultra Samplers
- 2001- XL7/MP7 Command Stations
- 2003 - PCI Digital Audio Systems
- 2004 - Emulator XE-mu Emulator XE-mu Emulator X is a software-based audio sampler produced by E-mu Systems.The sampling software runs on a PC running the Microsoft Windows XP operating system. For the software to run, a particular soundcard used to be required...
- 2005 - CardBus Digital Audio Systems
- 2006 - Emulator X2
- 2006 - E-mu Xboard 25, 49, 61
- 2006 - E-mu Proteus XE-mu Proteus XE-MU Proteus X is a Virtual Sound Module produced by E-MU Systems that is a software-based audio sample-based synthesis product that includes the complete library soundset of the popular and legacy Proteus 2000 MIDI Module, as well as additional sounds/samples....
- 2007 - Digital Sound FactoryDigital Sound FactoryDigital Sound Factory is a sound design company that creates sound libraries, known as SoundFont libraries, for playback on synthesizers and computers compatible with Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, Propellerheads Reason, Steinberg Halion, Native Instruments Kontakt, Apple Garageband, Apple...
acquires Proteus and Emulator sound library licenses - 2007 - Digital Sound FactoryDigital Sound FactoryDigital Sound Factory is a sound design company that creates sound libraries, known as SoundFont libraries, for playback on synthesizers and computers compatible with Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, Propellerheads Reason, Steinberg Halion, Native Instruments Kontakt, Apple Garageband, Apple...
remasters original Proteus and Emulator sound libraries - 2009 - E-mu PIPEline Digital Wireless Transmitter and Receiver System
- 2010 - E-mu longboard 61, shortboard 49 wireless performance keyboards
See also
- Digital Sound FactoryDigital Sound FactoryDigital Sound Factory is a sound design company that creates sound libraries, known as SoundFont libraries, for playback on synthesizers and computers compatible with Steinberg Cubase, Cakewalk Sonar, Propellerheads Reason, Steinberg Halion, Native Instruments Kontakt, Apple Garageband, Apple...
(company) - SamplerSampler (musical instrument)A sampler is an electronic musical instrument similar in some respects to a synthesizer but, instead of generating sounds, it uses recordings of sounds that are loaded or recorded into it by the user and then played back by means of a keyboard, sequencer or other triggering device to perform or...
- Polyphony (instrument)Polyphony (instrument)Polyphony Instruments that are not capable of polyphony are monophonic.-Synthesizer:Most of early synthesizers were monophonic musical instruments which can play only one note at a time, and are often called monosynth as opposed to polysynth...
- Curtis CEMCurtis CEMCurtis CEM chips are analog chips used in many synthesizers.Curtis Electromusic Specialties, founded by Doug Curtis , developed a family of signal-processing products for electronic music synthesizers and audio equipment.-SSM and CEM:Chips List...
- Oberheim Electronics
- Sequential CircuitsSequential CircuitsSequential Circuits Inc. was a California-based synthesizer company that was founded in the early 1970s by Dave Smith and sold to Yamaha Corporation in 1987. The company, throughout its lifespan, pioneered many groundbreaking technologies and design principles that are often taken for granted in...