the emulator II

E-mu Emulator II+ (supersized picture, frontpanel decals can be read).

Released commercially in 1984 to huge acclaim, the Emulator II (or EII) was E-mu's second sampler. Like the Emulator I, it was an 8-bit sampler, however it had superior fidelity to the Emulator I due to the use of digital companding and a 27.7 kHz sample rate. It also allowed more flexibility in editing and shaping sounds as resonant analog filters were added and it had vastly better real time control.
It was priced similarly to the Emulator I, at US$7,995 for a regular model, and $9,995 for a "plus" model featuring extra sample memory. Several upgrades, including a second floppy drive, a 20 MB hard drive, and a 512K memory upgrade were available as well. Despite its price tag it was still considered very good value compared to the Fairlight CMI Series II.

The Emulator II has a very unique sound due to its DPCM mu-255 companding, the divider-based variable sample-rate principle and analog output stages featuring SSM2045 24 dB/oct analog 4-pole low pass resonant filters. Equivalent output stages in modern samplers perform similar functions purely in the digital domain and many argue that some of the magic is lost. It is due to this special sound that the EII is becoming increasingly sought after by vintage music gear enthusiasts.

Several highly respected OEM and 3rd party sample libraries were developed for the Emulator II including a multitude of superb orchestral sounds. An excellent demo of the library sounds can be found on Youtube (link). Famous samples include the Shakuhachi flute used by Peter Gabriel in "Sledgehammer" and on Enigma MCMXC a.D. Also, the male choir sound on New Order's "Blue Monday" and the Marcato Strings heard on so many 80's records including Pet Shop Boys' "West End Girls", in fact, every single sound on that track was made with an Emulator II (ref: Pet Shop Boys interview on "Synth Britannia" BBC4, 16 Oct 2009 Youtube clip).

The Emulator II was very popular with many other famous artists in the 80's such as early adopter Stevie Wonder, it was used extensively by Constance Demby, Depeche Mode, Talking Heads, ABC, Tears for Fears, Genesis, Marillion, Paul McCartney, David Bowie, Herbie Hancock, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Jean-Michel Jarre, Yes, Whitesnake, OMD, Dire Straits, Stevie Nicks, Mr. Mister, Ultravox and many more. The list is far from complete as it became the staple sampler of just about every recording studio who could afford one in the 80's and thus was used on a multitude of albums at the time.

It was used for a number of film scores too such as the Terminator 2: Judgment Day score by Brad Fiedel, also used by Michael Kamen on a lot of his film scores such as Lethal Weapon and Highlander and John Carpenter used it for his films too in the 80's. It even featured in the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off, we see Ferris using the Emulator II to play sounds of coughing, then vomiting, in order to feign illness on the phone.

In the 2000's the Emulator II has risen in popularity due to the 80's pop culture resurgence and new artists wishing to revive the 80's Emulator-based sound (Example demo tune). Prices for rare functioning units have gone up, and websites selling the original floppies have emerged, such as (EmulatorII.com)