The Emulator

Finally released in 1982, the Emulator was a floppy disk-based keyboard workstation which enabled the musician to sample sounds, recording them to non-volatile media and allowing the samples to be played back as musical notes on the keyboard. The 5 1/4" floppy disk drive enabled the owner to build a library of samples and share them with others, or buy pre-recorded libraries on disk.


It was a very basic 8-bit sampler - it only had a simple filter, and only allowed for a single loop. The initial model did not even include a VCA envelope generator. It came in three forms: A two-voice model (only one of these was ever sold), a four-voice model, and an eight-voice model. When the original Emulator was turned on it was split. It was designed to be played in split mode, so playing the same sound on the full keyboard required loading up the same sound floppy disk in each drive.


Stevie Wonder, who gave the sampler a glowing review at the 1981 NAMM convention, received the very first unit (serial number "001"). Originally 001 was promised to Daryl Dragon of Captain & Tennille, because Daryl had been a loyal E-mu modular system owner for a long time before that. On the other hand, Stevie at the time had a slightly larger name-recognition value. In 1982, the Emulator was updated to include a VCA envelope generator and a simple sequencer, and the price was lowered. Approximately 500 units were sold before the unit was discontinued in late 1983.