Samplers / Sampling

Three years ago Paul Wiffen concluded that Akai had brought the concept of the sampling drum machine up to date with the MPC2000. Now he takes a look at its successor to see how much more you get when you XL.

Billed as the most afordable Emulator yet, the E5000 Ultra is Emu's new contender in the middleweight professional sampler stakes — and it's a force to be reckoned with.

Is it a synth, a sequencer or a sampler? The answer to all three questions is an emphatic 'yes', as Paul White finds out when he takes the E4XT Ultra into his studio.

The SU700, Yamaha's entry into the 'groove sampler' stakes, is derived from their A3000 studio sampler and inherits some of its sibling's most impressive features — including adventurous effects and imaginative sample-manipulation facilities — while adding quite a few tricks of its own. Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser go loopy.

Norm Leete waxes lyrical about the mega-synth that introduced sampling to the world back in 1980 and went on to appear on innumerable hit singles and albums.

Philip Meehan fondly remembers his first love — a keyboard with the voice of an angel, the mind of a genius, and the body of a heavyweight boxer in a big black coat.

Paul White and Paul Joyner explain how to import samples directly to your Mac from an audio CD with Logic Audio — a technique which can be adapted for use with most popular MIDI + Audio sequencers.

Akai samplers, in their familiar off‑white rackmount cases, have become fixtures in studios all over the world. Their latest models may use the same colour scheme, but they offer an entirely new user interface and a host of powerful new features.

Derek Johnson & Debbie Poyser check out a product which offers up to four minutes of sample time, 22 different effects, audio processing and resampling facilities — for £199. If you'd been reading this only a few years ago , you'd have assumed that some digits had been missed off the price...

Even the more basic sound-manipulation tools offered by most samplers can lead a safe sample into a world of weirdness. Nicholas Rowland reverses, stretches, bends and loops, all in the interests of sampling science...