SP-12 Turbo with MPC 60 and ASR 10/88

It literally is not. Actually if you listen....all three have their own distinct qualities. The EII is a big BEAST. It would be cool have one just to scare girls when they come to the spot. Id probably only use it for sound design if at all tho. .[/quote]


yeah the floppies is kinda a hassle, people come over and they trip out, but I do use it for sound design. mainly basslines keymapped on the bottom of the board and little odds and evens on the top, I prefer it over my s950 for sure. but whats cool about it, is i can sample anything I mean anything into, I sampled a toy Casio Tone Bank board into it and made huge basslines and organ sounds on the EmuII. Its the shit, what can I say, the feel, sound and look of it inspire me, more than any Motif or Fantom. I fuks wit those to.

& Detail, yeah all you really need is the MPC60 for sequencing and a rack sampler for sounds. Of course you can do whole songs on the 60 alone, Ive been known to do that.

Deta!L wrote:what do I start looking for to compliment the 60 and the short sample time etc. ASR, SP12/1200, EMax...?

Short sample time on the 60? What do you plan on sampling? Whole songs? A fully blown 60 has 1.5mb memory. Thats 26 seconds sample time. (52 in compression mode) If you are sampling more than 52 seconds of a song (hip hop), you need to be beat with a WTF? stick. For the record I have never used 26 seconds on the 60 in one song. There are techniques you can use to extend the sampling time if you are sampling from vinyl.

The Emax would give you about 28 more seconds sampling time depending on the sample rate you use. The default I think is 20khz. If you lower it you will get more seconds.

The SP1200 would give you like 10 more seconds sample time.

To add more sample time you could cop an asr 10 (16mb ram) or asr x pro (64mb ram). The 10 has some hidden features that makes it a monster sample chopper to make up for the 16 mb of ram. Depending on what you are doing you can possibly double, triple or quadruple the sample time with it. (Someone else will have to divulge that secret....lol)

If I was going with older gear, id cop the Asr 10. Newer gear? Fantom S, or Motif.

There is so much stuff out there man. When it comes to adding more sample time.... take your pick. Depends on if you need a keyboard or not. Cats are rockin Roland SP-303's, SP-808's, Yamaha SU700's (I had one of these for the last few weeks), Ensoniq EPS, Emax 2's, Akai S950's, S3000's, Kurzweil K2000's, K2500's, all kinds of stuff. Whatever sounds good and gets the job done.

And oh yeah.....those pics are both of the Emax.

cool, yeah I guess sample time isn't that big of a deal. I'd be using it for drums and sequencing mostly...I guess what I'm looking for is something that will let me make dope basslines and other atmospheric fillers to actually create the rest of the song once the drums are laid. something that will let me freak sounds like crazy to get what I want out of them.

really interested in the SP1200 but it's a little out of my range if I finally do cop an MPC 60.

KoolSha178 wrote:& Detail, yeah all you really need is the MPC60 for sequencing and a rack sampler for sounds. Of course you can do whole songs on the 60 alone, Ive been known to do that.

Havent we all. 16 levels man....pure genius. Id suggest the 60 and a keyboard/sampler myself. Even tho my main production tools are the 60 and the Emax Rack. You may get the urge to play a few chords depending on the style of music you are doing. Having a keyboard around increases the versatility of what you can do. Of course if you can get all 3... 60, Rack, and a keyboard (I did ) its gravy.... but it again depends on what you are trying to do.

I got the Emax for drums and basslines, The 60 for sequencing and the keyboard for when I wanna bust a chord progression or 12.

did you get the emax keyboard or something else?



EMU II keyboard?



EMU II rack sampler?

Deta!L wrote:I guess what I'm looking for is something that will let me make dope basslines and other atmospheric fillers to actually create the rest of the song once the drums are laid. something that will let me freak sounds like crazy to get what I want out of them.

Emu products will definately give you some whompin bass. Asr 10 has a nice low end and, really, really, nice efx. If you dont really need keys the ASR X/Pro gives you the ability to do basslines pretty easily and has most of the efx of the ASR 10. (no vocoder? bleh!!!) It also reads wav files.

If you really want to get deep into sound design and synthesis mangle the shit out of some samples, get a Kurzweil. K2000, K2VX. The V.A.S.T. synthesis on that joint is sick. Its so deep.....its just outrageous. Efx arent quite as goond as on the Asr 10 tho.

Id say the best bang for your buck is a ASR 10. Lots of sample time. Great efx. Resampling. SCSI.

cool, so an MPC 60 and an ASR 10 and then maybe in the future a EMAX rack or SP12/1200?

Top pic is the Emmulator II. KoolSha178's baby boy. The bottom is the Emax II. A 16 bit version of the regular Emax with digital instead of analog filters.

I have an Alesis QS6 keyboard. I use it to trigger the Emax Rack basslines, and a controller for whatever softsynth stuff I may mess around with. I may sample a sound or two into the Emax and mangle it when im trying to come up with new sounds... If I didnt already have it..... I wouldve just gotten the Emax Keyboard version or something probably.

Deta!L wrote:cool, so an MPC 60 and an ASR 10 and then maybe in the future a EMAX rack or SP12/1200?

That is a powerful setup. You really arent likely to have any creative limitations with that setup. Add an Emu product later? Sure! LOL why not... Its a classic setup. It has worked and is still working for many.

Keep in mind the 60 doenst have filters so if you want em on drums, you will have to use external analog filters, the eq on your mixer, or stack filtered drums in the ASR 10 on top of the 60's drums. You could also sample into the 10 filter then sample into the 60...if you wanted to.

Damn, heads bustin out the knowledge!

The Emax SE HD is a great machine, always sounds great, gritty, very close to sp territory on drums. I believe the design difference between this and the emulator II is that the EMAX has it all on an E Chip. I think the default sampling rate is 28k, at which you get 18 seconds.

The rack is the only way to go, also you need it HD SE if you want the SCSI. I'm not sure how many come with SCSI installed, since I had to put the connector in the back of mine, but the HD SE is ready once you add the connector and the Plus OS (from floppy, free Download)

the Emax is dope, but if you're just going to have the 60 and something else for a while, and considering you were going to get the 1000, I would suggest you get the MPC 60 and an AKAI S5000 Rack sampler, and some midi keyboard. You can find the S5000's pretty cheap on Ebay 400-600 and can have 256Mb's of sample memory, nice filters, unreal multimode and individual outs. This sampler will clobber the 1000's sampler and won't hold you back in any way. Plus if you get one with the USB option, you can drag and drop wav files from your computer to the sampler without entering a special prone to crashing mode.

THe Emax is great and it is a gem that people should cop if they want that SP sound without getting an SP, it is the closest out of all the Emu sampler IMO. But if you were planning on getting the 60 and something else first, I think this will go the distance for you. Then you can add an emax, or ASR, or whatever as you see fit.

Oh, and I would never get an emax keyboard!! too big!! The emulator II looks fresh and if it was cheap enough and I had somewhere to put it I would grab one just for the SP like sliders and space age look!!

elmacaco wrote:Oh, and I would never get an emax keyboard!! too big!! The emulator II looks fresh and if it was cheap enough and I had somewhere to put it I would grab one just for the SP like sliders and space age look!!

And heavy, where it lands it stays, but gotamn it makes me feel like some sort of sound scientist. All i need is a cauldron and ill be set, word up.

i think id rather the emax than the emax II, i mean if you already have a 60, the emax will give 12 bit, instead of 2 16 bit samplers..

i would go for a sp-12 turbo but i never see them for sale anywhere...

the 60 is 12 bit, do you mean the ASR?

elmacaco wrote:the 60 is 12 bit, do you mean the ASR?

The 60 has 16 bit converters and stores its sounds in 12bit. A lot of people forget about that fact. Maybe he is talkin about the 60's 16 bit converters? *shrugs* I am not really a big 12 bit vs 16 bit person. I just like how the Emax sounds and I like how the 60 is laid out the screen and features.. It could be 3 bit or 100 bit for all I care...lol as long as drums sound juicy on it.

converters, but it samples at 12 bit.