Akai S950 - Is it worth it ?

Nah Tbiggs, it was Dave Rossum, Emu Genius that designed the filter chips that were used in the SP and many other synths like early Prophet 5's and the Korg Poly 6.

Lo Pass, I think the SP is emulatable with an emulator ii

The Emulator II doesn't sound much like the SP to my ears.

I know about Dave Rossum and co... No doubt Dave is a bright guy and all... kind of a Steve Jobs of the silicon-for-music industry.. but most of what people call Dave Rossum's genius seems rooted in what came naturally out of his engineering background. I don't think Dave Rossum did anything to his filters to make them particularly appealling to hip hop producers on purpose... (ARMadillo coefficients and all..)

Other than that, he was basically doing first-to-market type stuff...
So marketing genius.. perhaps. Technically though, there's many other guys in the fold whose names rarely get mentioned (like me! ).

I mean, how often do we sing the praises of Jon Dattoro?

Ok, I obviously need to be schooled on these guys you are talking about. The SSM was pretty ingenius, Started the whole musical filter on a chip thing IIRC, and he had to have something to do with the innovative products they released, right? An EE is hardly a good figurehead.
But I'm listening!!

IMHO Dave Rossum was a Biology major with a big brain and good execution.

He might be a genius, but I'm not convinced that genius was required to design a filter chip (but i'm young too, and silicon has changed a lot).

Jon Dattoro designed algorithms in the Ensoniq DP4 effects processor, which is so often linked to the ASR10 effects engine. Just google his name and all his AES publications are on his webpage.

The technical side of this stuff is interesting enough with many masters. For a good introduction, check Hal Chamberlain's great book on computer music from the 1980's... I think he went on to contract for the Kurzweil K2000. That's a book I still like to look over. Can't remember the exact name though.. Musical Applications of Microprocessors I think.

... I'm rambling.

Yeah, but there is something to be said about being the first, isn't there?

Sure there is. Dave Rossum and E-mu made some great machines. No doubt. I can't sell the EIII or the SP.

Emulator II sounds nothing like the sp12(00). EMAX I sounds a lot like the sp12(00) though.

I think the best combination would be:

mpc-60 = s900/950
sp12 turbo / 1200 = emax I rack or keyboard
Asr 10 / Eps 16+

from emulator archive...

"Emulate the Emulator The Emax is essentially a complete replication of the Emulator II using custom E-mu chips instead of standard off the shelf silicon chips. This new engineering increased reliability, and reduced the cost of manufacture. The sample resolution was the same 12-bits companded into 8-bits of memory, the samples were still monophonic, but the maximum sample rate was increased to 42kHz."

Emax - 12bit 42kHz 512K
Emu2 - 8bit 27.7kHz 1MB
SP12 - 12bit 27.5kHz 192K
Sp1200 12bit 26.040kHz 384K

In reality though there is nothing that can quite emulate the sound of the SP1200 except the SP12 but the Emulator II is unique, what other 8bit sampler has 1MB ram?

Tbiggz got the emulator III (3) which I think may be the only 16 bit sampler with analog filters, very prized piece by those who have it, not for SP ness though. The emulator II should have a sound very close to the SP, since the SP was based on i's technology, I think they list the Emulator II as 8 bit but it has 14 bit playback, it's that compounded thing emu did, so it seems to average out to 12.

The EMII looks like an oversized SP12. Same blue casing, 5 1/4" floppies, same sliders, same buttons, same style screen. No one has mentioned the HD model though.

yeah, just to be clear, the EIII is not like the SP at all. It's nice nonetheless for any sound, and as far as I'm concerned, makes the ASR10 sound like dirt. I hope noone thought I was comparing the SP to the EIII.

I've used an EII (the big one) before in around 95/96 and thought it would sound like an SP back then. Not close even. It's way more smooth sounding and complex. It's easy to program in classic E-mu fashion.. and it's a great sounding machine overall.

If you dontmind going into it, What advantages does the EII have over the Sp's and the emax?

Hey El. If you meant for me to respond on the EII science, I'm afraid I only used it when a friend of mine had it. I made a few cuts on it and remembered how warm it sounded but I never became "fluent" with it.

I hear ya.