|
|
 Emulator IV : Overview
Power Rack
The Emulator IV "Professional Digital Sampling System" was a major step forward in the Emulator story, and a return to form for E-mu Systems. It was announced at the 1994 San Francisco AES Convention,
and it shipped in December 1994. The EIV featured 128 voice polyphony and up to 128 MB of sample memory. The hardware was based on E-mu's latest generation very large scale integration (VLSI)
technology, including 128 6th order digital resonant filters, complete compatibility with Emulator IIIx, Emax II and Akai S1000/1100 sound libraries, re-sampling capabilities, load while play function, audition from
disk, and graphic wave form editing on a new icon-based 240 x 64 LCD.
Expansion The Emulator IV offered expandability through expansion ports designed to accept a variety of optional upgrade cards available
from Emu. The initial EIV was launched with 8 MB of RAM at a retail price in the US of $5,995.
Memory The Emulator IV accommodates up to 128 MB of sample memory via factory or user-installable RAM SIMM's. A new innovation
was the implementation of up to 32 MB of Flash RAM as an option. A non-volatile and writable memory type, Flash RAM allows instant access to samples at power on - this feature is particularly useful for
live use. The Flash RAM is expensive though, and the total combined memory size can not exceed 128 MB in the early models.
Reviews The EIV immediately got rave reviews for its advanced
features and high quality sound, even though it was a high end sampler.
 Baby E64
A smaller and cheaper version of the EIV was introduced to provide a medium cost sampler. The E64 can only expand up to 64MB of RAM and it is limited
initially to 64 voices. It also has no expansion slots , unless they are fitted as a factory upgrade.
 Keyboard Version A 6 octave keyboard version of the
Emulator IV (the E4K) was announced at Winter NAMM
1996. This was available in either 64 or 128 voices.
|
|
|
|
Models There were seven models of the EIV family, either in 3U racks or as a 6 octave keyboard. The
first model was announced in 1994, and the final models discontinued gradually during 1999.
Important Model Differences The EIV range of samplers has two basic design differences. The early models (EIV, E64) did not
have upgradable voice capability, and they use 30 pin SIMM's. The later models (E4X, E6400, E4K) have a different mainboard which can take a 64 voice upgrade and uses 72 pin SIMM's
 Options The EIV family has a wide range of options,
from additional memory, flash memory voices, internal
16 bit effects board, ASCII connector for a keyboard
and a second MIDI channel. more »
SCSI A range of external (and internal) SCSI drives can be used
with the EIV family, from CDROM's to hard disks and MO drives. However be careful, not all drives will work.
E- Synth There are E-Synth models of the Emulator IV which have the addition of a 16M byte ROM full of ready made sounds. This ROM is separately available to upgrade all EIV family members
(with EOS 3.2 or higher). more »
Ultracize The later EIV family members (E4X, E6400, and E-Synth Rack) can be upgraded to full Ultra status with EOS 4.0. more »
|
|
|
