ESI-32 Rack Sampler

The ESI-32 is an excellent polyphonic sampler for any musician at any level. It offers all of the same sampler-type features and goodies that you would find in other Akai and Roland samplers. Its base model is perfect for anybody looking to get into sample-based music and is designed to grow and expand with you into a complete and professional sampler.

The standard ESI-32 comes with 2 MB of RAM (about 11 seconds at 44.1kHz stereo), 32 voices polyphony, 16 MIDI multitimbral parts, built-in 3.5" disk drive, extensive editing features and an easy to use interface. Sampling can be in any combination of Left, Right or Stereo in, at 44,100 or 22,050 Hz. Auto looping, truncating, triggered sampling and auto key placement functions make sampling fun and easy. Editing features include truncating, loop editing, gain, reverse, taper, DC filter, stereo/mono, tuning, compressing, Para-EQ, time comp/exp, pitch shift, Doppler, exciter and transform multiply (harmonic sample morphing) as well as a host of envelope, filter, velocity and MIDI effects.

When that's not enough anymore you can easily upgrade the ESI-32 with user-installable parts from E-mu. Increase the RAM up to 32 MB for very extended (up to 6 minutes) sample times. Replace the disk drive with an internal ZIP or hard disk. Install the external SCSI card for external drives or computer interfacing with ReCycle and some Sequencers. The Turbo Expansion kit offers the greatest bang for the buck. You get two on-board effect processors with reverb, delay, chorus and distortion. Up to 8 outputs are made available. The VCF filter section has several awesome filter algorithms for filter sweeping or tweaking loops and sounds. The professional purists can add the Digital I/O card for digital sample input and main output. The ESI-32 is without a doubt the easiest to use, customizable, upgradeable and professional sampler perfect for anybody who is thinking about sample-based music. It is used by Daft Punk, Ixy InDaMix, and Somatic Responses as well as many, many more.

My E-Mu ESI32 that I got for a steal on E-bay arrived yesterday. It came with 32mb SCSI port, it has been upgraded to the 3.02 OS and has an external SCSI CD rom drive. 6 disks (3 banks) Orchestral, Rhythum, Stereo Grand Piano. The Orchestral disk 1 has a crc error and will not load. The others work fine. Also included a CD from Greytsounds. A best of Vol 1 I think. I looked it up and the price for the CD is more than twic what I paid for the unit.

Do you recomed replacing the floppy with a HD, if so what HD will fit, does the internal controller have the socket for the IDE cable or are we talking an internal SCSI? If the latter does the Internal SCSI interface have an interenal connecor? This step is probably not necessary as I plan on dedicating an old PC I have to it, but I'd like to max the thing out as far as I can.

Are upgrades still available from E-Mu since it's out of production? I have not been able to find the Turbo upgrade for my XL1, only complete units and having already bought the XL1 (which I love it's what sold me on E-Mu) I would rather sell it and buy an XL7 before buying another XL! Turbo, but If I could get the upgrade I'd do that.

JRG