Vintage Sampler's! E-MU Emax Rack VS. Akai MPC-60 VS. Akai S-1000 VS. Enosoniq Mirage

YouTube via peglegjoe857
"So upon request, I made a video that is a collection of vintage samplers, all producing pretty much the same beat but ALL sounding VERY different. I will be doing more of these videos pretty soon, I am sure I am one of the only people out there crazy enough to have this group of machines...

So I sampled a Meters break, "Hey ! Last Minute" Then I sampled myself playing a bass riff and two chords on my Musitronic Wurlitzer. Then I sampled just a fat bass synth resonant filter decay sound from my Akai AX-80. So you can go find that break if you want, but you wont find the rest of the stuff in the track because it is all played live.

So the MPC-60 caught a lot more vinyl scratch and pop than any of the rest of the machines. Don't quite know why that is. The MPC definitely rocks really hard and has groove and whatnot, I love that machine!

The Emax obviously came out darker sounding. It somehow cleaned all that scratch and pop vinyl noise out, and it bumps pretty hard because of it. This machine is my favorite of all my samplers, it definitely does warm things to samples! I sampled at 28K, which is the compromise setting between 10K and 40K.

The Mirage KILLED these sounds. KILLED them, for real. Everybody talks about that SP-1200 stardust... well how bout the Mirage! Who has the balls to be doing Hexadecimal these days! I guess I wanted the grittiest of the gritty, and believe this machine offers just that! 8-bits of dirty filth. Nothing I sample into this thing ever sounds quite right?!? I love it. I had to sample with a setting of 40... I don't quite know how that translates in sample rate, but know that it is VERY low. I think the least it can be is 30, and the most is 99... so 40 is pretty close to the bottom! And even setting it that low still didn't provide all the time I needed to cram all those samples in there, so some got cut short. But it sure did make some crazy noise, I actually ended up enjoying what the Mirage sound a whole lot. It definitely does certain sounds really well and would slip into a mix nicely with one of my other samplers taking on other duties. I would say it is perfect for short samples that can be pretty dirty, like one shots, or short bass lines and stabs. It definitely took the longest to program!

The Akai S-1000 was definitely the cleanest... and that's why I got it! It was a breeze to program, but frankly not as quick as the MPC or the Emax (Probably because these two have less things to program!) Not much else to say about the machine, it accurately does it's job!

I have also owned the S-2000, S-900, and Emax Keyboard, and have also spent a lot of time with my friends S-3000. I wound up with my collection of these 4 machines because I feel they cover all bases. Somebody one a forum said "get one sampler that is 12-bit and dirty, and one that is 16-bit and clean... and you will have covered all bases". Well, for me to be satisfied I had to have at least all 4 or these. The MPC-60 and the Emax are VERY different 12-bit samplers with VERY different characteristics. Listen to the god damn video! The MPC sounds more like the S-1000! I had gone dirty with the Emax, but wanted even dirtier, something nobody else would be willing to do. In walks Mirage, an 8-bit sampler that actually has a ton of analog features, can store several (16) samples at a time, and has adequate time do function. From the specs I have read, it has a similar amount of time to the SP-1200. When you sample at a higher sample rate, know this machine DOES actually clean up a bit. The S-1000, though, does NOT get dirty.

So with all these machines, they each have a very specific characteristic that they impose on whatever is sampled into them. As I mentioned, I will be doing some more videos soon so you can hear that characteristic more fully, as well as show off their filter sounds and other features. The Emax and Mirage make GREAT melotron type instruments because of their filters!"