EMU SP-12 Systems Inc Sampling Percussion/TURBO/VERS 2.6 w/1541 drive & Discs

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Uploaded on Nov 3, 2014 David Grant

via this auction

SN 992

"This is the Turbo version 2.6 and I'm also including the Commodore 1541 disc drive with all my discs of sounds (5.25 discs). I also am including the Drum File software for the SP-12 and Apple Macintosh computer, so if you have access to an old Mac you can use it create and edit all of your sound libraries, sound files & sequences, and take advantage of the faster midi data transfers. I'm also including the 3.5 floppy discs (13 discs) for Drum File which pretty much mirror the 5.25 floppy discs for the 1541.
Just to list a few of the discs, they include sounds from:

Roland TR 727
Roland TR 808
Kurzweil Drums
DMX Drums
Rock Kits
Yes Drums

This machine will also generate and read SMPTE.


Some minor things that I can mention is that it needs a new battery (about $11 online). So when you turn the unit on you have to do a reset sound command, and you'll have it at the factory sounds which is banks 1,2,3. Bank 4 will be empty. You can then load in sounds from the discs (I've been testing it out and that is the procedure). I've never replaced the battery but it's been a good 13 years since I've used this machine. The battery that is in it had to have lasted at least 12 years. The other thing that I can mention is that the Display backlight will flicker sometimes when you are tapping the pads but you can still read the display even when the backlight is off. From what I've read, that could also be related to the battery, but I'm not sure. Other than that, it is working great. I've loaded in sounds and sequences from some of the discs with no problems. I'm sure that some of the discs will be bad, but again they are over 25 years old so it's not a surprise that some may not load (and I'd rather not put the wear & tear on the drive to see which ones will load - you can have them all and go from there). Probably the 3.5 floppy discs would still be good, but I don't have any way to run Drum File to check.

Also, as you can see from the pics, I had this habit of putting little masking tape strips on and marking which note corresponded to each drum pad. I didn't peel the tape off prior to me not using it for so long. t tried taking these tape pieces off, but after so many years the tape won't just peel off nicely like it did for me 25 years ago. I tried to clean a couple of them off but decided that it would be better to let the next person handle that if they so desired, as using a paper towel and some cleaner/alcohol marred the surface in a couple places (you'll see that on the close up of the buttons). Other than that, this SP-12 is in pretty darn good cosmetic shape.

Another cool thing is that you can swap sounds around on the pads so that you can actually have custom sounds loaded in place of the Factory sounds. So depending on the size of the sounds you are loading, you could completely replace the factory sounds. The factory ones will always remain in memory so you never lose those."