E-mu SP-1200
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SP-1200 | |
---|---|
Manufacturer | E-mu Systems Rossum Electro-Music (2021 reissue) |
Dates | 1987–1998, 2021–present |
Price | US $2,495 US $3,999 (2021 reissue) |
Technical specifications | |
Polyphony | polyphonic 8 voices |
Synthesis type | 12-bit samples, 26.04 kHz |
Storage memory | 10 seconds sample time, 100 user patterns, 100 user songs |
Effects | Individual level and tuning for all pads |
Input/output | |
Keyboard | 8 hard plastic pads |
External control | MIDI, SMPTE |
The E-mu SP-1200 is a sampler created by Dave Rossum that was released in August 1987 by E-mu Systems.
Like the product it was meant to replace, the
The SP-1200 is strongly associated with hip hop's golden age. Its ability to construct the bulk of a song within one piece of portable gear, a first for the industry,[2] reduced studio costs and increased creative control for hip-hop artists. According to the Village Voice, "The machine rose to such prominence that its strengths and weaknesses sculpted an entire era of music: the crunchy digitized drums, choppy segmented samples, and murky filtered basslines that characterize the vintage New York sound are all mechanisms of the machine."[3]
Features
The SP-1200 can store up to 100 patterns, 100 songs, and has a 5,000-note maximum memory for drum sequences. It also has a mono mix output and eight individual outputs,
Differences from the SP-12
Unlike the SP-12, the SP-1200 does not contain ROM-based samples; all samples are stored in volatile RAM and loaded from floppy disk. The AD/DA converters remain 12 bit, as 16 bit converters were still expensive and found only on high-end gear, such as the contemporary E-Mu Emulator 3, which had a list price of over US$15,000. Maximum sampling time was doubled from the upgraded SP-12 Turbo, to over 10 seconds, but the maximum single sample was 2.5 seconds. SP-12 has a slightly higher sampling frequency (27.5 kHz). The sample rate was reduced from 27500 to 26040 kHz, to enable additional software code (384 Kbytes of memory) to take 10 seconds of samples.[5] The SP-1200 retained all of the I/O capabilities from the SP-12, minus the cassette output and 1541 Commodore Computer floppy disk I/O.
Technique
The limited sampling time of the SP-1200 was overcome within the late 1980s
Reissue
In 2021, Dave Rossum announced that he would be reissuing the SP-1200 through his company, Rossum Electro-Music.[6] The Rossum SP-1200 contains 20 seconds of sample time; double that of the original's 10 seconds.
See also
References
- ^ ReSound Sound - How to Sound Fat like Pete Rock
- ^ Swash, Rosie (12 June 2011). "The SP-1200 sampler changes everything". The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited. Retrieved 16 July 2019.
- ^ Detrick, Ben (6 November 2007). "The Dirty Heartbeat of the Golden Age". The Village Voice. Retrieved 2020-05-29.
- ^ The Emulator Archive
- ^ "SP1200 Overview". Archived from the original on 24 January 2008.
- MusicRadar. Retrieved 5 December 2022.