EmulatorX2

Call me a heathen. Call me a splitter. Call me a deserter. Call me a dessert (I find Tiramisu pretty inoffensive).

But, I'm really getting into software instrumentation.

Everything I seem to do just lately is done with software and only the occasional appearance of hardware.

I have gone on & on about the benefits of hardware over software and then become a fence sitter, saying they can peacefully, and fruitfully, co-exist. And now I find myself almost shunning hardware, not consciously, but I just seem to be able to get what I want directly from software !

And this was no more evident than when I recently acquired E-MU's EmulatorX2 software sampler. Ok, so the bargain bucket price of £69.99 (New) was an absolute deal maker, but it's feature set and reputation drew me closer and after playing around with it for a few days now, I'm nothing short of impressed, and dare I say it, converted !

What impresses me most is it's clarity, it's speed of loading and it's unique sound shaping and sample acquisition features. Also, the manual is one of the best I've read in a long while. Just a shame that it's a PDF file (which I have now printed out). I was even impressed with the travel pouch provided to carry the USB XMIDI 2x2 around in.

I'm not going to go into any lengthy review on this. You can Google and find many decent efforts. No, I'm just going to say, this is the most fun I've had with a sampler (or any other software instrument) since the heady days of the late 90's when Akai got it so right with the S6000. Just a shame that their VZ8 software sampler never made it past the prototype stage at NAMM in 2003.

All I can say is, if you have a spare £69.99 and are looking for a single, powerful and fantastically spec'd tool, you can't go wrong with this.


Amazing.