E-MU Classic Keys

Easy... You won't need the manual!

Low polyphony by todays standards, but fine if you're just using one sound at a time.

It's purely sample playback, but contains some lovely sounds - best to programme your own, though.

Nice for ambient or using in a rock covers band.

I wouldn't use it expecting good bass sounds, though - the basses just don't penetrate.

And there are NO analogue-style filters at all (you're thinking of the Vintage Keys).

Mine is now 12 years old and the display is fading away :-(


Wall-wart external plug-in and lose it hard-to-get-again AC power supply.

E-mu don't deal with ANY of their old rack modules any more.

I'd want to get another one if mine went bad... just because i have a few 'signature sounds' in there. otherwise, I wouldn't start from here - probably get a P2K with vintage ROMs, or the Vintage Pro.

Editing individual patches is pretty easy from the front panel. Complaints: 1. Changing effects globally gets old if you're not just using the factory patches. 2. Not sure whether this is my laziness, the global menu's complexity, or both, but I have had more trouble than I'd like in setting the unit up for multitimbral use with a sequencer. On the plus side, it's VERY easy to map a controller or two to different parameters.

Effects architecture limits you in lots of ways. No expansion capability. MIDI implementation and routing, though, are excellent as usual for Emu. I can wish for a filter to make the E.Pianos and Moogs more realistic, but you get what you pay for. And as someone else has said here, it's really aimed at players who want to plug it up and play an oldies gig without doing a lot of programming. With this in mind, there's more than enough flexibility to suit the crowd it was designed for(which includes me). I would have loved to have portamento, but for that you have to pay mucho more bucks to get up into the Vintage Keys.

Strengths:
Wurlitzers (Nice and fuzzy!)
B3's (if you don't want to shell $300 more for drawbars or similar)
Farfisa & Vox organs
Nice array of old synths, which I don't know enough to name, but just recognize them when I hear them.

Weaknesses:
Rhodes pianos
Expressiveness of some sounds is limited (Moogs could use more filter simulation; Wurlitzer's need to get edgier when you hit them harder)
Again, though, Emu gets points for letting you map just about anything to just about anything, controller-wise, which lets you adapt it to your set-up.

No problem with this heavy mother.

I've been playing keys for 25 years, synths for 11 or 12. This is a nice box for me because I want to make music, not fiddle with boxes. It's not as expensive as the Vintage Keys, so I was willing to give up the extra expressiveness. Also, even though the effects are limited, I always go for reverb and other effects(CK) over just chorusing(VK), since I want to keep my outboard effects for vocals. Essentially, this feels like a trade off between expressiveness and effects. I'm happy with what I've got.

This thing is very easy to use. Now this is coming from an analog guy who likes knobs and dials, and i can still tweek this thing no problem, without getting frustrated. If your used to modules its easy as pie, to edit. Which i strongly recomend cause the presets arent all that great.

its your typical module, if youve ever used a proteus, its the same deal. the only problem is that the effects are not programmed by patch, so when you change patchs you still have the same effect. (i.e. you may vibrato on your wurlitzer but not on you mellotron)

the sounds are what really make this module, the mellotrons are outstanding, the b3's are great but no realtime tweeking(i.e. drawbars/leslie), the voxs and wurlitzers are great, the synth are great but need some serrious tweeking, the only real poor sound is the rhodes, but no ones every sampled a rhodes well.

its pretty reliable, ive had to priblems with it but im real hard on it i dont have it in a rack or case. so far ive had to replace the faceplate screws, which emu sent me for free, and the 9v adapter, which is as strong your typical adapter, but you can only use an emu adapter which costs $42.50 to replace, so take good care of it.

as i said i got the scews for free and the plug quite a sum but they were very nice and help full, its not a 1800# so icosts ya some to call california, but if you leave a meassage theyll call you back. also the take really long lunch breaks, so sometimes an operator is hard to find.

i love this thing, cause it gives you a chance to tweek, sometimes more then the original, like putting a envolpe filter and an lfo on a mellotron, sounds pretty damn freaky. thing is though you make patchs only as good as you know the instrument your trying to emulate so if your not to farmilar with a memory moog your not gonna get somethng that sounds like a memory moog. thats why ive been trying to find people to trade patchs with, but so far not to much luck, i your interested just click on my email and drop me a line, ill send you some patch sheets and well make some trades.

There have been a lot of questions regarding the differences between the CK and the VK modules. Here is a summary of both from Daniel Means (from their spec sheets.)
VK has portamento, an alternate volume envelop, and filters (one per voice). The CK does not have these features.
VK has 18 bit samples and 8 megs of memory (16 megs in VK+). The CK has 16 bit sampling and 8egs of memory.
CK has 2 banks of effects including delays, reverbs, chorus, flanger, phaser, fuzzes, and ring modulation. VK/VK+ has only chorus.
VK has 384 presets, CK has 4 banks of 128 presets, 2 banks of which are overwritable. The VK+ has 512 presets, 256 of which are overwritable.
VK/VK+ has 3 pairs of stereo outs, 2 of which serve as sub-outs that can be summed at the main outputs. The CK has only one pair of stereo outputs. Therefore, no separate signal processing for different voices on the CK.

Loads of presets, 512 in all. Half of the presets are editable or overwritable. Contains digital samples of 250 individual instruments or variations of sounds from the same instruments (ie:different drawbar settings on a Hammond B3). Has 2 LFOs with adjustable rate and intensity that can be used on all presets. Numerous effects such as reverbs,delays, phaser,flanger,chorus and fuzz. Effects are not applied separately to each preset, each effect must be changed from the Master menu and then each preset can use one of three banks of effects. So only one effect may be used on any preset at one time. I won't go into all the specs you can read that on Emus web site. Editing is quite simple once you figure it all out. Basically it's just moving the cursor and turning the Data knob. The manual explains everything clearly. Actually, I figured out just about everything without the manual, it's that simple.

Not loads of features to make things extremely complicated, this is a good unit for the plug and play kinda player. Has 16 channel multitimbral and 32 voice polyphony. Controller assign cababilities. Versatile but not overcomplicated.

Most of the instrument sounds are great, since they're actual samples from the original things. Sampling is 16 bit. The Hammonds are wonderful, but caould still probably be a little better. The Moog and ARP synth sounds are very cool and applying the oscillators to the straight wave form presets gets you all the old analog synth crazy sounds. My favourite sounds are the Wurlitzer electric pianos which sound just like Jellyfish,the Vox Continental preset sounds like the Zombies,and the Mellotron Flutes sounds just like Strawberry Fields Forever. The Fender Rhodes sounds are not as good as they should be but are still usable. All in all, this is one of the coolest MIDI modules around.

I would trust it in any situation. I have never heard anything negative about EMu anywhere.

I've only gotten literature from Emu, but I've never actually talked with them for any tech support or anything.

I compared this with the Roland Vintage Synth which costs the same and souned good but has nowhere near as many features. I'd recommend this unit to anyone into sixties and seventies pop or progressive music, and the Hammonds are great for blues and rock. The only thing I wish it could do is assign the effects to each preset separately, but it no big deal. For only $400, I would buy this again with no question.

The quality of the presets vary. For example, The Wurlitzer E-pianos are good, but the Rhodes E-pianos are weak. The EMU editting system is very easy to get around. The manual is very well written -- one of the best.

The Classic Keys is 32 note polyphonic and 16 channel multitimbral. Effects provided are reverb, delay-based effects and distortion. New vounds can be downloaded from disk, but no other expansion is provided. MIDI response and programming is good. The controller architecture is very flexible.

The B-3 organs are my favorite. I use them for sixties tunes and for gospel hymns in church. The brass and guitars are a waste. The Moog and Obie patches truly are classics. The Farfisa and Vox organs get a workout in my sixties cover band. As mentioned earlier, the Rhodes pianos could be better, but they are serviceable.

The Classic Keys has been very reliable. No problems gigging with it.

I have not dealt with EMU customer support directly. The manual has been able to cover all of my questions.

I like the sounds, but other choices for B-3 organs are now available on the market. The sounds are solid though and I really enjoy playing them. You can even use the internal program map to build a sleazy GM song set -- I`ve done it!