E-MU ESI-32

Mine is a fully upgraded Turbo model running OS 3.00.
The presets are mostly good but unspectacular.

This is a very capable unit with an awful lot of functionality spread across its five or six major sections; naturally, this engenders a certain learning curve, but, that being said, it is laid out very logically and within a week or two of use, you'll be flying through the menus by the use of the keypad without needing the manual. The large, informative backlit display is tremendously welcome.

The manual is very well written--clear and informative. Unfortunately, it does not contain information relevant to the turbo upgrade.

It has 32 voice polyphony; I can't recall whether this is affected by using mono or stereo samples or using two samples per voice. In any case, I've never experienced voice-stealing (although I've never used it in multi mode).
Offline, rendered effects (such as compression, EQ, sample rate conversion, pitch shifting, etc.) are excellent and very transparent, although processing can be painfully slow, especially for the more advanced ones. The standard, off-the-shelf model has no real-time effects (other than a quick-n-dirty chorus achieved by duplicating and detuning a sample); the Turbo version has quite a few effects, most of which are different flavors of reverb, delay, chorus, flanging, and distortion, all of which sound quite nice. Each has two or three parameters and a dry/wet mix for each set of outputs. Real-time dynamic effects or EQ would have been nice, but need not be an issue depending on the sample in question. (More on this later).
The stock model has quite a few upgrade options: an indispensable RAM upgrade (from a rather pointless 2MB to 32MB), a SCSI board (this is the 50-pin Centronics type connecter, rather than the 25-pin version more common on computers), S/PDIF digital I/O board, the Turbo upgrade (in the form of an EPROM chip) which adds about a dozen filter types, two effects processors, and a few other things; I understand the built-in floppy drive can be replaced with a zip drive or HD, but mine has not been modified in this way.

One important thing to note: the ESI-32 is *extremely* fussy about SCSI devices. I strongly recommend externals from scsiforsamplers.com--they're a little pricey, but they work as advertised (which is a lot more than I can say for a number of secondhand drives I bought on ebay and subsequently resold).

The various sample editing features are well-conceived with some clever appointments built in (like the ability to use the pitch control as a scrub wheel); I find menial processes like looping almost as painless as using a graphical, computer-based editor.

Well...it's a sampler...it sounds as good as the material you record into it.

That said, its reproduction is excellent, and transposition causes no audible aliasing, distortion, or other artifacts. It has a basic but respectable synth-style architecture comprised of one filter and amplifier (both with associated AHDSR envelopes), and an assignable LFO and additional envelope. There is also a limited modulation scheme (one section for velocity, one for controllers other than velocity, and others in the LFO's and auxiliary envelope's sections).
The stock model's filter is a resonant 4-pole lowpass type, and it is exceptionally lovely--one of my favorite digital filters in fact. Like most of the ESI-32's other functions, it is clear and fairly transparent, hence the comments about the filter sounding "thin"; it definitely doesn't sound like a Moog and that's no bad thing. The filter has a few quirks which bear mentioning--for some reason, the maximum cutoff frequency is several octaves above the range of human hearing (somewhere above 70kHz, if memory serves); secondly, resonance tends to severely attenuate the pass band. The Turbo upgrade adds around a dozen other filter types including lowpass types with other slopes, high- and bandpass types, peak EQs, comb and formant filters, among others, all of similarly high quality.

It's midi implementation is very well specified, and it is obviously designed for expressive playing, but due to the limited number of modulation destinations and its nature as a sampler, it is not especially impressive in this regard. Nevertheless, clever layering/crossfading of samples and processing can result in a respectably responsive feel (especially when using aftertouch-capable keyboard); and as always, the end result depends tremendously on the samples in use.

I've never experienced any problems with it (apart from those caused by connecting incompatible SCSI devices).
I'm not a big fan of performing with rackmount instruments (call me quirky), but would have no particular reservations about doing so.

I've never dealt with them directly, but their website does provide manuals in pdf form and non-hardware-based OS upgrades for their old products, free of charge. Otherwise, support for discontinued products seems fairly slim.

If it were lost or stolen, I would look at the ESI-2000 or -4000--which are essentially the same machine, albeit with more voices, memory, and other such appointments--but would also be delighted to replace it with another upgraded '32. Like most hardware samplers these days, these sell for cheaper than dirt, and are a magnificent value for the money.

Hello,

I would like to know if there is a site or Parts Company that supplies Hard Drive such as IOMEGA 250MB ZIP and 2GB JAZ for EMU SAMPLERS.

I am Looking to replace the Internal 3.5 Floppy with an Internal ZIP or JAZ drive.


Also, Looking for the ESI-32 3.02 Operating system.

Memory cards for the MS-1 Sampler. Preferably ~20 to 40MB cards
PCMCIA typeII 5V card.


Please keep me posted.
Thank you.
Chgo,IL.
Mr.Roland Rik

ESI-32 nice as easy -Basic Sampler is a great tool.

I just need the Upgrades.

VERY Useful tools and effects.

Great addition to Music Production.

FINE! They just don't have the parts I need. Some items too old or too expensive.

Great help if you have current products.

Recommended any small to Midsized studio.

I would buy another. But I need to finish off the Current ESI-32 to be fully functional.





Please kee me posted.
Thank you.
CHGO, IL.
FAURUK@AOL.COM

I'm a little biased on this review because I have to compare this sampler to what I have been using - an ensoniq eps 16+. I bought this as a second sampler, to use along with the eps.
I've found so far that the esi is fairly easy to navigate and simple tasks can be acomplished rather quickly. The only place that I notice a difference is in the actual sampling itself, there are a few more extra steps too take before you can hear the sample compared to the rapid sampling abilities of the ensoniq units. Also the display screen pretty much sucks for live performance, it's so dark that even with the contrast adjusted, the thing has to be right in front of you to scroll through the menus. Lfo, filters, etc. are easy to adjust with instant results. Overall, not to bad to work with, if you take time to read the manual.

My esi came with OS 3.02 - the last upgrade, which was created in '97. Apparently this offers several functions which the earlier os didn't come with - many more filters to choose from in the VCF and something called a "harmonic enhancer" which I have yet to figure out. Standard features include a scsi port - which I know from the eps 16+ is an essential feature on a sampler. Even if you don't plan on using a computer to edit samples/import/export, the scsi allows connection to a harddrive or cd-rom which speeds up loading times for instant gradification - rather than waiting several minutes to load 2 floppy disks.
No onboard effects. Samples can be looped, reversed, truncated, normalized, cross-faded. Vcf, vca - both with envelopes which are measured in time, lfo with 3-4 waveforms and an auxillary envelope- which can be set to change other functions, such as lfo rate, pan, crossfade over time. The features included are pretty decent and sound good, but compared to the eps 16+ (which came out 4 years before this) are rather limited. Should be fine for many users, but won't have many of the things you find on higher end units - thus less flexiblity.
I should note that there are 10 programmable trigger buttons on the sampler itself which are nice for one shots when not hooked to a midi controller.

The samples are only going to sound as good as your sample source. However, the included factory sounds range from ok to quite good. Emu is also producing cd rom's for this unit which include samples of their newer proteus units as well. Plus, it has stereo inputs and outputs

The vcf section on this unit sounds ok-good, it's not analog, but usuable. But compared to the rez filter effect on an eps 16+, it's thin - that sucker can blow out a speaker!

I've only had it a week, but I would trust it. I hear good things about EMU.

Well I emailed about getting some replacement rack ears and they haven't responded yet, so again I can't say

I picked this up bare bones for about 120$ I invested 20$ to max out the ram, 25$ on a harddrive and planning on another 25$ to get a cd-rom. For the cash, it's a great deal. These routinely sell for very little on ebay. I am not at all sure why - with 32 mb of ram you can sample up to 3 minutes in mono - more than enough for my needs. I understand there is a turbo kit available for this with more filters and a s/pdif connection. But the aftermarket for the upgrade is nearly 500$ - and used prices for a turbo esi is about 500$. Personally, I'm very happy with 200$ for a very usable secondary sampler- with plenty of support on the web.

This sampler is really easy to use after you read a few things in the manual.A lot of its features aren't that hidden.Placing samples across your keyboard [or an rm1x]is pretty easy.Setting up different presets[like programs for akai]is easy.The only thing I dont like about the os is no graphic waveform editing.I have this thing on a scsi chain to my pc and I run my edited samples from soundforge and esi-win to it flawlessly.

It has 32 voice polyphony enough for me.No effects you got to buy the board separate.Mine came with scsi and you can get 6 more outs with the effects or digital i/o.Midi control is good cc,p/b, but no sysex.No sequencer

It has awesome low end[more than an akai s2000]good for dance,hip hop experimental this thing kicks ass for an older model sampler.

Has not failed me yet.I would gig it.

The people at Emu answer the phone and reply to emails.

If it were lost or stolen I'd look for a deal on one of these or another esi model like the 2000 or 4000.

Tremendously easy to use. Enough buttons, enough on the display.
The manual is perfect, couldn't say anything else.

With v3.01, a ZIP-drive, a CD-rom, a harddrive and 8 megabytes of RAM (30-pins, mind you!), this is my best piece of equipment.
You should always add a SCSI adapter and get more than the standard amount of 2 megabytes of RAM. The FX-board is okay, I guess (don't have it), but I'd prefer to invest that money in an external FX-processor.

The factory samples are quite nice, but I got some from the Emulator library that are even better. Also sampling yourself gives a good quality sound. Transfering cd-extraced samples from the PC gives anormous power!

It crashed once and I still don't know why. Might have been a SCSI problem. Addressing external SCSI drives sometimes gives some errors, but most of the time it's because of bad wiring or hard-to-read CDs.

Don't know, didn't need any support.

Fine piece of equipment, certainly worth 400 to 500 US$ second hand, provided it has SCSI and at least 8MB ram!
Of course the ESI-2000 or ESI-4000 are a better deal, if you can get one. A bit more expensive, but more features.

OS 3.01/Turbo

Well, aspects of it are pretty easy to use - the basic menu system is Pretty straight forward - the basic menu system is easy enough. I find it less arcane than the baroque S-760. However its difficult to keep track of zones (E-mu speak for sample to keyboard range assignments) in your head with no graphical representation of them.

It plays back samples... up to 32 mono/16 stereo, each sample through one VCA/VCF with a single LFO, it doesn't do much else. Turbo effects aren't good for much except delay.

Pretty minimal synthesis capability, fairly weak sounding filters. Some odd design decisions which seem to have been made only to prevent the ESi competing with E-mu's more professional models. For example no envelope depth modulation is possibile at all, not even by velocity - velocity modulates VCA/VCF *level* only. Realtime control is minimal and realtime assignments have no range control - its all or nothing (this causes filter zipper noise)

My model needs a noise suppressing power strip to prevent it crashing.

Helpful but not terribly useful

I bought it because it was cheap, had plenty of outputs, supports SCSI sample dump and isn't an Akai. It wasn't the best move I've ever made but it gets more use than my S-760 (which is a far superior piece of kit) simply because the SCSI sample dump makes it quick to go from having a sample in the PC to makeing some noise with it.

OS 3.01 32MB RAM. Turbo Card. My unit is full-blown to the max.

The main drawback with this sampler is the stripped- down OS- it is still a fully-featured OS with the usual truncate, reverse, time-stretch, all kinds of digital tools) it's just getting around is a real pain and saving to disc is wasteful (you can only Save whole Banks!). E-Mu evidently wants you to spend the big $$$ bucks on their Pro samplers like the E4 that have their full-blown EOS Operating System.

32 voice polyphony.
I have the Turbo card, which I use mainly for its digital spdif I/O. I got ripped off bad by E-Mu ordering direct from them...$499! I found out only later than Sam Ash sold the Turbo card for about $350! The FX that come with the card suck pretty bad. No big deal- I've got tons of outboard FX. comes with midi in/out of course and a SCSI port. I use the SCSI with my PC and Wavelab to extensively cut up beats and send them to the Esi-32-- sounds just killer. The Esi-32 beats sound better than the source! Really warm sound. The digital filters are a weak point but are still useful. These filters are not as warm as in older E-mu samplers.

This sampler blows everything else away for the money. A couple of years ago I walked into Sam Ash ready to spend $999 on a Akai S2000. I paid $799 brand new for this unit instead and it blows away the Akai 5000's and 6000's that cost $$$ thousands. The E-Mu CD-Roms are OK, some CD-Rom sampled sounds better than others. This samper is best starting with good samples and beats ripped off of audio CD's. Again, this unit is a good deal at its low price just because of how it sounds. Very warm compared to Akai or Yamaha. -Not the easiest sampler to program, but can't beat the sound for the money!

I have never had it go down. The only problem is an occasional SCSI buss error when I have it hooked up to the PC, but I think this is the fault of Windows and Mr. Bill Gates, not E-mu.

E-mu has been helpful. The only time I needed them was to order the Turbo card and get a source for 32MB 30-pin RAM.

I would buy it again at its Used Price (now about $400). It fits really well into my home project studio along with my PC, my Roland JV-1010 synth, and my VS-1680 recorder.

The basic sound of this unit is it's strong point, but even so gone are the warm filters of the E111. Used for applications where filter resonance is unneeded the sound is basically good.
Setting up presets(AKA patches,keygroups) is a little archaic. Doing the obvious is easy, but where subtle programming tricks are needed the machine becomes work intensive.
Samples cannot be allocated to something like Rolands 'Partial' before they're applied to the keyboard enabling quick re-use of certain setup parameters. The newer EMU's now have something called a 'Voice'. But EMU have decined to upgrade the ESI's OS to include this and other useful functionality.
Presets are assigned to each of the 16 MIDI channels, as opposed to the other way round, so layering is not easy, although it is possible. ie. to keep all ones drums on 1 channel and swap just the hihat sounds means re-editing the preset.
The digital processing; Compression, timestretch, eq, and related functions are good, and fairly fast. Truncation and looping are made harder by the 20*4 Character LCD display, imposed by the price of the machine, those who have used a waveform display will scream.
IMHO the file functions are the least well thaught out aspect: Once the multi mode (Multi timbral assignments)are set up one can save ONLY the whole bank (or contents of memory) So any presets one has loaded/created auditioned and rejected must be individually erased from memory, along with it's samples. (whereas one can save a 'performance'(on a Roland) or 'multi'(Akai))
The file system is not clever, in that a favourite preset (ie a large string multisample) will be saved each time a new 'song' it features in, is created, potentially wasting vast amounts of disk space. Also, if that sample/setup is improved, it should be re-saved back to the source banks. Entailing the re-loading of each bank...

32 note polyphony, 32 meg max ram.( 2 meg standard, disposed of when upgraded). no built in effects or expansion board. SCSI and digital input expansion boards for use with storage media and digital sampling respectively. Importing of Akai format samples (From CD ONLY)
fine for a machine in this price bracket.

The sounds can be made extremely realistic. (Except for analogue synth type sounds) and assignment of controllers is fairly comprehensive, making for good expressive capability.

Polite and responsive. But for a machine launched 2 years ago, EMU don't appear to be upgrading (or updating) it's OS any more. (this is needed to bring it's compatibility with other sample formats into line with other samplers). At EMU's homepage, Although promised, E4 Software upgrades have not been downloadable for PC users for many months.

Overall then, in a pro environment, this machine is best used for monotimbrall use. ie. memory hungry multisamples, Used alongside other samplers/instruments with more effective system architectures. For semi-pro, it's useable as a main instrument, but not ideal.
I baught it as a scratchpad, to write songs on, but this relies on getting the ideas into the studio easily. (The Akai 2000xl is better). I would not buy it again.