In general: the sampler is cool, of coarse. The only bad thing I'd like to say is SCSI controller problems. After year of using it I started getting SCSI error message when trying to save something onto HD, after which I can't access HD untill I reboot. You see, it's quite nasty thing, because I have no external drive, and can't save presets/banks into the empty banks, only rewrite existing ones. The problem solved by formatting HD, but not for too long... In two weeks I had the same thing... Got no help reply from EMU tech support. Still I don't have a external HDD, going to buy one, meanwhile my sampler's mostly gathering dust.

Second thing is quite an awful file system. Guess what. I had around 10 folder 100 small banks (presets) each. That took 2,7 Gb. Then I resaved all these presets in groups, making 50Mb banks. It took about 20 banks. And all these presets now take only 1.1 Gb!!! I freed up 1,6 Gb by doing this!!! Impressive, don't you think? :-)

Third thing is processing power: slow, although I didn't compared it to others, honestly. It has midi timing problems in rich sequences (13 notes at once, that is probably not more than 20-30 voices). So, I think no use of 128 voice polyphony.

And fourth, the main thing. I'm talking only to newbies, begginers etc... Those who has money but no experience in music production area. Samples. Your sampler is an empty box without them (those in package are good, but absolutely insufficient for setious work). But if want to have an satysfying sounds collection, you'll have to spend 10 times the price of a sampler and get 10 times less good sounds then when buying a good synth (Trinity, JV2080, EX5...). At this moment I have around 200 sample CDs, and still think they all not worth even a single synth of those I mentioned. Because all these samples usually come without any preset editing. If you want something special - you'll have to do it on your own. And many of sounds on different libraries sound pretty the same... Nothing inspiring, really... Of coarse when it comes to drumloops, vocal lines, fx - sampler is the right choice. But in general... Well... Imagine situation: you have an inspiration - you desperately a need a special sound, you hear it in your head, and then look at the mountain of CDs... (deep silence) Somewhere there, deep inside this mountain, somewhere between the hundreds of banks lies your sound. And now try ro find it... :) He-he. :)) Turn on your CD-ROM, grab all these CDs and start loading and listening to huge banks with 1000 presets each... For sure, after 1-2 minutes you will forget your idea, turn everything off and go have some whiskey... Of coarse when you buy CDs, you usually choose the best sounds and save them onto HD, hoping that when you'll start to write a song you will have everything at hand... :) I also thought so... :) It turned out to be wrong. Routin is what kills creativity...

So if you have hundreds of ideas and want to make them real - spend money for a couple of good synths, they have everything right here, but if your head is empty and you just want to have some sex with programming/experimenting - get sampler and have fun. :)

Get an E-mu, you'll thank me later.

-Nubey