Emulation II+ €199
Ah, the 80s! Big snares, big hair, and samplers that could cost the same as a house! But, as we all know, software brings prices down, and not more so than with this collection of not one, but three 80s machines…
Bits in pieces
Emulation II+ is actually a suite that includes the Emulator I, II and III (or 1, 2 & 3 in new money) in its compendium of samples from the original machines, along with some newly styled content. If this still isn’t enough, you’ll be delighted to know that UVI have also included samples from the original Drumulator too. This was always a great machine, which held its head very high, among other favourites of the time, from Linn and Oberheim.
The Emulator I was released in 1981 to much acclaim, and deemed the first affordable sampler. That’s a moot point, as it wasn’t cheap, but what’s absolutely fact is that it was based around an 8-bit sampling architecture, with a sampling time of two seconds. Translate these samples to the desktop age, and in doing so, UVI have reimagined the vintage machine. You can hear the graininess of the original samples, as they and transpose up and down the keyboard.