E-mu SP-1200, the twelve-bit drum sampler

JUL 17 2021

A working look at the E-mu SP-1200, released in 1987, whose twelve-bit converters and short sampling time forced a gritty, compressed sound that producers then chose deliberately. It sits in the archive as the other half of the sampling story alongside the MPC: the machine whose limitations became a texture, and whose crunch turns up across late-eighties club records.