1963 Mellotron
EMS Musys system
The first digital sampler was the EMS Musys system, developed by Peter Grogono (software), David
Cockerell (hardware and interfacing) and Peter Zinovieff (system design and operation) at their London
(Putney) Studio c. 1969. The system ran on two mini-computers, Digital Equipment’s PDP-8s. These had
12,000 (12k) bytes of read-only memory, backed up by a hard drive of 32k and by tape storage (DecTape).
EMS equipment was used to control the world's first digital studio.
1976 Computer Music Melodian
Based on a DEC PDP-8 computer, it had then-unheard-of 12-bit/22kHz resolution Computer Music Inc. was
started in New Jersey USA in 1972 by Harry Mendell and Dan Coren. The company was established to
develop and market musical instruments based on computer software.
The Melodian was based on the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-8 computer and hand wired D/A and
A/D conversion and tracking anti-aliasing filters. The Melodian was first used by Stevie Wonder in the
"Journey through the Secret Life of Plants" (1979). The Melodian was a monophonic synth with 12 bit
A/D and sampling rates up to 22 kHz. It was designed to be compatible with analog synthesizers and had a
feature where it would sync to the pitch of an analog synth, such as an Arp 2600. This means the Melodian
captured all of the frequency modulation effects, including the touch ribbon control. It also could trigger off
the ARPs keyboard so it could almost be thought of as a hybrid sampler/analog synth, making best use of
the technology that was available at the time.
1979 Fairlight CMI
The Fairlight CMI was a development of an earlier synthesizer called the Qasar M8, an attempt to create sound
by modeling all of the parameters of a waveform in real time. Unfortunately, this was beyond the
available processing power of the day, and the results were disappointing. In an attempt to make
something of it, Vogel and Ryrie decided to see what it would do with a naturally recorded sound wave as a
starting point. To their surprise the effect was remarkable, and the digital sampler was born.
The Fairlight CMI or Computer Music Instrument, released in (1979), started life as the QASAR M8. The M8 was
hand-wired and legend has it that it took 2 hours to boot up! The CMI was the first commercially available
digital sampling instrument. The original Fairlight CMI sampled using a resolution of 8-bits at a rate of
10 kHz and was comprised of two 8-bit Motorola 6800 processors, which were later upgraded to the more
powerful 16-bit Motorola 68000 chips. It was equipped with two six octave keyboards, an alphanumeric
keyboard, and an interactive video display unit (VDU) where soundwaves could be edited or even drawn
from scratch using a light pen. Software allowed for editing, looping, and mixing of sounds which could
then be played back via the keyboard or the software-based sequencer. It retailed for around $25,000 US.
In 1982, Fairlight released the CMI-II which doubled the sampling rate to 16 kHz.
The CMI-IIx was released in 1984 and was the first to feature basic MIDI functionality.
1985 saw the release of the CMI-III which upped the sampling resolution to 16-bits. SMPTE was also added in
this final version.
The Series III model dropped the light pen interface (the light pen cable apparently was one of the most fragile
hardware elements in the system) in favour of a graphics tablet interface which was built in to the
keyboard. This model was built around Motorola 68000 and 6809 processors, running Microware's OS-9
Level II operating system (6809 version). One of the Fairlight's most significant software features was the so-
called "Page R", which was a real time graphical pattern sequence editor, widely copied on other software
synths since. This feature was often a key part of the buying decision of artists.
The Fairlight ran its own operating system known as QDOS (a modified version of the Motorola MDOS
operating system) and had a menu-driven GUI. The basic system used a number of Motorola 6800
processors, with separate cards dealing with specific parts of the system, such as the display drive and the
keyboard interface. The main device for interacting with the machine apart from the keyboard was a light
pen, which could be used to select options presented on a monochrome green-screen.
Fairlight Series III (1985)
The Fairlight CMI was very well built, assembled by hand with expensive components and consequently it was
highly priced (around £20,000 for a Series I). Although later models, adjusting for inflation, were getting
comparatively less expensive as the relevant technology was getting cheaper, competitors with similar
performance and lower prices started to multiply. For some years the CMI was sought after by those who
could afford one, but competition made life increasingly difficult for the company. Fairlight managed to
survive until the mid-1980s, relying more and more heavily on its revered name and its products' cult status
for sales.
Fairlight went bankrupt a few years later owing to the expense of building the instruments – A$20,000 in
components per unit. As a last-ditch attempt to salvage some revenue, the final run of machines were
marketed as word processors. Peter Vogel said in 2005, "We were reliant on sales to pay the wages and it was
a horrendously expensive business ... Our sales were good right up to the last minute, but we just could not
finance the expansion and the R&D."[6]
Synclavier
The Synclavier System was an early digital synthesizer, polyphonic digital sampling system, and music
workstation, manufactured by New England Digital Corporation, Norwich, VT. The original design and
development of the Synclavier prototype occurred at Dartmouth College with the collaboration of
Professor Jon Appleton, Professor of Digital Electronics, Sydney A. Alonso, and Dartmouth, Thayer School
of Engineering student software programmer, Cameron Jones. First released in 1977-78 [1] it proved to be
highly influential among both electronic music composers and music producers, most notably Mike
Thorne, an early adopter from the commercial world, due to its versatility, its cutting-edge technology, and
distinctive sounds.
The early Synclavier Digital Synthesizer used FM synthesis, and was sold mostly to universities. Some such
systems had only a computer and synthesis modules, no keyboard. The system evolved in its next
generation of product, the Synclavier II, which was released in early 1980 with the strong influence of master
synthesist and music producer Denny Jaeger of Oakland, CA. It was originally Jaeger's suggestion that the
FM synthesis concept be extended to allow four simultaneous channels or voices of synthesis to be triggered
with one key depression to allow the final synthesized sound to have much more harmonic series activity.
This change greatly improved the overall sound design of the system and was very noticeable.
The company evolved the system continuously through the early 1980s to integrate the first 16-bit digital
sampling system to magnetic disk, and eventually a 16-bit polyphonic sampling system to memory, as well.
The company's product was the only digital sampling system that allowed sample rates to go as high as 100
Khz for full digital sound quality, which was unsurpassed and frequently complimented by leading sound
design and music recording engineers, who make up the Who's Who of modern music and sound effect
recording.
Synclavier II models used an on-off type keyboard (called the "ORK") while later models, labeled simply
"Synclavier", used a weighted velocity-and-pressure-sensitive keyboard (called the "VPK") that was licensed
from Sequential Circuits and used in their Prophet T8 synthesizer.
Ultimately, the system was referred to as the Synclavier Digital Recording "Tapeless Studio" system among
many professionals. There is absolutely no doubt that the Synclavier System was "the" pioneer system in
revolutionizing the movie and television sound effects and Foley effects methods of design and production
starting at Glen Glenn Sound. Although pricing made it inaccessible for most musicians, it found
widespread use among producers and professional recording studios, competing at times in this market
with such high-end production systems as the Fairlight CMI.
1981 [1984] E-MU Emulator First “affordable” ($8,000) sampler you could easily throw on a keyboard stand.
.
1987 E-MU SP1200 Its crunchy, grimy sound and oddball swing/shuffle propelled countless rap tracks.
E-mu Emulator (1981) was E-mu Systems initial foray into sampling, and saved the company from financial
disaster after the complete failure of the Audity due to a price tag of $70,000. The name 'Emulator' came as
the result of leafing through a thesaurus and matched the name of the company perfectly. The Emulator
came in 2-, 4-, and 8-note polyphonic versions, the 2-note being dropped due to limited interest, and
featured a maximum sampling rate of 27.7 kHz, a four-octave keyboard and 128 kB of memory.
E-mu Emulator II (1984) was designed to bridge the gap between the Fairlight CMI and Synclavier and the
Ensoniq Mirage. It featured 8 notes polyphony, 8-bit sampling, 512kb of RAM (1mb in the EII+ though only
accessible as two independent 512kb banks), an 8-track sequencer, and analog filtering. With the addition of
the hard disk option, the Emulator II was comparable to samplers released 5 years later.
E-mu Emulator III (1987) was a 16-bit stereo digital sampler with 16-note polyphony, 44.1 kHz maximum
sample rate and had up to 8 MB of memory. It featured a 16 channel sequencer, SMPTE and a 40 MB hard
disk.
1984 Linn 9000 First integrated drum machine/ sequencer/sampler. Ancestor of Akai MPC series.
1985 Ensoniq Mirage First actually affordable (approx. $1,500) sampler for the weekendgigging masses.
AKAI
1986 AKAI S900 First affordable, mass-produced sampler to up audio resolution to 12 bits.
1988 AKAI MPC60 Designed by Roger Linn. Arguably the single most important beatbox after the Roland
TR-808.
Akai entered the electronic musical instrument world in 1984 when Roger Linn, the creator of the Linn LM-1,
the Linn 9000, and the Linn Drum partnered with the Japanese Akai Corporation to create samplers similar
to the ones created at Linn's own company, Linn Electronics. With this came the first in a series of affordable
samplers, the S612, a 12 bit digital sampler module. The S612 was superseded in 1986 by the S900.
The Akai S900 (1986) was the first truly affordable digital sampler. It was 8-note polyphonic and featured 12-bit
sampling with a frequency range up to 40 kHz and up to 750 kB of memory that allowed for just under 12
seconds at the best sampling rate. It could store a maximum of 32 samples in memory. The operating system
was software based and allowed for upgrades that had to be booted each time the sampler was switched on.
The Akai MPC60 Digital Sampler/Drum Machine and MIDI Sequencer (1988) was the first non-rack mounted
model released. It is also the first time a sampler with touch sensitive trigger pads was produced by AKAI,
giving birth to the popular MPC series of sampler sequencers.
The Akai S950 (1988) was an improved version of the S900, with a maximum sample frequency of 48 kHz and
some of the editing features of the contemporary S1000.
The Akai S1000 (1988) was possibly the most popular 16-bit 44.1 kHz stereo sampler of its time. It featured 16-
voices, up to 32 MB of memory, and 24-bit internal processing, including a digital filter (18dB/octave), an
LFO, and two ADSR envelope generators (for amplitude and filtering). The S1000 also offered up to 8
different loop points. Additional functions included Autolooping, Crossfade Looping, Loop in Release
(which cycles through the loop as the sound decays), Loop Until Release (which cycles through the loop
until the note begins its decay), Reverse and Time Stretch (version 1.3 and higher).
1989 BITHEADZ UNITY DS-1
First soft sampler to offer many of the features of today’s plug-ins.
Sample cell1991
Samplecell started out as a stand-alone card-based sample-playback device released in 1991. Over the years the
cards moved from Nubus on the Mac and ISA on PCs to PCI, then finally to the Samplecell II Plus, which
featured onboard RAM instead of empty slots. The cards featured four stereo outputs, and were controlled by a
stand-alone software editor. Like modern samplers, the creation, saving, and loading of samples, instrument
patches and multitimbral banks was handled by software.
1998 NEMESYS GIGASAMPLER
First soft sampler to stream samples directly from hard disk.
