E-MU EMU SP-12 TURBO Vintage Drum Machine 1985 | HD DEMO

(c) 2013 by AnalogAudio1

Demo of the sampling drum machine SP-12 (Turbo) from E-mu Systems Inc., from 1985. The sounds you hear are original stock drumsets. No additional effects were used.

There is no dust on the SP-12 (like you might think), what you see are traces of use on a heavily used machine.

The SP-12 (sampling percussion with 12 bit sampling) is a high class American drum machine. It is like a deluxe version of the drumulator - but with 12 bit instead 8 bit sampling and with sampling functions. Or some kind of "Emulator" specialized in drums. In 1985 this was fantastic - the most other drum machines needed new sound chips for new samples. On the SP-12 you could record your own! Okay, with the LINN 9000 you could also do sampling, but this was an extra option and sampling was still at 8-bit.

The SP-12 is very flexible - for every beat and every sound in a pattern you can set volume and pitch to your needs, similar to the Sequential Circuits Drumtraks. It has a groovy sequencer! The SP-12 is quite big - like a turntable. E-mu sampled Phil Collins a lot for the sound library...

It is a studio machine with single outputs for drumsounds, MIDI, Clock IN/OUT and more...