Price Paid: US $450
Ease of Use: 9
EMU is the easiest to use, for me it was kind of confusing at first being my first sampler and all but not to difficult for a sampler
Features: 5
64voice i think, i upped mine to a cdrom, a zipdrive and its hooked up to my computer with esi-win so i can load samples right off my computer and save them there aswell :). Although its pointless having banks over 128megs. When you first get it you see why its so cheap, a floppy and 4megs will not last long, look at spending another 150$ at least. I was not impressed with what it did to my sound i will get to that next. The coolest thing was the fact recycle slices and sends samples to it but i guess thats recycle not the esi >=) Turbo kit sucks, overpriced and for what? get a midiverb 4 for 100$ and spend the rest of the money on sex like i do.
Expressiveness/Sounds: 1
The compression adds noise, alot of stuff adds noise if you like to slaughter your samples in filters etc, be prepared for noise. Also the volume on mine seemed very weak and thin i had to turn up my mixer big time just to hear it. I was not impressed at all. Some samples that came from EMU seemed screwy they would play really soft and then get really loud and then really soft which translates to uplayable. Non of the cds are good the bests ones are from bigfish, bigfish first call vintagekeyboards is awesome. EMU's cds sound like something of E-Jay
Reliability: 8
I dont think itd break that easy but it is cheap plastic looking, i dont think its as strong as alot of my synths. Id handle it carefully.
Customer Support: 1
I contacted tech support after i found that my esi wouldnt make sound when i first got it. I asked them why and they couldnt figure it out wanted me to send it in. I didnt want to wait 4weeks so i opened it up, the ram was in the wrong socket and so i switched it and it worked. Thanks emu techsupport for the great help. They basically just answer phones.
Overall Rating: 4
If it were lost or stolen, id collect insurance. Actually im selling it as we speak. Its not much better than the esi-32 its basically just emus attempt at milking the esi-4000, they stripped it down and put a lower pricetag on it and when you want to upgrade you pay alot more. 200$+ for a 12x scsi cdrom?!?!?! i got a toshiba scsi cdrom for 12$ and it works great. The cds suck and are overprices i was disappointed big time. Over-all emu loses my vote on this one, get an esi-32 for cheaper or get an e-series just dont get a 2000,4000.
Submitted by Anonymous at 09/23/2000 19:50
Price Paid: US $550
Ease of Use: 8
V 3.02 Expect the usual button-pressing-parameter-page dance.
This unit is essentially an ESI-4000.( It even says "ESI 4000" on the LCD screen during bootup!) with one exception - the extra Filter types from teh Turbo upgrade are included.
All of the complaints/praises of the ESi4000 & ESI-32 apply.
Features: 8
64 voices, up to 128Mb ram, SCSI included , very basic but usable MIDI implementation - no SYSEX,no sequencer.
FX are an expensive & unworthy option you'd be better off plugging in an outboard FX unit than buying the Turbo Card
Expressiveness/Sounds: 8
The Included sample CD's ( Proteus presets & ESI Sound Set) are nice. The unit sounds good - output gain is a bit weak but can be adjusted
Reliability: 10
So far so good.
Customer Support: N/A
no dealings with Tech Support yet.
Overall Rating: 10
For the money it's awesome. I added 2-64MB simms for $100 and dropped in an internal ZIP for another $100.
My sampler needs are somewaht basic so it fits the bill perfectly.
It works well with SMDI sample transfer on my Mac so I'm quite pleased.
Submitted by jmw at 07/20/2000 10:28
