Life Changing

This keyboard was my first sampler! I was always a drummer and could play some bass and guitar (at the time) but this allowed me to experiment with a slew of sounds, not just being locked into the presets which came with a keyboard. On top of this, I kept finding new floppy disks with pre-recorded sounds and even made a bunch of my own though it was limited and the "sequencer", which was more of a recorder, was limited. It was a very physically heavy machine and would lead me to getting the Ensoniq EPS and then ASR-10.

I got this from a band who had asked me to record them.... They were one of the first bands I recorded who were not my friends and I was paid! They were looking to sell their sampler and I made a deal with them to get paid a bit less if I could simply have the sampler.... and so it began!!! :)

This was the very first affordable sampler as machines like the Fairlight were the cost of a very nice house at the time.... Ok.. History class dismissed!

8-bit sampler with a Curtis filter for cheap

8-bit sampler with only 8 seconds of sampling time, and 8 note polyphony doesn't sound too appealing, and it's a heavy beast too, so it is totally not for most people. However, if you find yourself dissatisfied with lo-fi plugins, and wish you had an SP-12/1200 but can't afford them, or you dig Skinny Puppy or Rhythm Nation era Jam & Lewis productions, and wondered how they got such great gritty sounds, this was part of that equation. You absolutely need to go get the aftermarket MASOS OS, since it adds SMDI support, so you can send samples from your computer over MIDI. Best for short drum sounds you want to filter with the Curtis filter VCF chip: 8x CEM3328 VCF

I got mine for $80. It's a pain to use with a boot disk on floppy, with long loading times, with tiny led menu diving, the UI will be culture shock for many. However as an affordable 8-bit lo-fi drum machine that takes up too much space, it sounds fantastic.

8bit Crunch Forever

This thing. It's Beautiful. It's on the more difficult side to use but it sounds amazing. The specific punch and crunch you get with down-pitched percussion is unachievable with any other way that I know of. The analog filters are magnificent. I wish I had the rack mount version also. Maybe one day I'll pick another one up.

This 8-Bit sampler will change your life!

A few years ago I was browsing Craigslist and this bad boy popped up for $50, the original owner was moving to Canada and was selling all the gear that he wasn't using anymore for dirt cheap. This was a very lucky buy and this sampler has a sweet 8-bit crunch that's perfect for drum breaks and dark jazz piano loops from the vinyl collection.

Super lo-fi machine

Have to be dedicated to use. Great 8-bit sampling. The SoundProcess OS turns it into a 4 OSC digital synth with analog filters. Keyboard is not very good and you have to deal with floppy disks (or buy sample disks from me!)

Here is what Sound Process can do!

https://youtu.be/UD7Ix4k8kpw