# Emu SP-1200
“The SP-1200 was THE drum machine & sampler combo of legendary status among old school rap and hip hop artists from the eighties and nineties. It is similar to today’s Akai MPC samplers – it is a sampler plus drum machine. It has limited sampling specs: 26.040 kHz and 12-bit resolution. However the dirtiness of that sound is great for hip hop and house music. They say it sounds like “old vinyl”… It features groove quantizing and a disk drive for sample storage.
E-mu SP-1200 is a classic drum machine and sampler released in August 1987 by E-mu Systems Inc.as an update of the SP-12, which was originally created for dance music producers. It became famed for its gritty texture and ability to simulate the “warmth” of vinyl recordings. The SP-1200 became an icon of hip hop’s golden era, due to its ability to construct the bulk of a song within one piece of portable gear—a first for the industry.
This resulted in reduced studio costs and more creative control for artists. “The machine rose to such prominence that its strengths and weaknesses sculpted an entire era of music: the crunchy digitized drums, choppy segmented samples, and murky filtered basslines that characterize the vintage New York sound are all mechanisms of the machine.” Designed to be used as both a drum sequencer and sampler in one, the SP-1200 features a 26.04 kHz sampling rate and 12-bit resolution. Those audio qualities, combined with the idiosyncratic SSM2044 filter chips with which these machines were fitted, make for a dirty, gritty sound.
This unit sounds unreal for getting those killer fat blaster beats and tonal sounds!! This machine has been used in the studio only at StarNorth Studio at: starnorthstudio.com
It is in perfect fine working shape with no problems at all and comes with it’s manual, cable plug, protective disc, Operating System disc, Promo Sheet and 10 discs (read below) and shipped in the original box!
3 of the discs are original and 7 of the discs are recreated off the original discs. Listed below are the names of the discs. 5 of the discs came with the unit when I bought it new and 5 more are extras that I had to order from EMU
1) The red disc is the EMU SP1200 Operating System disc
2) KYODAI ROCK – original disc w/label
3) LATINO ENSEMBLE – original disc w/label
4) STANDARD TRAPS – original disc w/label
5) CONGAS
6) ORCHESTRAL BASH – This is a cool disc full of great sounds!
7) ELECTRO BOYS – special ordered
TURBO KIT – special ordered
9) WORLD PERCUSSION – special ordered
10) ROCK ASSORTMENT #1 – special ordered
11) ROCK ASSORTMENT #2 – special ordered
This is the Grey SP1200 not the black newer one!
This unit is used and is sold as such but in perfect working order!
Bought in 1987
It is missing the top of 1 of the knobs – see photo!” Link