Congratulations! It's a great vintage *analogue* sampler. Kinda like Emulator II and from that era. It is 8-bit. There's SE version which is 12-bit, and E-Max II is 16-bit. These are all legendary samplers [Depeche Mode! ]. You have no need for TAL-DAC now. Well, almost. If you like vintage samplers, try to score an AKAI S950, S1000, or S1100, because these sound a bit hi-fi in comparison to E-MU middly sounding samplers, so they complement each other really well - E-MU for general sounds and Akai for drums.

I've got a lot of this stuff... and owned a lot of other stuff throughout centuries [] as well. I still morn selling Matrix-8 mostly, but Akai S-950 also a little bit, although S3200 works just great and it's so much more powerful... but sometimes more powerful is not as important as just simply the sound.

Chuss!

 

Great!

 

Congratulations, good for you, I hope you get a lot of pleasure from this vintage classic instrument.

 

Make sure you do the 'Bird Run' it's mentioned in the manual

Big greets to Craig Anderton

 

Really happy for you:
This is just amazing that you were able to get an E-MU at such a price... and a working one at that!

Until I saw your post, I didn't think about eBay as the best place to find some great deals. I mean, you can find almost whatever you want in eBay but the sellers are usually quite greedy compared to what you could score in a garage sale.

E-MU is one of my favorites synth brand: very well done!

 

Yeah, not a sampler but a synth, so a bit off topic, I know. I just so loved that Oberheim Matrix-8 keyboard. People say it's hard to program but I had all the pages ["GUI" ] in my head and managed to program it, also MidiQuest helped...

Ohhh @mrpsanter e-bay is great and really bad, depending on how you look at it. It can get you hooked easily. I got most of the things I now own from it. Gosh it's addictive. Buy only what you need! I don't go there any more, unless I really need something. Buying fever can easily get out of hand. :/

 

Last edited: May 6, 2021

There is currently an Emax listed on ebay.de : https://www.ebay.de/itm/293614679005?hash=item445ccc73dd:g:OTgAAOSwtK1e5-zS
It's 1500....another one was sold for under 1200 in february, so you made a good deal...congratulatons ! If the disk drive is not in order, you will pay more for that alone than for the thing itself

 

It was not the usual Ebay...In germany we have also the little sister called Ebay-Kleinanzeigen. Its also from the Ebay company but more like a platform for private sellers. There's also a category "Items for free" and in this category I found the EMax. It was from an old couple who found the E-Mu while cleaning out their basement. It belonged to their son, who had left it there after he moved out. They asked him what to do with it and he must have said "Oh, just give it away".

They dont even wanted to have the 50 Euros for it. But I thought, its worth it and so I asked them to accept at least 50 Euros...so they can visit a restaurant or do what ever they want with it.

 

Some people are just unbelievable.

 

Even as a midi controller it's a great deal. Congrats!

 

yeah so unbelievable to be generous when havin enouh food on the table ,what an alien , he clearly dont fit current society ..wtf
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hell that its 8bit makes it even better

 

I scored an Emax-II (rack) back in the 90's
Was well engineered with a lot of smart functions... synth-like sound blocks, an arpeggiator, additive synthesis function etc.

I didn't get proper use out of it though and always lusted after the more popular Kurzweil K2xxx range.

Oh well... live and learn :-/

 

My mistake. I've been too much into TAL JP-8 lately, so I even forgot that it's Matrix-6 I had, not 8. Sad.
I checked the price of Matrix-6R on e-bay... $1300 on average. Way too much for me. Not saying it isn't worth it, but I bought mine [keyboard] for 500DM in 1996 or '95. If I could get it for 500 euro, I wouldn't hesitate. :P

Yes, that's 500 Deutsch Marks. ;) "Shitty stupid analogue synth" couldn't produce "realistic" choirs and strings. Quoted "realistic" because Akai and E-MU samplers were regarded as the ones that could.

Funny when you compare those to even average quality Kontakt sample libraries. However, sometimes an old E-Max or Akai choir or string sample can be precisely what you're looking for.

 

Last edited: May 16, 2021