E-mu Emulator IV

Back in the mid-90s, this beast pushed sampling into pro-studio overdrive with 128 voices of polyphony—64 stereo channels—that let you layer massive orchestral swells or wild experimental stacks without breaking a sweat, a huge leap from the Emulator III's limits.

It's a rackmount powerhouse, 19-inch wide for easy integration, sporting a crisp 240x64 LCD for icon-based waveform editing and deep menu diving. Core is a digital sampling engine with 16-bit analog inputs via Sigma-Delta converters and 18-bit playback, expandable from 8MB to 128MB via standard SIMMs for over 24 minutes of mono time at rates like 44.1kHz or 48kHz. Killer features include Z-plane morphing filters (even vocal formants), three 6-stage envelopes, dual LFOs per voice, a 24-point mod matrix, and tools like time compression, crossfade looping, and resampling your own outputs. Eight balanced stereo outs (six submix, two mains on XLR/quarter-inch) plus SCSI and MIDI (16-part multitimbral, expandable to 32 channels) make it a sequencing dream.

Studio pros still chase these on the vintage market for the warm, resonant filters and rock-solid DSP that aged better than most competitors like early Akai S6000s—folks love the sheer depth, though some note the learning curve on that 400-page manual.