The E-mu SP-1200 is a sampling drum machine designed by Dave Rossum and released in August 1987 by E-mu Systems. Like its predecessor, the SP-12, it was designed as a drum machine featuring user sampling. The distinctive character of its sound, often described as "warm," "dirty," and "gritty," and attributed to SP-1200's low 26.04 kHz sampling rate, 12-bit sampling resolution, drop-sample pitch-shifting, and analog SSM2044 filter chips (ICs), has sustained demand for the SP-1200 more than thirty-five years after its debut, despite the availability of digital audio workstations and samplers/sequencers with superior technical specifications.
The SP-1200 is associated with the golden age of hip hop. It enabled musicians to construct the bulk of a song within one piece of portable gear, a first for the industry, reducing production costs and increasing creative control for hip-hop artists. According to the Village Voice, "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."
History and development
E-mu Systems began as a manufacturer of analog modular synthesizers 1971 and pioneered applications of digital technology in electronic musical instruments including a digital sequencer and the first digital polyphonic keyboard.[5] E-mu supplemented income from modular synthesizers with royalties from the first ever analog chips (ICs) for analog synthesizers, created by Dave Rossum with Ron Dow and manufactured by Solid State Music (SSM), and by licensing and consulting for Linn, Oberheim, and Sequential.[5][9]E-mu first used the Zilog Z80 microprocessor in the 4060 Programmable Polyphonic Keyboard and Sequencer released in 1977 and continued to use Z80 processors in many of its designs through SP1200 in 1987.[1][5][6][12][13]Roger Linn hired Dave Rossum to review the electrical design of Linn LM-1, the first digital drum machine.[6][9] Precipitated by Sequential redesigning the Prophet 5 Rev 3 to use Curtis (CEM) chips (ICs) and no longer paying royalties to E-mu (for the earlier design using SSM chips), E-mu pivoted in 1980 from designing analog synthesizers to digital sampling technology and released the original Emulator sampling synthesizer in 1981.[5]
Just as engineering a digital sampler to operate using one shared memory had allowed Emulator to be made more attainable than systems including the Fairlight CMI, E-mu Systems co-founders Scott Wedge and Dave Rossum realized that an affordable digital drum machine could be invented using a shared memory, resulting in Drumulator, the first programmable digital drum machine priced under $1000, significantly below the LM-1 and Linndrum.[5][14] As a compromise between bandwidth and sampling time, the low 26.04 kHz sample rate was chosen early on.[5][6][15][16] A major success, Drumulator sold over 10,000 units from 1983 to 1985 and saw E-mu grow to a medium-sized company.[5][14]
After Emulator II in 1984, E-mu decided to pursue a drum machine to follow-up Drumulator, which would eventually become SP-12 and SP-1200. Design was led by Dave Rossum's electronic engineering, with functional design contributions from Marco Alpert (who would together go on to co-found Rossum Electro-Music, also known as "Rossum.")[5][10][14] Work began with modifications to existing Drumulator microcode by new engineer Donna Murray allowing pitch shifting (tuning) of sounds. Though the drop-sample interpolation introduced a lot of distortion, musicians at E-mu thought it musically useful. E-mu especially sought to apply their Emulator experience to add a drum machine with user sampling features to the successful Drumulator product line.[5][6][9][10][11][17] Scott Wedge invented a technology enabling dynamics to be performed using a piezo sensor on the circuit board listening for the button's impact.[5][6][13][18]
In contrast to implementing unique sound engines for each of its other samplers so far, beginning with Emulator and Emulator II, and growing in ambition and scope with purpose-built ICs designed by Dave Rossum, including E-chip powering Emax (1986) and F-chips used in Emulator III (1987), SP-1200's short and low-risk development updated the SP-12 sampling drum machine with more sampling time and an integrated disk drive, with E-mu reusing the sample playback engine used in SP-12 and in Drumulator since 1983.[5][6] SP-1200 would become both the last E-mu sampler to not integrate custom E-mu chips (ICs) and the last to include analog SSM chips, using SSM2044 in its dynamic filters until they became unavailable in 1998.[5][6]E-mu Systems updated SP-12 with improvements and a "Turbo" option expanding the total available sample time to 5 seconds before it was eventually replaced in the product line when SP-1200 was released in August 1987.[1][5][6][12] Combined with 10 seconds of user sampling time, SP-1200's $2995 price provided artists with a practical entrypoint to sample-based music production.[6]
Differences from the SP-12
The SP-1200 retained the capabilities, inputs and outputs of its predecessor, the SP-12, minus the cassette output and connectivity for the 1541 Commodore Computer5.25" floppy disk drive.[6] In their place, the SP-1200 uses an integrated disk drive for storing and loading sounds and sequences, making it particularly attractive to producers.[5][6][9]
Unlike the SP-12 and Drumulator, the SP-1200 does not use any ROM-based samples; all samples are stored in volatile RAM and loaded from 3.5" disk.[3][5][6][24] Maximum sampling time was doubled from the upgraded SP-12 Turbo, to 10 seconds, though the maximum duration of an individual sound remained limited to 2.5 seconds.[3][5][6][7][25]
SP-1200 provides additional unfiltered versions of the signals from its first six channels (not available on SP-12) using TRS connections for each individual output, providing the option to use unfiltered signals from all eight channels / voices alternatively to their analog filters.[6][13][15][25][26]
Features
The SP-1200 can store up to 100 patterns, 100 songs, and has a 5,000-note maximum memory for sequences.[6] The sequencer enables musicians to create patterns using both step programming and real-time recording using the touch-sensitive[5][6] front panel buttons (and via external MIDI note input). Patterns can be organized into songs, and swing, quantization, and tempo and mix changes can be applied. SP-1200 can both generate SMPTE, MIDI, and analog clock signals and synchronize its tempo and sequencer to them. Users can also tap the front panel Tap / Repeat button or an external footswitch to program the tempo.[27][unreliable source?][13]
Selecting between banks A, B, C, and D gives access to each of the 32 sounds. Eight sliders are used to set sounds' pitch and volume parameters. Large buttons below each slider are used to select or play sounds with dynamics using a piezo sensor mounted on the circuit board.[5][6][13]
SP-1200 uses drop-sample pitch-shifting (simply dropping or replaying sample data in order to pitch/speed the playback up or down), producing significant additional (unfiltered) audible artifacts and distortion which proved to be musical useful.[6][15] More advanced pitch-shifting algorithms like linear and higher-order interpolation reproduce high frequency data more accurately, but consequently may not sound as "warm" in comparison to simpler techniques.[9][10][11]
Music producers discovered and shared techniques using SP-1200's tuning (pitch) features to enable samples longer than 2.5 seconds, and more than 10 seconds total sampling time, to be used. Using a tape machine, another sampler, or, most famously, a vinyl turntable with multiple and/or variable playback speeds, sounds can be pitched up (sped up), allowing them to be sampled with SP-1200 using less sampling time (RAM). SP-1200 can shift the pitch of the sounds down to the original pitch (and beyond) when they are played back. The prevalent technique compresses samples of longer durations into the available memory, while reducing their fidelity and introducing notably more audible artifacts.[6][25]
SP-1200 enabled musicians to construct the bulk of a song within one piece of portable gear, a first for the industry.[1][3][24] This reduced production costs while increasing creative control for hip-hop artists.[3][33] The SP-1200 became associated with the golden age of hip hop.[1][3][6][7][25] According to the Village Voice, "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 filteredbasslines that characterize the vintage New York sound are all mechanisms of the machine."[25]
E-mu Systems'ssamplingdrum machines had earned a strong following, especially from hip hop musicproducers seeking out its characteristic sound, by the time of SP-1200's initial discontinuation in 1990.[3][5][6][24] Owing to unending demand, SP-1200 was reissued by E-mu in 1993 with a cooler-running power supply and black chassis that complied with contemporaneous electrical regulations, and became E-mu's longest-lived product in 1996.[3][5][6]E-mu continued to build SP-1200 units until the unavailability of aging parts including the analog SSM2044 filterchips (ICs), forced the instrument's second discontinuation, marked by a "Final Edition" of SP-1200 units, in 1998.[2][5][6]
In 2015, E-mu Systems co-founder and original SP-12 and SP-1200 designer Dave Rossum returned to designing synthesizers, co-founding a new company, Rossum Electro-Music ("Rossum") that soon began receiving requests for SP-1200.[3][10] Sound Semiconductor's announcement of SSI2144, an analog filterchip (IC) using a modern manufacturing process with the same internal circuit and sonic character as the SSM2044 (also designed by Dave Rossum),[44][45] and Rossum's announcement of Assimil8or, a new hardware sampler in eurorack format in 2017,[43] further fueled speculation of a new SP-1200 product. Rossum announced an extremely limited 35th Anniversary edition of rebuilt SP-1200 units in 2020.[46][47]
In November 2021, Rossum announced a reissue of the SP-1200.[2][3][4] The Rossum SP-1200 provides 20 seconds total sampling time, equal to twice the original SP-1200's 10 seconds.[2][4][47] A new SD card interface replaces the 3.5" disk drive.[2][3][4][47] The chassis is made entirely from metal to comply with modern emissions standards.[47] The unavailable SSM2044 filters are replaced with functionally identical SSM2144 filterchips (IC).[2][4]
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