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Emulator II OMI Universe of Sounds: Vol 1

(15 customer reviews)

93.75 plus VAT

The classic sampled sounds that defined a generation

Description

 “Sampled soundbanks don’t get much more classic than this.” – Computer Music Magazine

Computer Music 8 out of 10

“There is old-school digital character on offer here in every one of the 534 instruments… brilliantly retro” – Future Music MagazineFuture Music 8 out of 10

“Rhythmic Robot strike again… it’s these sounds that made the 8–bit Emulator II the mid–’80s sampler we lusted after. The hits and chords still sound immense [and] it gets even better with a great selection of strings. Whether you’re writing ’80s retro tracks or you simply love the sounds of the Emulator II, these collections should prove invaluable.” Sound on Sound MagazineSound on Sound magazine review our Kontakt instruments


‘I’m a fan of this Rhythmic Robot outfit. Using their instruments is like discovering a lost tribe in the digital jungle… pure, but slightly uncivilized.’

– Stephen Hague, producer (Peter Gabriel, Erasure, Pet Shop Boys, Robbie Williams, Melanie C, New Order, etc.)

Over 500 superb sounds from the biggest, bluest sampler of the 80s, brought to Kontakt with the blessing and collaboration of their original publisher, Doug Morton • Vintage EII companding convertors add punch, weight, grain and texture to the classic 8-bit sound • Every key of every patch sampled across the whole EII keyboard – no interpolation means you get the exact tonality of the Emulator II

The Emulator II UOS Library is available in two parts: Volume 1 and Volume 2. If you buy Volume 1, you can get Volume 2 half price. See here for details of this awesome offer!

 

 

The original Emulator II 12-bit sampler with attached Mac editor. We sampled this extensively for our Kontakt versionThis has been thirty years coming.

Back in the mid-80s, the sampling keyboard that took the synth world by storm was the Emulator II. Far more pervasive in its influence than the Synclavier or the Fairlight, the Emulator II brought 8-bit sampling to a price point that took it into studios and onto hit records at a rate that helped to define the sound of a generation.

There were several secrets to the EII’s success, and central to these was the sound. At a time when sample memory was worth its weight in platinum, the EII managed a clever collaboration of 8-bit sample depth (keeping the memory footprint manageable) and very advanced, musical-sounding convertors which companded those 8 bits of data into the equivalent of a 12-bit output. This nifty bit of digital trickery made the EII more responsive and better-sounding than should have been possible given the limitations of the bit depth. Moreover, that combo of 8-bit grain and companding output lent the sound a heft and authority that punched sounds right into the thick of a mix. Although the aim was to emulate ‘real’ instruments – often acoustic ones – the EII’s forté was larger-than-life sounds that sounded simultaneously convincing and massive.

Ferris would, we think, be proud of our Emulator II Kontakt libraries!Part of the explanation for this is the fact that the established workflow of the time was to record sounds to tape first, and then into the EII, in order to allow for precise level-setting. This two-stage process stamped the soundset with both analogue punch from the tape saturation and digital weight from the sampling conversion. It’s pretty magical, and that alchemy got a further mojo injection when the EII’s pure analogue filters came into play. This instrument was a real beast.

‘I still own every digital sampling synth E-mu Systems ever manufactured… I’m so excited to use this new EII library on my future projects!’

Frank Serafine, Honey Hills Music & Sound (Sound Designer – TronStar TrekField of Dreams, Hunt for Red October, Short Circuit, Peter Gabriel etc)

‘I use EMUs, Fairlights and a PPG Waveterm System every day, but I am so impressed by the sound and the ease of use of the interface of the Rhythmic Robot version that I haven’t turned on the EII in a couple of weeks. I am recommending it to all our composers on EML.’

Nigel Bates (The Electronic Music Library Ltd)

Though the EII shipped with an excellent set of factory sound disks, many of the standout patches that graced the tracks of the time came courtesy of one particular third-party library. That library was the OMI Universe of Sounds – a massive, multi-disk-spanning collection of orchestral stabs, soaring strings, funky basses, thick, punchy drums, classic synths, searing brass solos, chunky keys and loads, loads more. It’s this library that we’ve spent over six months resampling for Kontakt in all its glory – every note of every patch, in meticulous detail, yielding a total of over 31,700 individual samples spanning 21 Gigabytes of uncompressed data. Here are the actual statistics of the library, just for kicks:

  • 31,700 individual samples
  • 33Gb original 24-bit
  • 21Gb uncompressed 16-bit
  • 11.33Gb compressed .ncw format
  • 541 individual instruments, consisting of…
  • …14 Bass / 18 Bells & Chimes / 52 Brass / 51 Drums / 59 Ethnic & Folk / 8 FX / 36 Guitar / 38 Piano & Keys / 77 Orchestral / 41 Percussion / 61 Strings / 76 Synth / 12 Vocal

If the level of detail we’ve aimed for here borders firmly on the obsessive-compulsive end of the spectrum, it’s because our ambition with the Universe of Sounds library was simple: to produce Kontakt patches that sound and play exactly the same as the original EII patches. That meant a marathon of multisampling, covering every single semitone of every single patch, often at multiple velocity layers to preserve the exact behaviour of the EII’s glorious analogue filters. It also meant carefully gain-staging the EII’s output and looping the sustained patches so as to preserve their original loop points. Some of these are totally transparent, but others can be pretty audible – adding strange little crackles and twitches to the sound and paying testament to the fact that pushing the boundaries of sampling in the 80s sometimes meant trying to loop the unloopable. We’ve done nothing to disguise this; all the EII’s patches play exactly as they would on the original hardware. What you hear is the sound of the 80s, pure and simple.

The original EII used big 5 inch floppy disks. Our Kontakt version sits straight in your DAW with not a disk in sight!But of course we’ve gone a little further, too. The Emulator II had an approachable and intuitive front panel which used a healthy scattering of buttons and a bank of ‘soft’ assignable sliders to control a two-line LCD interface. Our Kontakt interface adds some useful further control: a secondary Filter array; Amp controls with tremolo; a convolved Lexicon reverb straight from the mid-80s to complement the EII’s signature sound (the Plates are great for thickening, while the Rooms and Halls let the sound swell and breathe); Chorus, Phaser, Echo and Rotary Speaker effects; specific control over Velocity response for both amplitude and filter cutoff; a stereo Spread knob; and a neat SSA (Skip Sample Attack) button that lops the start off sustained samples, turning them effectively into synth waves for you to use in creating your own patches.

There’s also a Vintage button, which works in the same way as the one we pioneered on Lambda. While we’ve been very restrained with the reverb and other settings – we didn’t want to swamp the sounds in effects – there’s usually a dab of reverb and some stereo spread on most of the patches. One click of the Vintage button, though, and all the effects, the Lexicon reverb, and the modern filter are disabled; the sound is panned to mono, just like the original; and you’re left with the exact sound of the original EII patch, no frills. This is an instant way to transport yourself to 1986. Click it again, and the other settings are reinstated exactly as they were before. Neat 🙂

But why stop there? We’ve also included some Kontakt Multis that layer and stack EII patches, go to town with the effects, and generally show off what you can do when you forget about vintage authenticity and just run riot with the Universe of Sounds library’s treasure-trove of material. The Multis folder is packed with subsonic basses, echoing synths, strange soundscapes and otherworldly presences… and there’s nothing to stop you rolling more of your own in a similar vein. This is the sound of the EII with turbo-boost rockets strapped to its disk drives!

The EII allowed computer editing via an attached MacintoshReproducing OMI’s Universe of Sounds for a new generation has been a labour of love that has involved late, late nights, months of sampling and editing, a lovingly-reconditioned EII, a preposterous number of 5.25″ floppy disks, and a ridiculous amount of grinning as we auditioned the patches and got caught up in how good they sound. For anyone who lusted after an Emulator II but couldn’t afford one; for anyone who’s heard talk of this groundbreaking machine but not heard one in action; for anyone who’s watched Ferris Bueller’s Day Off and found their gaze drawn not by the Ferrari (or Ferris’s girlfriend) but by the EII in his bedroom… this one’s for you. Enjoy.


Click below to download a full patch list for both volumes of the EII library:

Emulator II UOS full patch list


Downloading and installing the Emulator II OMI Universe of Sounds Kontakt library:

This is a big, big set of instruments. As such, we’ve split it into two parts. Step-by-step instructions on how to deal with them are included in the README file that comes along with the downloads. Please read it – it’s very important!

EII Universe of Sounds ships with a factory sound library of over 540 original EII patches, and also a collection of Kontakt Multis most of which were designed by our good friend Ed Ten Eyck. Ed does sound design for other synths too, so take a look at his brilliant patches here.


(All our Kontakt instruments require a full copy of Native Instruments Kontakt v4.2.3 or higher (including all versions of Kontakt 5). Kontakt Player is not supported: instruments will load, but will time out after 15 minutes. See the FAQ for further information.) You can read more about the original hardware E-Mu Emulator II here, and you can get more of Doug Morton’s classic samples on his awesome website, Q-Up Arts, here.

15 reviews for Emulator II OMI Universe of Sounds: Vol 1

  1. Christopher Brown (verified owner)

    As someone who got into Depeche Mode and Skinny Puppy in the late 90s, I was able to find a rack version of the Emulator on the cheap. Unsurprisingly, it did not last very long before it became DOA, and all repair estimates were far more than I could afford. I sold it as is for about the price of this instrument, and that made me feel better about the whole thing for the first time in 20 years. The sounds (and filters) were all there, and in particular I’ve been using the strings and pads as a thickening tool for a lot of tracks. Please just keep releasing more expansions!

  2. michael.topic (verified owner)

    I’m old enough to remember when the Emulator II was new, as I worked at Fairlight at the time and I had friends that were making sound libraries for the E-Mu. I’ve been looking for a software emulation of that machine for years, but have been disappointed by what’s on offer. The beauty about this library is that it uses the industry standard Kontakt sampler to do all the heavy lifting. Of course, the collection goes way beyond the factory library, which is another great bonus. If you want to add that 80s flavour to your productions, this is the answer.

  3. Stefano (verified owner)

    The EII has the most distinctive sounds of the 80s, and also has the magical power to catch the essence of an instrument and make its sound fit perfectly in the mix. The most of the current libraries, with samples in 24 bit and tones of articulations, can’t do this magic! Here every single note has been sampled and the result is fantastic!

  4. Martijn (verified owner)

    I bought both vol 1 and 2.
    I love having all those 70s and 80s soundbanks, they blend in perfectly with modern productions.
    Sometimes you have these plugins that you just have to have.
    This is one of them.

  5. The Professor

    See also this super review of the EII libraries from samplelibraryreview.com:

    http://www.samplelibraryreview.com/the-reviews/review-emulator-ii-omi-universe-of-sounds-vol-1-2-from-rhythmic-robot/

    🙂

  6. Jure (verified owner)

    If you are into 80s sounds this library will definitely add the signature sound of that era to your songs… Wide range of sounds from soft to percussive, from fat and warm to cold (in a good way). Also good for ambient stuff! This is great addition to analog synths (or analog synth emulations) for a wide palette of sounds.

  7. drew (verified owner)

    ……heaven on earth. i’ve messed with a lot of emu family vsts and sound libraries…. unlike those who simply cash in and slap something together….. these guys CARE. …justice has been served. you kids these days have it SOOOOOO easy, haha. I can’t believe how choice this is.

  8. Jonas (verified owner)

    By far my favorite library purchase of the year. The quality of these samples is just amazing!!

  9. John (verified owner)

    For years I have been searching for high-quality Emulator II samples. Here they are! The Prof has provided excellent customer support after my purchase. This product has exceeded my expectations.

  10. James (verified owner)

    The quality of the samples here is amazing. A huge library of sounds is included here, each conveniently set out as a Kontakt instrument with an extremely simple user interface. Various effects are included and easily accessible from the front panel. The Emulator II came out in 1984 and was featured on very many famous recordings from that decade – at the time it must have seemed incredible to have an instrument capable of producing these amazing sampled sounds, although at $8,000 for the entry-level model, it’s price was still out of reach for most musicians. These are originally 8-bit samples, so it’s astonishing to me how realistic many of them sound, and when they’re in the mix with some judicious use of effects, they stand up to scrutiny 30-odd years later.

    Rhythmic Robot have done a fantastic job in sampling this sound library in forensic detail. I’m only just finding my away around the library – it will keep me occupied for a long time to come! Given the amount of effort involved, the pricing is very reasonable. It will serve you well whether you want to re-create the spirit of the ’80s or find a place for these sounds in the most up-to-date electronic productions.

  11. norman (verified owner)

    if you have one library to buy this year, it’s EII !!
    far from coloring anything vintage (though it’s perfect at it) it’s very versatile and it can fit in any style.
    the samples are AAAA quality and the price is just waaaouu O_O

  12. Eugene (verified owner)

    I am really impressed with this Library, in fact I emailed the team to congratulate them after the first 10 minutes of browsing the banks. The sound is deep and weighty. I had some of the library with my EMU samplers and RR have done the legacy proud. The interface is pleasing on the eye and straight to the point, kind of “you know you want to use me” 🙂
    Top marks from me

  13. Erik (verified owner)

    I always wanted an Emulator. Now I have one! I spent two days (on and off) just playing around with these sounds. I was reminded of the days when music videos were just a minor thing compared to FM radio. Bliss out in the 80’s!

  14. Martin (verified owner)

    I haven’t tried any other EII-samples or plugins, but this one sure is great. At this price it’s even essential!
    Not having used an actualy EII, I thought it would be an expensive toy with a characteristic (cheesy) sound, but it can be so much more than that!
    Yet another fun, but very useable instrument by Rhythmic Robot.

  15. Richard (verified owner)

    So, I thought I had a couple of songs that I was putting the finishing touches out, but Nooooo, The Prof and Mongo decided they had to release EII. So I had me a listen to the demo’s, and I found my self uttering “ooh’ about every 13 seconds or so. It wasn’t like an ‘Ooh Cookies’ kind of ooh, it was an ‘Ooh truckload of Murphy’s Stout’ kind of ooh. So I did a purchase, and I have been thoroughly enjoying the pure electroretro goodness packed into this excellent instrument. It’s been like floating through the bliss of heaven on a cloud. Sometimes, a cloud passes by that has a rich, melodic patch that is just beautiful, and other times a cloud passes by that has a patch a Sam Kinison scream kind of brutality. I am particularly fond of those. So, thanks to the RR twins, my almost complete songs have been deconstructed and are slowly being reconstructed. But, it is worth it. At the asking price, it’s the bargain of the century. I almost felt like I needed to put a pair of pantyhose on my head because it is such a steal.

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