EAR 2 GEAR
Jan 1, 2001 12:00 PM, Chris Gill
Budget Samplers SMALL PRICES, BIG FEATURES, AND MASSIVE SOUNDS.
If you don't have a sampler in your home studio or DJ rig by now, you have absolutely no excuse. Almost every gizmo - from cheap watches to Tuff Talkin' Wrestlers - can sample audio, so why don't you want to join in the fun? Samplers have become so inexpensive and portable that you'd have to be a technology-fearing, music-hating schlump not to own one.
Whereas inexpensive samplers not so long ago offered limited features and primitive sound quality, today's budget models provide great sound and cool functions that didn't exist even in top-of-the-line samplers a decade ago. Small enough to fit in a record box and packed with easy-to-use live-performance features, these recent low-cost units are great for DJs who want to add a little something extra to their sets. Or you can pair one of these samplers with a keyboard synth for a compact but lethal live-performance rig.
Akai, Boss, Korg, Yamaha, and Zoom all offer sampling units with list prices well under a grand. By the time you read this, Electrix will also have released a low-cost sampling unit. For this review, we took a close look at the Korg ES-1 Electribe-S Rhythm Production Sampler and the Yamaha SU200 Sampling Unit. Both are great budget samplers, yet they vary significantly in their design, features, and functions. We tried each of these samplers for a variety of applications to help you determine which one best suits your needs.
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