Emu ESI-4000

Category: Products / samplers / e-mu samplers
Added: 09-Nov-01 | Author: admin
New price: ?? | S/H price: ??
Company Link: E-MU
Emu ESI-4000
The ESI-4000 64-voice digital sampler is E-mu's latest professional, low-cost entry into the sampler market. E-mu is famous for its sampling technology, and the ESI-4000 has it all: professional features, superb sound quality, thousands of sounds standard, and exceptional expansion capabilities. Utilizing the popular interface found on the original ESI-32, the ESI-4000 is consistent with E-mu's philosphy of making high technology easy to use. Almost every feature is only one or two button pushes away, so you get all of the results and power without any of the wait and frustration.Well, that's the blurb from E-mu, and frankly, it seems pretty honest... E-mu samplers are simple to edit, and do have a superb sound... they just tend to get overlooked when it comes to 3rd party cd-roms....Well, this reads via scsi only akai s1000/1100...
Here's some spec's....
- 64-voice polyphony
- 4 MB of RAM standard, expandable to 128 MB, 72pin SIMM's
- 64 digital 6-pole filters (18 different types)
- Over 200 MB of sample data standard (thousands of presets)
- 4 audio outputs, expandable to 8, plus a stereo effects output
- User friendly interface
- Large palette of powerful DSP tools
- 24-bit dual stereo effects option (comes standard with turbo unit)
- Compatible with Akai S-1000/1100 and E-mu EIIIx, ESI-32, and EmaxII libraries via SCSI
- 10 programmable front panel trigger buttons
You can upgrade with the ESI Turbo Option Kit, which offers two additional stereo subouts, an effects stereo submix, a 24-bit dual stereo-effects processor, and S/PDIF digital I/O. ...... The effects section offers more than 30 effects and 4 stereo submixes per processor.....with reverb, delays, chorus, flange, and even distortion algorithms provided.... The ESI-4000's sampling memory can be upgraded to 128 MB with 72-pin SIMMs. That's over 23 minutes of mono sampling at a sample rate of 44.1kHz.
Here's the DSP spec's:
- Stereo phase-locked time compression/expansion
- Pitch change
- Sample rate conversion
- Doppler/Pan
- Exciter
- Parametric EQ
- Transform/Multiply
- Cut, Copy, Paste
- Auto truncate
- Crossfade looping
- Audio scrub
- Auto normalize
- Compressor
Lets have some user comments......
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Category: Products / samplers / e-mu samplers
User Comments
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: influx
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 07-Jun-99
Basically a souped up ESI32 with only a few more tricks ("sonic enhancer":)), more polyphony and much more max ram...128 megs is enough to handle some pretty complex samples, and with the output expander (I have the turbo model) you get 8 seperate outputs to process those sounds individually.
The sound is, well...nice. Very warm and lush sounding.
Editing is a cinch once you learn how to turn pages, and seems very logical in the layout. Ive only had mine about 2 months now and just finished a track that I ended up doing entirely within the ESI (well, plus a wavestation padline) because I kept liking the sounds I was getting out of it! The 64 voice polyphony is enough to keep ya happy fer sure. For ESI32 owners...if you can get by with 32 voice/32 meg, then stick with your box and get the new OS that adds all the filters that are in the 4000...you wont miss the FX...
but with the price down to $849 at Guitar Center recently the 4k is quite a box!
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Shahar
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 31-Jul-99
Thought you might like this trick :
assign the same loop to two "trigger buttons", one in a "loop" mode, and one "on". If you're playing live with this loop, you can do cool intros and fills with the "on" button, and when you want to free your hands for the keyboard, press the "loop" button. (hip hoppers - do ya dig ?)
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: sean whalen
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.mp3.com/lucidity
Activity: part-timer
Date: 04-Sep-99
esi-4000 is a great sampler for the money. sound quality is great...
i've seen them for as low as 900,
so how can you pass one up at that price.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Jonathan
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 03-Nov-99
The ESI 4000 was simply the best
low-cost sampler for a long time.
Today I would buy the E5000,but for someone who is looking for a really great affordable sampler-here it is.
The 5 ESI 4000 sampling CD´s are very good and there are still new ones comming.(Rob Pappen just told me he is thinking about making a CD for the ESI)
Great tool-I love and always use it!
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Andrew Le Couteur Bisson
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity:
Date: 22-Jan-00
I have an ESI-4000 and I agree that the sound is incredible. I do think that EMU have missed an opportunity here, however. With MIDI and SCSI interfaces all you can do is save patches to disk and transfer samples. What happened to the SysXs? The ESI-4000 may be easy to use but I much prefer to drive complex equipment via the computer and the ESI-4000 is easily the most difficult instrument to operate that I own.
Even my MU-10 with its thousands of parameters is easier because I get a nice front panel on the screen using XG-Edit. EMU have said that they have no intend to add SysXs to the ESI-4000 and I think that is a great shame. Its a great sampler and it deserves it.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Justyn Hornor
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 03-Aug-00
Please send me an 'EMU - ESI-4000' so that I will be able to give it a fair write up
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: André E.
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.eternaltedium.com
Activity: Professional
Date: 06-Feb-01
Absolutely gorgeous sampler. Great sound, great filters and very easy to use. At this price its unbeatable. Unfortunately the ESI4000 has been discontinued but the ESI2000 is identicaly except for its slower processing power.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Sami Arola
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.sumea.com
Activity: part-timer
Date: 06-Feb-01
Basic small studio workhorse. Extremely nice piece of hardware ... Filters are great, effects are easy to use and it sounds just excellent. Only things I dislike a bit are slow DSP processing (doesn't matter if you use PC for sample cutting/eq'ing) and the fact that selected preset is overwritten on SCSI sample dump.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: kurtz
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 07-Feb-01
I don't think the ESI-2000 has slower processing power. From what I've read, it is exactly the same as the 4000 except it comes with 4mb of ram and it is a different color. Also, the 2000 comes with 10 sample cds from emu's sample library.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Jeff Sepeta
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.sepeta.com/music/synths.htm
Activity: Professional
Date: 05-Mar-01
I've got an ESI-4000 and I like it a lot. I haven't used it much (my bad) but when talking to EMU they said the only difference between it and the ESI-2000 were a couple of screens -- they tried to make it simpler to get to some features. AHHH, but I've got the TURBO ZIP model. Let me tell you, having an internal Zip beats the heck out of always loading sounds off a cd connected to the scsi port. I'd recommend this over the 2000 because the 2000 has an internal floppy that can't be swapped out.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Mr Areola
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 07-Mar-01
I exchanged my ESi for an E6400 about a year ago for the simple fact that the overall sound quality and warmth of the ESi was nothing in comparison to the E6400.
I think the ESi has some good features for the price and does have those lovely chunky 6 pole Emu filters, but features/polyphony arn`t everything. I found that the ESi was a very weak link in comparison to the rest of my setup and is by no means a `professional` instrument and would advise that anyone shopping around for a sampler in this price bracket should consider looking at a second hand E6400/E-Synth, as these are obtainable at much the same price as a new ESi.
The operating system is okay and not difficult to navigate around. It`s fast and simple, so you can get things done pretty rapidly.
Graphic editing is always a bonus and I think this is another letdown of this box, considering Yamaha offer this with their unit.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: kelu
Email: Email supplied but hidden
no
Activity: Professional
Date: 31-Oct-02
pretty good ,same sounds as the eos series but a bit less of dynamics when a lot of sample are played in comparison to an e64
pretty good way to have a taste of emu's sound.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Dave
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 12-Sep-03
can you play E5000 samples on the ESI 4000?
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: darren
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 07-Oct-03
I need some xp drivers for the emu esi-4000
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
Last added comment
Product: Emu - ESI-4000
Name: Justin Walsh
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 15-Jun-17
I purchased one when they first came out, with the Turbo board (Calamari BUS
8 out option).
The Z filters was second to none at the time.
I worked with Square Circle Software back then to use SMiDi via the SCSI
interface to export a sample to my PC with the program Wave Surgeon. Could
edit the wave and chop it into 32 parts or more then import back into current
Keygroup, mapped across the keyboard on the 4000. Also had a Ultra Wide
SCSI Hard Drive attached as the default save option.
Very under rated and powerful sampler which I think was able to also take a
daughter board adding the Orbit banks to it.
Product rating out of 5: ![]() |
'Emu ESI-4000'
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Total stars: 72 | Total votes: 18
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