So I'm a guitar/songwriter type guy. New to the forum. I've had my 555 for four or five days, and I've been reading the forum here since before I ordered. (Because of that I like to think I had a pretty idea of what I was going to get )

I've been looking at some older hardware that might be a good match for me and the sp. I've seen DJ Frantic mention the ensoniq eps. Any other old tech samplers/synths that you guys have found useful?

I just snagged an E-mu esi 2000 for a hundred fifty. Anyone have any thoughts on this machine?

Ive never messed with that particular sampler but it should work fine. A good way to use it is to set it up on midi channel 2. Then keep banks g-j on your SP empty. Those banks transmit on channel 2. so u can play the sampler from those pad banks and use the other 6 banks for the 555s samples.

That's a useful tip. I just got that Emu (a week or two late but oh well) and am having a ball with it. It's nice to be able to speed up and slow down samples rather than having to deal with some wack digital pitch shift. It compliments the sp 555 well.

About that pitch shift... wouldn't it have been easier and MUCH more useful to just allow sp users to speed up and slow down samples? Sure the BPMs change, but that doesn't matter so much for looping short samples. As I see it the 555's pitch shifting is 95% percent worthless.

Yo... I think you'll find that it is useful once you get your resampling chops up. It's excellent for drum hits... among lots of other stuff...

... I totally understand the complaint, but once you realize how to work it, you stop expecting it to slow down or speed up samples and everything is cool.

Ya, I agree. Its a nice thing to have and works decently on cleaner sampler (less background sounds) but I would certainly prefer a standard pitch. But both would be ideal.