2010 NAMM Show: E-MU Systems has announced that its new E-MU LONGboard 61 and SHORTboard 49 keyboards are now shipping.
The keyboards offer an impressive feature set for their under-$500 price, including 128-voice polyphony, 16-part multi-timbral operation, wireless operation, velocity sensitive keyboard with aftertouch and it doubles as a MIDI controller.
Both instruments feature a 64MB sound set containing a complete range of classic keyboard instruments such as: Grand Pianos, Electric Pianos, B3s, Clavinets, Solina-Moog-OB-Prophet-Juno-TB synthesizer leads and basses, as well a General MIDI sound set. Sounds can be modified during performance using six controller knobs, pitch and mod wheels, controller pedal, footswitch and the octave transpose buttons.
The LONGboard and SHORTboard are based on the new E-MU 8030 platform, which performs pitch interpolation for 128 voices, as well as generating 256 envelope generators, 128 LFOs, 128 low-pass ?lters (12dB/octave with resonance), 128 DCAs and 32-bit effects processing.
“The advanced technology contained in this keyboard is astounding,” said Michael Lee. “Because of the 8030 chip, we’re able to offer a truly professional keyboard at an unbelievable price point.”
PIPEline wireless audio transmission is also included, and under battery power, allows completely cordless operation up to 49 feet away. PIPEline is E-MU’s new wireless stereo transceiver system designed for musicians.
Prices for the LONGboard and SHORTboard are:
- LONGboard – $499.99 including PIPEline receiver (US only) / €399.99
- SHORTboard – $399.99 including PIPEline receiver (US only) / €299.99
Features:
- Full-size professional keys with aftertouch. The LONGboard 61 and SHORTboard 49 are expressive performance instruments with high-quality synth-action keybeds.
- E-MU 8030-based sound-engine with 128-voice polyphony
- 64 MB Premium keyboard and General MIDI (GM) compatible sound banks
- 32-bit Reverb and Chorus effects
- Built-in PIPELine wireless transmitter
- User-definable split keyboard (for playing two sounds at once)
- Six synthesizer controller knobs (double as MIDI controllers)
- Programmable data slider MIDI controller
- Pitch and Mod Wheels
- Octave transpose buttons
- MIDI Input/Output jacks (Can be used as a computer MIDI interface; MIDI output doubles as MIDI Thru)
- Dual 1/4″ headphone jacks
- Can be bus-powered via USB, DC powered, or battery powered
This key board look so nice and big I can say that it has very advance features.You share very nice and useful information for me I am very excited about this key board to playing.
Yes, where do I sign up! I'll have ten of them – they look 'amazing'.
Actually, the Longboard and Shortboard (bloody stupid names, by the way) are the biggest pile of rubbish that E-MU have ever produced. This is commercial suicide for them. NOBODY is going to buy this pile of rubbish.
E-MU should be bringing the price of Emulator X3 down to £50, and including ALL of the available E-MU expansion discs for it, such as Mo Phatt, Old World Instruments, Platinum 88, Modern Symphonic Orchestra, etc.etc.
And bringing back the XBoard 61 – the idiots have stopped producing it – the best MIDI controller keyboard under £200! Douchebags!
Yes, where do I sign up! I'll have ten of them – they look 'amazing'.
Actually, the Longboard and Shortboard (bloody stupid names, by the way) are the biggest pile of rubbish that E-MU have ever produced. This is commercial suicide for them. NOBODY is going to buy this pile of rubbish.
E-MU should be bringing the price of Emulator X3 down to £50, and including ALL of the available E-MU expansion discs for it, such as Mo Phatt, Old World Instruments, Platinum 88, Modern Symphonic Orchestra, etc.etc.
And bringing back the XBoard 61 – the idiots have stopped producing it – the best MIDI controller keyboard under £200! Douchebags!
Bad points: That has got to be the most uninspiring, bland keyboard I've ever laid eyes on.
Good points: It would match the walls in my apartment.
P.S. 64MB of samples? Think of the possibilities! I haven't seen that much memory since 1995! And a general MIDI soundbank? Holy smokes!
Looks like QVC gold.
Bad points: That has got to be the most uninspiring, bland keyboard I've ever laid eyes on.
Good points: It would match the walls in my apartment.
P.S. 64MB of samples? Think of the possibilities! I haven't seen that much memory since 1995! And a general MIDI soundbank? Holy smokes!
Looks like QVC gold.
Although i agree that they look uninspiring (even ugly, i would add) i do not agree about your comment on the size of sample ROM. Emu has one of the best (THE best, if you ask me) sample library and there a lot you can do with 64MB. I think we just have to listen to what was created only a few years ago, when a few MB of RAM was all that was available to even the top-class samplers of that period. Recently i started loading old EMU, AKAI and Kurzweil samples into my NI Kontakt and "discovered" that even long/full compositions did not require more than 2MB of sample RAM. The quality of the samples matters most.
I'm not recommending this to anyone. I have not heard which samples are included and don't know if they 're good quality or not. If you read carefully, i said it looks ugly and uninspiring to me. But i commented on the fact that nowadays we are "spoiled" with large amounts of ROM/RAM and we forget that a few years ago Emu (and others) created wonderful multisamples in small memory sizes. Bottom line, i wouldn't buy it …
E-MU USED to make fantastic sample libraries in a very small amount of memory, but this P.O.S. has only got 192 presets, of which 128 are a GM bank. Why would you want this? Why would anybody?
Arnetic, why would you recommend this pile of rubbish to anybody? For the same price as this piece of crap, I can buy an XBoard 61 (or would be able to if E-MU hadn't stopped making it!), which has 16 control knobs, comes with 1,000s of presets with Proteus X, and for which I can buy umpteen fantastic expansion CDs for £7.99 each, such as Mo Phatt, Platinum 88 (8 gig piano), Old World Instruments, XTreme Lead, etc.etc. each of which come with hundreds of usable presets, most of which use very small samples too.
Why did E-MU think that getting into the Casio home keyboard market was going to be a good idea? Why didn't they just bring the price of Emulator X3 down to £50 and include all the expansion sets that are currently available, and watch their sales go through the roof?
The Longboard and Shortboard are just hard to comprehend in this day and age.
E-MU USED to make fantastic sample libraries in a very small amount of memory, but this P.O.S. has only got 192 presets, of which 128 are a GM bank. Why would you want this? Why would anybody?
Arnetic, why would you recommend this pile of rubbish to anybody? For the same price as this piece of crap, I can buy an XBoard 61 (or would be able to if E-MU hadn't stopped making it!), which has 16 control knobs, comes with 1,000s of presets with Proteus X, and for which I can buy umpteen fantastic expansion CDs for £7.99 each, such as Mo Phatt, Platinum 88 (8 gig piano), Old World Instruments, XTreme Lead, etc.etc. each of which come with hundreds of usable presets, most of which use very small samples too.
Why did E-MU think that getting into the Casio home keyboard market was going to be a good idea? Why didn't they just bring the price of Emulator X3 down to £50 and include all the expansion sets that are currently available, and watch their sales go through the roof?
The Longboard and Shortboard are just hard to comprehend in this day and age.
I'm not recommending this to anyone. I have not heard which samples are included and don't know if they 're good quality or not. If you read carefully, i said it looks ugly and uninspiring to me. But i commented on the fact that nowadays we are "spoiled" with large amounts of ROM/RAM and we forget that a few years ago Emu (and others) created wonderful multisamples in small memory sizes. Bottom line, i wouldn't buy it …
I'm not recommending this to anyone. I have not heard which samples are included and don't know if they 're good quality or not. If you read carefully, i said it looks ugly and uninspiring to me. But i commented on the fact that nowadays we are "spoiled" with large amounts of ROM/RAM and we forget that a few years ago Emu (and others) created wonderful multisamples in small memory sizes. Bottom line, i wouldn't buy it …
I can’t believe that emu discontinued the xboard. Now we’re left with crap controllers from edirol and maudio at higher cost. The longboard/shortboard could have been a nice setup had emu built it around loading sounds from proteus/emulator for live performance. Not everyone needs the same sound set. As it is, I don’t imagine that emulator is flying off the shelves, so why not bundles it with a controller? Emulator xboard at $400? I’d snap that up. Add the necessary hardware to load sounds created in Emulator for a couple hundred more, and I’d buy that.
I do like the matrix and simple layout, but the extra controllers from the xboard should have been included for using this thing as a synth controller as well as a performance keyboard. What would that have cost, maybe $20 in added expense?
Emu is capable of making some nice gear at low cost, but they don’t seem to be tuned in to the times. I wouldn’t buy this keyboard as it is.
I've owned pretty much one (at least) of everything since 1972 – including an Emulator II+ and an Emulator III, and I'm really looking forward to this board. Several items: 1- a Korg Triton has only 64 MB of sample ROM, so why does the size worry some of you; 2- most players use about 12 sounds, so the number doesn't really matter; 3- Pitch interpolation allows smaller samples to have better sound; 4- E-Mu has long been know as being able to squeeze the most sound out of their ROMplers; 5- Any of the memory slots can be overwritten.
And finally, if this is what it takes to get E-Mu back into the keyboard market, I say go for it.
..Joe
PS: Listen to the demos before you judge: http://www.emu.com/products/mp3s/LONGboard_Multi_…
E-mu should release a new Emulator – these boards would have been good if you could edit the sounds and there would be more of them. Some people seem to be complaining about a noise that is heard from the output though.
I agree with all the comments here. What a piece of junk. E-mu has definitely degraded since they dismantled their US engineering team in 2006.
Wow! I have one and I actually like it.
I must be stupid.
I also have a Korg DS-8, T3, X2, X50, Kawai K1, K4, microKorg, microKorgXL,. Roland TR-808, TB-303.
I guess it’s a piece of junk if you can’t make it sound nice.