Yamaha's ASR-X or MPC2000 Competitor

["Douglas Lawrence" <douglas-lawrence@home.com>]

With all the talk about the MPC-2000 and ASR-X, I finally dug up the info 
on
the product that Yamaha is about to announce as competition to these
products. It's suppose to hit the streets this Fall. I got a GIF of the
prototype and it has tons of buttons, a dial wheel, and that awesome ribbon
controller like on the SU-10...

Yamaha SU700 Sampler Unit

NASHVILLE-Yamaha Corporation of America, Audio, Guitar & Synthesizer
Division, is entering a brand-new market area with the introduction of
the SU700 Sampler Unit at Summer NAMM. The SU700 is a powerful,
pattern-based
multi-functional music production center which is a hybrid combination of a
sampler, sequencer, tone generator and drum machine. It will be a great
asset
for the DJ and hip-hop markets as well as a valuable compositional, live
performance and recording tool for the professional musician.

"The SU700 crosses the boundaries of techno/hip-hop/dance into a wide range
of market areas," states Avery Burdette, product manager, Digital Musical
Instruments Department, Yamaha Corporation of America. "Although there are
similar
units out on the market, Yamaha has not had anything like it before. We're
coming into this growing market area capitalizing on Yamaha's strengths.
We're
combining the QY pattern-based music production approach that we've
developed over
the years, and incorporating the sampling, loop playback type of approach
into a
powerful table-top unit."

Included with the SU700 are an optional SCSI interface, multiple outputs,
digital I/O, assignable ribbon controller, and many other functions. The
SU700
has a projected list price of $1,500 and will begin shipping in September.

"The SU700 is going to have a strong DJ application," adds Burdette, "plus
it can
be incorporated into a production studio to function with virtually any
style of
music. The unit's sampling, looping, ribbon controller and multi-effects
processing
capabilities make it naturally suited to the lo-fi/vinyl/scratch approach
used by
hip-hop music. It has all of those capabilities but it's certainly not
limited to
that. It can do much more."

With the unit's sampling features, "you can sample from a CD-ROM or audio
CD,
transfer the audio information into the SU700 and then edit it, chop it up
and
slice and dice it-any way you want," says Burdette.

The SU700 is totally loaded with functions and features. Its Sequencer
records
in either Real Time or Step mode, features 42 tracks, has an adjustable
tempo
from 40.0-299.9 BPM, and a resolution of 1/480. Its AWM2 (Advanced Wave
Memory 2)
based Tone Generator/Sampler features 64-note polyphony, adjustable data
format
(16-, 12-, or 8-bit linear), sampling times ranging from 44.1 kHz 16-bit
stereo
down to 11.025 kHz 8-bit mono, and 4MB of sampling wave memory expandable 
to
64MB.