Dreaming of an Akai S950, E-mu E4X Hollywood Gold, or an Ensoniq ASR-10? These fantastic devices are full of charm and character, but they've become nearly unreachable due to their skyrocketing prices. They still provide that coveted vintage vibe, but they're increasingly hard to find without being overused to the point of abuse.

What about the rest of us? Those with an eager desire to sample the old way but not wanting to sell a kidney or rob a bank just to buy a dream sampler? Well, I'm happy to say we have a path to follow — one that won't break the bank while still delivering authentic vintage sampling goodness.

Let me introduce you to some hidden gems from the golden era of hardware samplers that deliver professional-grade sampling at a fraction of the cost. These  models flew under the radar compared to their more famous siblings, but they pack serious sampling power that deserves your attention today!

It all started in 1985 with the Akai S612, which was the first in a series of relatively affordable samplers designed in a 19-inch studio-rack format. It could hold only a single sample at a time, which was loaded into memory via a separate disk drive utilizing 2.8-inch Quick Disks. It featured an analog filter - a farewell goodbye to the analog era, a characteristic which would rocket launch its price 30 years later. Being half-computer itself, the S612 paved the way for dozens of successors that invaded the market so quickly that the rackmount sampler concept became inextricably linked to Akai to this day, even though Akai does not exist anymore as that '80s company and has not created any new rackmount sampler since the Z-series of 2002. Why, would you ask? Well, "because of computers" would be a generic answer. But let's better dive into the history and see how Akai progressed and which models were produced.

E-mu revolutionized music sampling with their legendary Emulator series, from Emulator I to Emax, each model pushing technological boundaries. As competitors caught up, the digital music landscape transformed. Musicians transitioned from 8 and 12-bit samplers to high-fidelity digital workstations, with E-mu's final Proteuses in the very early 2000s marking a nostalgic endpoint in their innovative journey. Creative Labs ultimately sealed the company's fate, bringing an end to an iconic era of music technology. Here is the list of all E-mu samplers of the 4th generation, including its sub-generations.