Hi,

As a user of the ESI-32 (with 4000 level software) and the E6400 I can make some comments.

Firstly both the ESI4000 and the E6400 have extremly high audio quility and I cannot distuiges between the same sample played on both machines.

For writing sequences and tracks the sequencer on the E6400 can be used but it is not ideal. I would definately recomend a computer based sequencer. However, for live work the sequencers is just fine. We use PCs in the Studio but the sequencer on the E6400 for 'live' work. It plays standard midi files from the floppy disk. The onboard sequencer can be used to trigger external devices.

The updated sequencer on the E6400 Ultra does include does support features like swing quantise and look pretty good (well I'm having one anyway).

There are some major advantages of the E6400 Ultra over the ESI-4000. Firstly the E6400 Ultra is so so so much faster. It is massively expandable (EMU are about to release a new 32 Channel !!! effects card for the Ultra) to support ADAT and other digital interfaces, 32 midi channels, 128 note polophony, 16 outs. It has a much bigger, graphical interface. The ultra's also support 32 bit processing with a 20bit D-A on theoutput which should provide a significant increase in the headroom.

If you don't currently have a sampler then it will probably take you a very long time to exhaust the possibilities of the ESI-4000 but the E4 Ultra range are awesome.

Paul