Oh come now. What are you all talking about. The real sampler is out there, it has and always was the Emu range. The new E4 Ultra makes the S6000 look like a toy (the S2000 could not even begin to compare).

The E4 Ultra is a modular synthesiser that uses samples as the sound source. I have looked at the AKAI, Kurzweil and Roland offerings and there is absolutely no comparison. Belive me, the E4 absolutely walks over all of the competion.

Since none of you mention this machine I can only assume that none of you know anything about it. If your not happy with the samplers you have I strongly suggets you try one out (you'll need about 1 week to study the basic features and editting capabilities)

Roland are not going to produce anything that 'blows this away'. Developement of products with the fire power and versatility of the E4 take hundreds of man years of developemt time. Roland have nothing that even compares to build on.

I can only assume that your comments on the likelyhood of the afore mentioned companies producing products that 'blow' the others aways is based on the fact that you own gear made by these companies.

Synth and electronic music equipement is basically very straight forward to design. The creative part comes from the intelectual input of the design team not the technology.

There is no up and comming sound technology which is going to emerge in the next few years. All that is happening at the moment is that DSP chips are getting more powerful enabeling synths and samplers to add more features, polophony etc.

Of all the companies out there Roland appear to be the most 'guilty' of producing kit that 'makes things easy'.

Music is not about kit. Slagging off equipement in discussion groups is pointless. If you have not heard great music that uses samplers then you don't know what to listen to (or, more likely, you could not tell samplers were made used to make it).

Also, samplers are just great but they can't do evrything (and nor should they). If you think you can sample everything the Roland JX-3P can do then you havn't discovered what the JX-3P can do. The whole point of analogue synths is subtle (or sometimes not so subtle) variations over time. You cannot capture the true nature of a great analogue synth with a sampler.

Personally I absolutely love the new physically modeled synths. Certainly old analogue synths are great but there not nearly as good as many people suggest.

The 'new analogues' offer a perfect combination of convienient features and awesome sound. I am fortunate enough to be able to compare old and new in my own studio.

By all means carry on complaining about the products that have already 'blown away' the digital toss (yes I even own some of that too) turned out by your favourite companies during the 80s. Meanwhile, I'll keep using them to make music.

Music and music technology are two different things. Personally I love both of them.

Paul