January 18, 1996 -- Yamaha Corporation of America "kicks it" with the roll out of the SU10 Digital Sampling Unit, the music industry's only portable sampling unit which combines true stereo digital phrase sampling with a unique touch-driven ribbon controller and realtime SCRATCH and FILTER effects. This affordable unit gives musicians, disc jockeys, multimedia artists and project studio professionals the freedom of expression they crave.

Designed to adapt to any type of live performance or recording situation, the Yamaha SU10 offers users phrase sampling with record and replay capabilities of up to 48 stereo waveforms. Samples are stored - not destroyed - when the unit is turned off, and the maximum sampling rate is equivalent to audio CD-quality at 44.1 MHz. "The SU10 Digital Sampling Unit is ideal for anyone who wants to incorporate affordable, high-quality sampling with innovative features into their system," said Avery Burdette, product manager, Digital Musical Instruments, Yamaha Corporation of America. "The SU10 is the first model of its kind and fits in with our continuing line of sophisticated, highly-portable products."

Although the SU10 is appropriate for a wide range of environments, DJs will be impressed by the Yamaha SU10 because of its ribbon controller and realtime performance effects. The finger driven ribbon controllers work both on playback and on realtime input from a CD player, microphone or other source. Depending on the mode chosen, the ribbon can alter the filter cutoff frequency or "SCRATCH" out a sound segment, which is similar to pushing a record album back and forth. The ribbon may also be used to slide the pitch manually or to control crossfading of local playback and external input.

Musicians will appreciate that the Yamaha SU10 has four "songs" or sample-replay sequences. Users can save up to four sample-replay sequences as independent "songs" that can be started, stopped or resumed at any arbitrary location within the song. The "song" can also be programmed to repeat indefinitely. Another feature incorporated into this sequencing function is that the "song" and sample replay can be used simultaneously so that a song can be set-up as background and a sample can play over the top. In addition, a variety of special play modes are available to the user, such as the ability to HOLD selected samples and play selected samples in REVERSE. Another special play mode is the SCALE feature, which allows the user to play any sample at 12 different pitches. The FILTER mode is used to apply sophisticated filtering playback to any internal samples or any realtime input.

The flexibility the SU10 offers musicians is made available through its LOOP modes. This unit allows the user to set each sample to any of the five LOOP modes - no loop, no-loop reverse, whole loop, whole-loop reverse and partial loop - and to any of the three triggering modes. To add to the creativity the SU10 affords the user, samples can be manipulated by selecting an arbitrary start point, end point and loop point. Each sample can be played back at different volume levels adding subtle nuances to the music being created. In addition, samples can be trimmed to remove unused leading and trailing data.

For multimedia artists and desktop musicians, the Yamaha SU10 offers MIDI support in the form of MIDI bulk dumps to back up all data to external storage. MIDI sample dumps can also be downloaded to specific samples to a replay or editing device, such as a synthesizer or computer. For example, the SU10 is a powerful addition to any sample playback synthesizer, such as the Yamaha W7 or QS300, giving the user the capabilities of a high-quality stereo sampling unit.

The SU10 Digital Sampling Unit has a large compartmentalized LCD which presents full status information to guide the user during editing and system set-up. The well-organized screen layout greatly enhances ease of use and enables new users to get up to speed almost instantly.

The SU10 comes with a "Yamaha Sound Show" CD, which holds an outstanding collection of professional sample libraries available on CD and CD-ROM to get the user started or to enhance any piece that is being worked on.

The SU10 Digital Sampling Unit has a retail price of $399 and will begin shipping in January of 1996.

For more information, visit their web site at www.yamaha.com.