Yamaha EMR-1
Digital Drum Machine (1988)

 

Very simple digital drum expander with preset patterns, a basic internal sequener and Midi control.

EMR-1 is mainly projected to accompaign Portatone, Clavinova and Portasound series.

HALF-RACK Main panel features a 7-segment 3 digits LED display, 24 buttons, a slider and 4 arrows buttons.

Back panel terminal connectors:
- RCA line out
- Midi interface
- start/stop footswitch input
- variation fill footswitch input
- RCA line input (not affected by main volume)

Power supply is a 9V external PSU with negative on center (300 mA). Other units can be chain powered by a single PSU - just pay attention to total draw.

TECH module based a special drum chip IC YM3419B with 8 or 12 bits (companded) PCM waveforms onboard and internal DAC, quite common on early PSR keyboard series.
Sample play-back structure based on 37 instruments sample:

Wavelist: kicks, snare, toms, claps, hihats, shaler, cuica FULL LIST HEAR some PCM

 

SEQUENCER is very basic with a few functions: PUNCH IN, CANCEL, RECORD but badly misses a quantize mode.

SYNC tempo can be set internally from 32 to 280 BPM or slaved to external Midi clock, for this option you have to change position to the switch on the back panel.

MEMORY 32 preset patterns rhytms that can be changed by Midi program change.
Each rhythm features 3 kinds of pattern variations:

- intro pattern - ending - fill-in rhythm Created patterns can be data dumped to Midi Sysex data for storage.

 

MIDI sounds can be directly triggered by Midi but EMR-1 needs to be set to special MODE control located in the MIDI utility page.

Midi Control change implementation is limited to CC7 for volume.

 

MAINTENANCE quite solid, not special issues for now

LEFT the internal EMR motherboard - CLICK to enlarge pic -

RELATED FAMILY:

EMT10 expander based on AWM samples EMT1: based on FM synthesis

 

AUDIO DEMO

	pattern1
	pattern2

VIDEO SELECTION with Yamaha SY-77 Circuit Bent EMR-1