It enabled musicians to construct the bulk of a song within one piece of portable gear, a first for the industry, reducing production costs and increasing creative control for hip-hop artists.

")[5][10][14] Work began with modifications to existing Drumulator microcode by new engineer Donna Murray allowing pitch shifting (tuning) of sounds.

E-mu especially sought to apply their Emulator experience to add a drum machine with user sampling features to the successful Drumulator product line.

[5][6][9][10][11][17] Scott Wedge invented a technology enabling dynamics to be performed using a piezo sensor on the circuit board listening for the button's impact.

[5][6] E-mu Systems updated SP-12 with improvements and a "Turbo" option expanding the total available sample time to 5 seconds before it was eventually replaced in the product line when SP-1200 was released in August 1987.

[6] The sequencer enables musicians to create patterns using both step programming and real-time recording using the touch-sensitive[5][6] front panel buttons (and via external MIDI note input).

[3][5][6][7] The characteristic sound has sustained demand for the SP-1200 more than thirty-five years after its debut, despite the availability of digital audio workstations and samplers/sequencers with superior technical specifications.

[5][6][9][15][13][26] SP-1200 uses drop-sample pitch-shifting (simply dropping or replaying sample data in order to pitch/speed the playback up or down), producing significant additional (unfiltered) audible artifacts and distortion which proved to be musical useful.

[6][15] More advanced pitch-shifting algorithms like linear and higher-order interpolation reproduce high frequency data more accurately, but consequently may not sound as "warm" in comparison to simpler techniques.

[9][10][11] Upon its release, hip-hop producers embraced sampling loops and musical phrases such as breaks in addition to individual drum sounds with SP-1200.

[3][6][29][30][24][32] Early adopters soon innovated with techniques beyond looping by combining SP-1200's truncation and sequencing features to slice (or "chop") samples of drums and other instruments into shorter pieces and re-compose them to create original productions.

The prevalent technique compresses samples of longer durations into the available memory, while reducing their fidelity and introducing notably more audible artifacts.

"[25] E-mu Systems's sampling drum machines had earned a strong following, especially from hip hop music producers seeking out its characteristic sound, by the time of SP-1200's initial discontinuation in 1990.

- Straight Outta Compton (Ruthless, August 8, 1988) Ultramagnetic MCs - Critical Beatdown (Next Plateau, October 4, 1988) Big Daddy Kane - It's a Big Daddy Thing (Cold Chillin', September 19, 1989) A Tribe Called Quest - People's Instinctive Travels and the Paths of Rhythm (Jive, April 10, 1990)[51][52] Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet (Def Jam, April 10, 1990) A Tribe Called Quest - The Low End Theory (Jive, September 24, 1991)[52] Gang Starr - "Take it Personal" (Chrysalis, March 30, 1992) Pete Rock & CL Smooth - "They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)"

- Ready to Die (Bad Boy, September 13, 1994) 2Pac - Me Against the World (Interscope, March 14, 1995) The Pharcyde - Labcabincalifornia (Delicious Vinyl, November 14, 1995) Lord Finesse - The Awakening (Penalty, February 20, 1996) Daft Punk - Homework (Virgin, January 20, 1997)[57][58] Juvenile - "Ha" (Cash Money, October 17, 1998) Daft Punk - Discovery (Virgin, March 12 2001)[60] Jel - 10 Seconds (Mush, October 22, 2002)[61] Alicia Keys - "The Diary of Alicia Keys" (J, December 2, 2003) Kid Koala - 12 Bit Blues (Ninja Tune, September 17, 2012)[62] Lord Finesse - The SP1200 Project: A Re-Awakening (Slice of Spice, July 28, 2014) Pete Rock - Return of the SP1200 (Tru Soul, April 13, 2019) Pete Rock - Return of the SP1200 V.2 (Tru Soul, Apr 23, 2022)