A Cheap Way Of Sourcing Emulator II Keys

[HideawayStudio]

After doing some reseach it appears that the keys in the mighty E-mu Emulator II are not as unique as I thought. They are shared with the Korg DS-8 and the AKAI AX73 in weighted form BUT also the Kawai KI in unweighted form. The only difference is the weight itself which can be easily removed from your broken key and glued into the K1 key.

UPDATE: It has been recently confirmed by an EII user that the keys in the Kawai K1 are identical to the EII keys but without the weights. This is simply a matter of gently levering out the weights on the broken EII keys and fitting them to the K1 keys. This is a cool solution as there are tons of cheap broken/unwanted K1s about thus giving you an entire keyboard's worth of spare keys!

You can also purchase a DS-8 key (ie. a straight swap) then contact: [email protected]

IMPORTANT TIP: A reminder that the EII has a bad habit. If you are to ship your EII a long distance eg. overseas to a customer it is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED that you unscrew the keyboard mechanism and package it separately OR simply remove the top and bottom keys. The reason for this is no matter how well you think you might have packed the EII, due to a querk of the geometry, the end keys are subject to extreme latteral forces during shock loading. This is caused by the shear weight of the EII and the fact it flexes slightly. The keyboard is held in with 5 screws and the ribbon easily disconnects.

A Korg DS-8 Key - notice the similarity: