The EIII That Wasn't

[buchla]

Here's a great story from Paul Wiffen from the time he used an Emulator II:

The most far-reaching effect of my McCartney sessions was not any of the sounds I did for him, but an in-joke that cropped up in an idle moment. Someone noticed that the white tape they used for naming the channels on the mixing console with a chinagraph was almost exactly the same width as the 'I's in the legend 'Emulator II' on the back panel. It was irresistible to stick an additional one on the machine so it now read 'Emulator III'. McCartney thought it was a splendid joke. It would probably have gone no further than the studio if McCartney hadn't decided to take it up to Abbey Road to use in the video for 'Spies Like Us' (title song for the John Landis movie with Chevy Chase and Dan Ackroyd, and the only hit to emerge from that period of McCartney's work). The 'EIII' was used for Chevy Chase to mime the keyboard part in the video, which was then put on heavy rotation on the newly launched MTV in the States.
Unbeknown to us, Emu then started getting all sorts of calls from disgruntled EII owners in the US, saying things like "Hey man, I've been using the EII since it came out, how come you've started shipping the EIII in Europe without telling me?" In vain, Emu tried to explain that there was no such thing as an EIII (it would be several years before Emu actually shipped a product with this name). All they would hear back was, "I've seen it on McCartney's video, it's a different colour and shape completely!" (all from the addition of a short strip of chinagraph tape!). Eventually things got so bad that dealers were cancelling their scheduled orders of EIIs, because the customers all 'knew' that the EIII was coming. It ended up causing a major dip in Emu's sales in the US.

In England, we were oblivious to all this until I went over to the NAMM show the following January. Mentioning to Service Manager Riley Smith on the Emu booth that I had been working with McCartney, I was dragged off to meet an accountant who wanted to throttle me because I had been involved. Obviously, they must have forgiven me eventually, because when the EIII really did come out a few years later at the NAMM Show they ceremoniously presented me with the first of the promotional T-shirts.

Source: Published in SOS September 2000

[Elmbeatz]

yeah I've seen that video...

[rokuez]

great read, i can see how that caused a significant dip in their EII sales.

[Elmbeatz]

I think just idiots thought that it really was an EIII...

[wiff]

Hey my Google Alert for Paul Wiffen (what an egotist!) just found this piece. Really glad to see that this story made it onto the Internet

[dr.c]

I was the service manager of Emu in France at this time, for a distributor called Music-Land.

Gee... We suddenly received phone calls of people insulting us because we have sold them E2s while we "knew" that the EIII was available.

What a mess...  :-)