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Encyclopedic overview
A sampler is an electronic musical instrument that records and plays back samples (portions of sound recordings). Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music.
The mid-20th century saw the introduction of keyboard instruments that played sounds recorded on tape, such as the Mellotron. As technology improved, cheaper standalone samplers with more memory emerged, such as the E-mu Emulator, Akai S950 and Akai MPC.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “sampler” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.