S950 Questions

Hi,

Could someone possibly tell me a quick overview of how artists like Fatboy Slim used to use the Akai S950 to make full on songs? He used an Atari ST as well apparently and this is pretty old school so some guys on here would probably know what he did with that and how he used it.

TLDR; what are the features and functions of the S950 and Atari ST that could be used to make songs like Fatboy Slim?

Thanks.

The s950 timestretch was used heavily on Funk Soul Brother. It was a long time ago so he may have been syncing to tape. Nothing special about the ST that you cannot do on modern sequencers.

Thanks for the reply.

So what type of features on the S950 were used on "You've Come a Long Way, Baby"?

The thing with those samplers that I never knew how it was done was when you could have multiple things stacked up on each other, so like you could have a bassline then a melody and then a rhythm all playing at the same time, but never knew how it was accomplished on the S950.

I'm thinking of getting one due to that really gritty lo-fi Akai sound that I love, but some reassurance would be awesome on how they worked.

Thanks.

You can still download the manual from akaipro.com
If you haven't already, might be a good starting point.

I guess the fatboy was doing what he probably learned from his past work names, like pizzaman... he as already a big hiphop fan so he must of heard of the basics 900/950 tricks like sampling in at high speed, then slowing it down in the akai to original to get grungy (and save sample space) and recording in slightly hot on the inputs, and using that milky distinctive low pass filter to grunge up even more, all 3 of these combined give you that classic 950 sound that you just can't emulate on software.

To play back multiple sounds simultaneously you just have to choose a separate voice for each sound. You can have 8 sounds playing at once.

So what's the process for assigning samples to voices in-order to trigger them? Probably should definitely read the manual which I will but assigning voices seems like the absolute fundamentals of making a song.

Is there anyone on this forum that has had experience with Atari software sequencers also just for me to ask how to was done?

Thanks.

With the Atari STE - I can't speak for Notator/Creator as I only used it once and gave up.. probably too quickly though as I was already used to Cubase 2 and 3 and its short cuts - gotta say, very EASY pieces of software, back then (I guess) and deffo now. It's literally just 16 MIDI channels and a piano roll you can edit, and on the main page you keep your midi information in 'parts' (which are the rectangles on the main view page)

With 900/950, they're reason they're a lot of people's go-to sampler is... well first.... it's akai so mega quick workflow! (not that I'm dissing Emu's workflow but akai is #1 for a lot of people) and 2ndl'y the sound.

but yeah 900/s950, sample, edit sample, do the keygroup shit and boom you're done no fuss.

You need actual help with the 950 then? turn on the 950, Go to MIDI and turn that darn OMNI to 'OFF'. Record all your samples, (it's piss easy cause it's asks you what to do thru the pages) [TIP: record things like drums and breaks at +4 - +6 @ 08500 - 09500 bandwidth slightly hot for a killer sound!]

Then just EDIT all your samples, skip to page 10 to truncate (or in akai's terms, Discard) unwanted sound to save space! check out the cool features like 'alternating loop' and 'timestretch' YES! make sure you check those out I'm sure you will

Then it gets a bit tricky but no rocket science like... go to EDIT PRGRM:
*skip to page 3 and 'GET' a keygroup (a sample is homeless without a keygrou
p!)
*skip to page 5 and use the cursor to 1) selected the keygroup number (bottom left) 2) assign a sample (top) and 3) set the low and high range notes (this represents your midi keyboard y'know)
*skip to page 16 and select that keygroups Midi channel (1-16)
*next page, page 17.. select that keygroups output (1-8 out, or the mix outs) the 1-8 are MONOPHONIC! maybe the s900/s950's only downer, but we've all got used to it now

tip, if you're just chopping up breakbeats, have keygroups with the low/high shit like: 60 60 (C3 on your keyboard) then keygroup 2 be 61 61, then keygroup 3 be 62 62 then keygroup 4 be 63 63 etc etc! and put all those keygroups on the SAME midi channel and boom. but MAKE sure on page 15, those keygroups are set to 'CONST' pitch to ON or your slices will be going up in pitch and you don't want that.

So the parts is where you assign the MIDI channel I guess on Cubase? A key group is also basically to trigger the samples on the MIDI keyboard right? The 60/60, 61/61 stuff, so that means it triggers the sample at the same pitch on only one note on the keyboard? The +4 - +6 stuff, that's pitch shift I guess?

Nice post man, real helpful.

Star One wrote:Heres a compairson of trackers for the ST.

Wow. Now I know where Noisetracker (at 6:40) got its name from compared to the following Protracker 2.3 its like night and day.

I really like trackers. Its a pleasure to hear what is possible with such limitations (only 4 channels) and also watch the running numbers that seem so cryptic to people that never used such a software. crazy. When I had my old Atari ST I never really got into these trackers cause I also bought an sampling interface (Replay16) which had its own software and shortly after that an Emu sampler (started using Cubase 2 and 3 on the ST to trigger the Emu). But the tracker concept is very nice for samplebased HipHop even with todays trackers on PC like the ModPlugTracker.

But back to the thread Like I said I used the Atari with Cubase and it was really great to work with. It had different types of editors for the notes. A key editor (the father of todays piano roll in DAWs looking nearly the same) , an drum editor which has names of drum sounds on the side instead of a piano roll and just dots for a note instead of the long rectangle in the key editor.., a list-editor (which I used most of the time) where you see the notes with all its parameters (start time, length, velocity, Midi channel, note name) in a list on the left and on the right side you see a grid with the notes as rectangle. Then there is the score editor (I never used it ) with the typical look like a sheet of music.
With the Cubase 2 I sometimes saw the bombs (when the Atari crash it shows bombs on the monitor ) but I guess it was because of the cracked version cause I never had any stability problems with Cubase 3 which I bought.
Cubase is very powerful. It has programmable quantize functions, can handle all the MIDI messages (for example, I used cubase to also control my old mixer which was a Yamaha Promix01, and saved settings of the promix or drumkit data of my drummachine which was a Boss DR660 via sysex in cubase), the IPS function is a window where you can easily make things like arpeggios. and on and on.....

The s950 is limited but that won't mean you can't make whole tracks with it. I mean look at these old trackers. only 4 sounds were playable at the same time and people made whole tracks on it. Now the s950 double this polyphony caause it has 8 voices at the same time also an ADSR and a low pass filter for every keygroup. The monophonic channels are a benefit when you do samplebased music cause it works like 8 mute groups (a note on the same channel will cut the before note) BTW trackers work the same and thats why I love them.

D.E.L.B. wrote:So the parts is where you assign the MIDI channel I guess on Cubase? A key group is also basically to trigger the samples on the MIDI keyboard right? The 60/60, 61/61 stuff, so that means it triggers the sample at the same pitch on only one note on the keyboard? The +4 - +6 stuff, that's pitch shift I guess?

A PART is a rectangle on the arrange window, just like in most Daws today. You can also call it pattern. You double click it and an editor window open where you can place and edit the notes.
A key roup on AKAI samplers is a set of parameters and a 'container' for a sample. You define a sample to a keygroup and now the parameter of the keygroup will affect this sample (and only this sample). The parameters are things like tuning, the keyrange on the keyboard, filter settings, ADSR, output channel and some more.
Yes the 60/60 setting result in playing the sample only if youhit the middle C (which has the note number 60)


To cut this post: with a creative and talented person on the buttons, a combo of the s950 and Atari Cubase is a beast.

peace

What peterpiper said basically

sorry I didn't get back but thanks peter for helping him

To cut this post: with a creative and talented person on the buttons, a combo of the s950 and Atari Cubase is a beast.

plus a mackie mixing desk!! although any brand of mixer will do really as long as it's got 8 line-ins, but it's probably a good idea to think about the mackie (original) cr1604, as it has those crunchy trim pots at the top which is almost essential for anything like big beat, breakbeat, jungle, and of course even dirty boombap styles.

Whilst I'm here, another thing worth mentioning is ear training...

let me explain, you're probably now used to seeing the waveform in front of you, well the 950 and 900 doesn't have this. So it may take a while for you take get used to trimming samples by ear.... BUT... in my opinion, I actually prefer that... as it trains your ears to actually listen to the music instead of watching it.

When trimming start times on drums on the 950, one tip (to get it accurate) is pitch the sample down about an octave and THEN trim. and by fine trimming, what I usually do is get the course start time roughly right... then do the fine start time by hitting the numbers on the keypad like (for example) 111, 222, 333, 444, and if 444 you can't quite hear the click of the attack then go back to 333.... this is just my own method though you don't have to do it like this

In fact, precise and accurate trimming of samples isn't always the sound you want... was speaking to Zone the other year, he said part of his style was to cut samples 'crooked' ly for a more loose feel.... completely depends on the style of the track of course.

Thanks for the replies. Everyone's been a big help.