S950 floppy-saving/loading/ram(?) issues

Hi everyone,

I've recently purchased a S950 and already got my way around it, I read the manual and did some stuff on it. I've been sampling and everything works fine, I also dumped some stuff on floppies, which works without any problems as well.

However, when i load a disk I've made before there's no sampling time left. When i go to REC it displays "sampling time- 250 to 70ms", which is really weird because the memory is not full (43% on one disk, just 7% on the other one i've tried).

The really weird thing is, that the guy who sold it to me gave me some disks with random instruments on them (strings,...) and when i load them, i still got the right sampling time left and can add stuff. I also overwrote one of these with my own samples, loaded it and the problem is back. So I guess it's not the disks. It has to be something with the saving/loading-process?

So basically I can't load disks I've made myself and add stuff to the memory, because there's no sampling time left although the memory is not full.

RAM test says Bad ICL1, but besides those issues the unit totally fine.

Any help would be appreciated.

Im a lil confused on the % part there but my main tip is:

Have you discarded "before & after" the sample starts ? Its on page 10 under EDIT SAMPLE i think (if i remember correctly), that can eat up a lot of time.

Also you should delete samples you wont be needing, and if you make copies always do the tip above to get rid of parts of samples you're not even using.

Also depending on what bandwidth you sample on makes a big differneces in how much time you'll end up with (but i guess you already knew that).

regarding the %-thing: i meant that when i put in a disk i've made, then hit clear mem & load disk the memory says e.g. 7% but it still will just let me record up to 70ms as if the memory was full.

BUT, i just checked it out again, and it only seems to be that way when i try to overwrite a sample which i've loaded from a disk. i can put in a new sample(-name) and it works fine. is that common?

could be i've missed something in the manual.

nice beats btw!

oth wrote:regarding the %-thing: i meant that when i put in a disk i've made, then hit clear mem & load disk the memory says e.g. 7% but it still will just let me record up to 70ms as if the memory was full.

BUT, i just checked it out again, and it only seems to be that way when i try to overwrite a sample which i've loaded from a disk. i can put in a new sample(-name) and it works fine. is that common?

could be i've missed something in the manual.

nice beats btw!

Haha yes sometimes the S950 is mysterious, i used it for years but sometimes it just decides "well thats enough sampling for today!" and says you cant sample more than 250ms

Its a wonderful machine tho, you'll have lots of fun with it!

And thanks man, glad you liked em

Any problems/tips feel free to PM.

well then i'll have to deal with that, not a problem as long as everything else is good. i'm still amazed by how good some of that old gear works after 20 years or more. gonna have some fun with it for sure!

anyway, thanks, i'll hit you up if i've got a question!

I dont know about every issue but when Ive seen bad RAM on 950s it shows up in the test but also it shows in a clicking sound in the sampling. when it occurs in the sample time depends on what chip is bad. Ive had luck just switching chips with the bad ones. it is not the most common problem but Ive seen it more than a few times.

ultra auris wrote:I dont know about every issue but when Ive seen bad RAM on 950s it shows up in the test but also it shows in a clicking sound in the sampling. when it occurs in the sample time depends on what chip is bad. Ive had luck just switching chips with the bad ones. it is not the most common problem but Ive seen it more than a few times.

It depends if its "kit", Kit = bad and effects the sampling.
my s950 said Bad ICL1 but never had any problems (i think ICL1 is ram expansions or something).

Too bad tho, did you manage to fix it?

I have an S950 that says Bad ICL1 and it doesn't have any ram expansions in it.

I know of someone else who has an S950 without ram expansions that also gets the 'Bad ICL1' message.

I get no clicks in my samples.

I keep trying to figure out what this "ICL1" chip is but there's nothing labelled "ICL1" on the S950 pcb's and the only schematics/service manual I can find is for the S900 which has a different CPU pcb.

I'm going to replace the 7 MB81C4256-10P chips and see if that fixes the Bad ICL1 message... as soon as I can find MB81C4256 chips for cheap!

I have other S950's too which don't have this message.

jimmie wrote:I have an S950 that says Bad ICL1 and it doesn't have any ram expansions in it.

I know of someone else who has an S950 without ram expansions that also gets the 'Bad ICL1' message.

I get no clicks in my samples.

I keep trying to figure out what this "ICL1" chip is but there's nothing labelled "ICL1" on the S950 pcb's and the only schematics/service manual I can find is for the S900 which has a different CPU pcb.

I'm going to replace the 7 MB81C4256-10P chips and see if that fixes the Bad ICL1 message... as soon as I can find MB81C4256 chips for cheap!

I have other S950's too which don't have this message.

Excuse me but why do you need to replace anything if its working?

It seems like a lot of people get that "problem" but it doesnt seem to do anything.
Ihad it for 3 years and still never figured out if there was anything wrong.

"If it aint broke, dont fix it."

After testing with three different S950's, it turns out that this message is just indicating that no RAM expansion is installed in the lower RAM slot.
If you put a RAM expansion into the lower slot but leave the higher slot empty, you get a Bad ICH1 message. If you fill both RAM slots you get RAM OK.

So, it's just bad semantics on Akai's part.

marrelarre wrote:
Excuse me but why do you need to replace anything if its working?

It seems like a lot of people get that "problem" but it doesnt seem to do anything.
Ihad it for 3 years and still never figured out if there was anything wrong.

"If it aint broke, dont fix it."

Because if you're selling an S950, the buyer will want to know why the RAM check says "Bad ICL1" and not "RAM OK".

jimmie wrote:After testing with three different S950's, it turns out that this message is just indicating that no RAM expansion is installed in the lower RAM slot.
If you put a RAM expansion into the lower slot but leave the higher slot empty, you get a Bad ICH1 message. If you fill both RAM slots you get RAM OK.

So, it's just bad semantics on Akai's part.

marrelarre wrote:
Excuse me but why do you need to replace anything if its working?

It seems like a lot of people get that "problem" but it doesnt seem to do anything.
Ihad it for 3 years and still never figured out if there was anything wrong.

"If it aint broke, dont fix it."

Because if you're selling an S950, the buyer will want to know why the RAM check says "Bad ICL1" and not "RAM OK".

Didnt think about that, youre correct!