By NoonELee
Tue Mar 10, 2009 3:29 pm
How do the old school samplers such as the s900 s950 and s1000 interact with an MPC and why do people use them if the MPC can sample?
Well to start off...
the S900/S950 are 12 bit and give the the samples a warmer feel and an analog filter.
The S1000 is 16 bit, dont really know much about it but it has 2 mb of ram expandable to 32 mb.
What rack samplers give to the end user controlling it w/ an MPC or other type of device is that it allows one to have more advance editing capabilities then a standard MPC would give.
There are lots of advanced edit capabilities for looping, truncating, sample merging, time comp/exp, tuning and even analog-like parameters to control its filters and envelopes.
Some also come w/ effects and can operate like a synth w/ synth like filters.
An MPC is not a full fledged Sampler as others might think.
An ASR-10 is a full fledged sampler but the MPC isnt.
It also allows the user to go deeper into keygroups and gives one more sampling time if needed.
Plus the fact that they are vintage or somwhat vintage gives people that warm sound, back then build quality was important so they last longer minus the displays going dim due to age.
Basically what you do is either Midi your MPC to your Rack Sampler and use the MPC to trigger the sounds from the rack sampler.
or
What some people due do cuz since they are old and some of em cant sample as much as the newer ones is that they sample what they want then re sample it into their MPC or whatever other hardware they use.
Since people like the sequencer on the MPC, they would use the MPC as a sequencer for the rack sampler.
IMO, people use them also for that old school vintage sound that started off Hip Hop.
Check this site for more info.
http://www.vintagesynth.com/akai/s900.php
On the left side has other Akai products as well.
If you dont want that vintage warm sound you could opt for some new digital samplers like some triton racks,Fantom XR Rack or Check out the Akai Z Series samplers that sample at 24 bit like the Z8 which came out in 2003. Nowadays synth rack modules are also samplers sort of like an all-in-one.
One other delight i found was that it could share some of the polyphony load with the mpc. I layer alot of sounds so polyphony is not an issue anymore. I pretty much use it for drums and also as a synth cuz i usually sample vst instruments into the s3000. Sometimes i even run the sample into the s3000 then into the mpc just to give the sample a lil extra "seasoning"! Once you learn how to get around in these older samplers, they are great companions to mpcs.
