Akai VX90

Hey guys... picked up an Akai VX90, and slowly working my way through it. Dropping some blog posts, and will definitely be sampling off of it. It is noisy as heck though, so probably needs a recapping or some other power issues addressed... not sure yet. I have enough skill/patience to get started... but will see how far I can get

I did upgrade the firmware, so that I can use MIDI CC's to make changes, and boy is that something compared to number keying in values... Blog Post.

I'll probably drop some more thoughts/notes as I play around with this. Still waiting on the 13 pin cable so I can mess around with the VX90/S950 combo...

Cool. I just got a s 900 on the cheap I was going to upgrade and flip. Never knew that they can integrate with the the older synths like that. That sounds like a really cool setup. Those old akai analog poly synths are jacking up in price. Personally the rack is where it’s at with most vintage stuff.

I love my s950... it's got that simple but powerful Akai programming feel to it. S900 is nearly the same. If you're looking for some sounds for it let me know... if you either upgrade the floppy to USB, or get something to write .hxc files to a floppy I'd be happy to share some stuff with you.

It’s only been a few days. I’ll see if it’s something I want to keep around. I do plan on doing the floppy emulator upgrade and the newest os. I really like the sampling workflow compared to the Emax I had, wish it had more of the emax sound but it’s whatever. There’s definitely a science on how to do your sampling, which I’m slowly starting to learn. Been kicking around the idea of making a little beat tape of just the stock presets from the live but on the 900.

Back on topic, I started to dig a bit into that era of synths and samplers and man that sure is some cool tech for that day. It seems that those units were like suppose to compete with junos and have CEM chips like the old prophets.
If you’ve toyed with it some how would you compare voices/ osc? Do you think it could compete or was a knock off ? Man the ax 60 even had BBD chorus like the Juno.

The CEM3394 chips are in a *lot* of gear of that time frame, and it's interesting to see how it was implemented in so many ways. I mean the pedigree is crazy CEM and SSM Synths

To my ear... and I could be off... but the Akai implementation is quite a bit more raw. For example... whatever tuning they did on the on lowpass filter on the VX 90, after playing around with it... holy smokes is the resonance going off into crazy land after about 50% setting. I mean, it's serious... if you're into it, then it's cool, but if you're looking for something like the Juno that was tuned more to hit sweet spots, this probably isn't the right synth for you. I'll record some examples if you wanted to hear it.

I was just reading that on GS. There actually simple mods people were doing to get finer resolution on the 60s. They were also describing how one of the unique features was getting more of a FM type deal going because the OSC can modulate the filter, which at least to them made more sense to get super wicked resonance.

And yes, Please post examples. I’m sure there’s a few synth tech geeks out there who would appreciate it as well.

I’m trying to wrap my head around what the synth sampler combo going through the filters and envelope might achieve beyond stacking OSC into a monster. I mean from what I’ve read so far the keyboard synths were bitimbral, and you can use a 0-6 voice allocation. I’d be interested to see if you can do drum and synth combos. Like a rudimentary workstation, if even possible. The set up seems pretty complex.

Cockdiesel wrote:I was just reading that on GS. There actually simple mods people were doing to get finer resolution on the 60s.

You're probably referring to the resistor mods people put in for the resonance so that it goes crazy closer to 60 instead of the 40-50 mark. It's a clever hack for analogue gear, and allows you to alter the control voltage curve by quite effectively reducing the voltage that is passed on. Not sure I'm interested in doing that myself, but the technique is certainly sound enough to be applicable to the VX 90.

Cockdiesel wrote:They were also describing how one of the unique features was getting more of a FM type deal going because the OSC can modulate the filter, which at least to them made more sense to get super wicked resonance.

Since it is a VCO instead of a DCO, there is a world of weird Voltage Control that *could* be applied from modular gear. Personally that's probably a touch too far for me, as I don't want to accidentally fry the synth on accident.

Cockdiesel wrote:And yes, Please post examples. I’m sure there’s a few synth tech geeks out there who would appreciate it as well.

I'll see if I can get some time today... just need to determine if it makes for a better quick Youtube video, or just a short audio track to post on Soundcloud. *shrug*

Cockdiesel wrote:I’m trying to wrap my head around what the synth sampler combo going through the filters and envelope might achieve beyond stacking OSC into a monster. I mean from what I’ve read so far the keyboard synths were bitimbral, and you can use a 0-6 voice allocation. I’d be interested to see if you can do drum and synth combos. Like a rudimentary workstation, if even possible. The set up seems pretty complex.

As far as I understand, the VX 90 lacks some, if not all of the bitimbral options that the AX 73 had. I haven't even started to dig in there so definitely a whole world of things to explore for sure.

I don't have the 13 pin cable yet. Had to order one from Europe, so it'll probably be a few weeks before it gets here. When I get to mess around with it will then depend on whether I am moved, or feel like unpacking the S950 to give it a try.

I believe if you are going to use the S950 as a sound source for the VX 90, you need to prepare six key groups, one for each OSC, and each one has to be assigned a MIDI note from 1 to 6. My understanding is that the configuration is Sequencer MIDI out -> VX 90 MIDI in, and VX 90 MIDI out to S950 Midi in. It sounds like the VX 90 effectively takes control over the S950 and then it chooses which samples to play. There *might* be some interesting application of having different sounds on the S950 programs... but I can also envision this turning into madness if you don't understand how the VX90 selects samples to play.

I suspect the use of six oscillators is just to line up with the architecture of the VX 90, and not a direct limitation of what either box *could* do. This does technically leave you with 2 additional notes of polyphony/audio outs on the S950, but I suspect you won't be able to address them from the Sequencer to the S950 through the VX 90. Could be wrong on that though... so my suspicion is that you won't be able to effectively use the S950 as both drums and separately use the S950 as an oscillator source for the VX 90 without using some modern gear to inject yourself between the midi notes at the VX 90 Midi Out -> (something) -> S950 Midi In...

I can imagine the S950/VX90 being more hassle than it is worth, but I'm hoping the Tauntek firmware upgrade opening up many parameters to being controlled by CC will help. Plus I suspect a practical use for an Init disk or two that I can sample on the S950 in a few different ways and be able to have pre named and assigned sounds to key groups will absolutely help streamline things here. Similarly, I'll probably map out a handful of Init/Input on the VX90, which ought to help streamline further. With an MPC midi program mapping important Q-Links to CC to control the VX90... I can imagine this working quite well.

Things that the S950 offers the combo
* LFO that can target S950 parameters
* Envelopes to control S950 parameters
* Non resonant low pass filter
* Samples as Oscillator sources
* Variable Sample Rate

Things that the VX90 offers the combo
* LFO that can target VX90 VCO/VCF/VCA
* Option to include VCO to thicken the sound or not
* Envelopes to control VX90 VCO/VCA/VCF
* Resonant low pass filter
* Non resonant high pass filter
* Stereo Chorus Effect

What this means for application I suspect is
* More complex sounds through the use of LFOs and Envelopes
* Stack the LPFs for a steeper low pass filter
* LPF resonance for the S950 when you want it
* An HPF for the S950 when you want it
* Stereo Chorus Effect for S950

That's where my head is at right now at least.

A few things I need to dig into later:
* Is the LPF/HPF on the VX90 per voice or for the entire mix
* How to actually setup the VX90/S950 combo properly
* Create Init/Templates for the whole thing
* Backup my VX90 settings (I think it is just factory)
* Re-read the manuals again... and maybe the S900 manual... since the S950 manual is sometimes a bit wonky
* Can I get VC -> Midi CC and do some clever modulation of VX90 parameters

The microphone on my phone doesn't really do this justice, but might give you an idea of the resonance

Haha looks like you have plan all sorted out. I understand the voice aspect of it and perhaps the vx-90 can’t do because it doesn’t have the bitimbral mode but I was thinking maybe you could use a the bitimbral part to split like a drum hit voice and bass notes on one half and a typical synth pitch on the upper part. I’m sure there’s some possibilities but like you said it may be WAY more hassle than it’s worth. I don’t think that takes away from it being interesting..

This little discussion got me alittle interested in the ax-60 as I’m in need of a poly but I’m in no rush waiting for my asr to get back from repair. Not sure the s 900 will fit my work flow but maybe if I check out the ax-60 and feel it can use some layering I might keep it around.

I think this is a cool thread and will be keeping tabs on your progress.

Surprisingly the 13 pin cable showed up... might have to do some experiments today

Sounded better than I was imagining. Certainly not as bad as some of the filter boxes out there.
The tone itself was pretty good too on. That patch.
Good luck man.

Setting up the S950 and VX 90 together is definitely not trivial. I will try and write up the steps and take a video to show how to do it, but boy is it easy to misunderstand the steps I had found. Fortunately I did get it working

After a bunch of blood, sweat, and tears... well maybe just sweat, I've written up how to hook the Akai VX90 up to the Akai S950 in a blog post.

Now I can start recording off key groups... or get back to maintaining both... we'll see which comes first

Should be able to do some real cool stuff with that PWM on every oscillator shape. Usually only see that on square wavs. Look forward to see what ya do. Some insight into cleaning up noisey outputs is just about as good as keygroups themselves.

So far my insight on cleaning up noisy outputs is to pick the ones that are the least noisy

Another problem I have with my S950 is that sometimes the volume is super low (or off) even though I have the output at full volume. A good old "Atari" drop sets it right, but I really need to take it apart and see if there's a bad connection, oxidized ribbon connector, or something that might cause it. I can keep managing for now, but this stuff does need a more permanent fix.

On the flip side, I'll probably just record off a bunch of noise to upload for all those analog and lofi heads that are into this kind of stuff