The Akai S20 Sampler!!!!!!

Yo I was thinkin about gettin this instead of a s950 or somethin like that cause I heard that this unit really makes your drums sound nice. Does anybody own this and use it at all? I know that Illmind uses it and he said its like his secret weapon but he wont say what he uses it for. Whats some good stuff you can do wit this unit? I know its 16 bit 32khz so maybe it makes your drums sound grimey or somethin cause of the low sample rate. Any feedback?

if they were the same price i wouldnt think twice about copping the s950 instead... unless you really wanted the so-called sequencer and those hellacious "pads"...

if your really into the s20, try and checkout the akai remix16, same sampler and sequencer i believe, and the same schit "pads", but a few extra features and added versatility... the remix16 is probably found for around the same price as the s20 used nowadays, thats my assumption anyway...

ive got a remix16 that was my first piece of gear that i overpayed for that ive got to hold onto since i aint gonnna get near what my investment was... its a pretty cool machine though, great to integrate into your turntable setup and create some live remixes and schit like that...

i had a s20 back in 99. it wasnt bad. the resample was real dope. the filters were aight. i cant front though there's alot i never figured out about it but i wish i still had it (mainly for the resample). last time i seen one they were on ebay for like $100. i paid like $600 sumthin when in first dropped. the sequencer really aint sh!t though. i think it might only be 4tracks.

Very user friendly but there are no filters. I own one and I never use it.
It doesn't have a bad sound its just that you might as well go straight to
the mpc or computer than hastle with something like that in my opinion.
Looping is fun but if you have a computer or mpc i can't imagine you would
find it interesting for very long. Slightly different sound but really not enough
for anyone to know the difference. The pitching has better sound in my opinion than my mpc 1000 pitch change. For some reason it loads a subbass
sound whenever I turn it on which seems like a glitch because it never said it would do that in the manual and didn't do it for years before it started but its a cool sound. If you like to loop strings or something like that it is probably
the best use of the machine. But after using the mpc and having control over
each hit and not having to mess with loop points forever to get something to sound right its too much of a hastle for me to use anymore. I would suggest
going for something with more features and especially filters. You won't get much more than slight sound coloration that is really almost impossible for me
to hear the difference in.

I didn't want to start a new topic, i think i can describe my problem here.


I'm quite new to beatmaking and i recently purchased Akai S20 to get started. I got it with a brand new Midi->USB cable. Is it possible to use PC software (like fruity loops) as a sequencer for my S20? I tried a lot of times but still can't figure out how to do it so i started wondering if its possible at all.

Could You help me?

^ Start your own thread dont hijack.

dmarz45 wrote:Yo I was thinkin about gettin this instead of a s950 or somethin like that cause I heard that this unit really makes your drums sound nice. Does anybody own this and use it at all? I know that Illmind uses it and he said its like his secret weapon but he wont say what he uses it for. Whats some good stuff you can do wit this unit? I know its 16 bit 32khz so maybe it makes your drums sound grimey or somethin cause of the low sample rate. Any feedback?

I had an s20, copped it when it was new. It was pretty good little unit as a slave. The sequencer sucked, I justed used it for my samples of vinyl. At the time I used other samplers for drums. Overall I liked the sound of the little machine tho. The pads to blow tho.

i have a question about files and the s20. can i load any wav (16bit,32khz) onto a floppy, after it's been formatted in the s20. I'm guessing no. I don't have a floppy drive for the pc and was wondering if it was worth getting. i want to load directly from the pc.

no you cant load from a pc disk like that.
you can load directly from the pc via midi sample transfer but it's not worth it, it takes forever.

The S20 is great and does have a very unique sound...chalk it up to cheap AD/DA I suppose.

The sequencer should really be considered non-existent, as it has no concept of tempo, mysterious quantisation, and absolutely zero feedback other than playing back your sequence after you've recorded it...usually it's garbled.

It's dead simple to use though, and a great introduction into sampling. The real time reverse is amazing too and not available on maybe even any other sampler?!

The midi implementation is surprisingly good actually, you can map things and pitch things as you want. To sweeten the midi even further, default mode maps every single button on the machine to a midi note...again, does any other sampler even do that?!

Thanks! I won't bother with a floppy drive then. I'm just gonna use it as an extra drum pad. Maybe keys.

just keep your samples short, mono, and small filezise so loading time isnt forever off the floppy

any news? i've tried one of these gotek floppy emulator http://gotek.en.ecplaza.net/ but it doesn't work! are there any mod to save and load data from usb or CF ?

I started making music on an s20 and a Korg electribe EM1.
You can't really say it had pads, they are clicky buttons but the limitations sure drove my creativity. i used to stay up till 8 in the morning making beats and sampling VHS tapes, then laying it down on a Tascam 8 track with cassette tapes.

mudhoney wrote:any news? i've tried one of these gotek floppy emulator http://gotek.en.ecplaza.net/ but it doesn't work! are there any mod to save and load data from usb or CF ?

those things are crap if you actually start reading the specs and limitations on them.

the hxc device works perfectly though. it is not idiot proof, you will need to do a bit of prep work to make it work right.

search hxc floppy emulator.