Sampler shootout SP12 vs Emax vs S950 vs S1000 vs S1100 ...

IMHO, the s950 is one of the most complete sounding samplers akai ever made. you can go crystal clear with the 48khz, you can go 90s hiphop warmth with lowering the bandwith, you can create basslines in two seconds by filtering your samples and laying them on another output....
you have tons of possibilities with the 16 midi channels.....
and its still a bargain!
i remember that i also did some kind of a sound example here with the 950, but that was years ago.

....PeterPiper is the expert when it comes to nine fifties!!!

Very true, I only bought my 950 recently and was planing to flip it, thinking that it would be redundant as I already had an SP12... Well, after using it on 1 song, I knew it's not going to be going anywhere

By the way, I see you're based in germany, prices here in europe on 950s are still OK. Not so much in the US, especially not on ebay.

Anyway, for drums I think the 900/950 is up there with the sp12/1200 ... world class.
.. I tried the same bass sound in different samplers not long ago... 950 killed!
For me it lives up to the hype

szr wrote:
Anyway, for drums I think the 900/950 is up there with the sp12/1200 ... world class.

yeah I agree, and the most important part is.... it's super fun to use the s950/s900 if you have the time to sit down with it or set it up (that is my main issue with using mine, it's a rack unit so I have to move it to really be able to spend a few hours working on it.)

Ensoniq ASR10 is not very good for punchy drums imo.But great for other samples especially utilizing the envelopes.It has charm....Anyway im enjoing this thread...Interested in further tests with the 4k and observations.

EDIT-seems like im tripping.

For drums, I also really like the Zoom ST224. It's very cheap, easy to use, has a nice low pass filter and some decent effects. And when you sample drums faster and pitch it down it has that resonnant effect, like the SP12.

does a 900/950 have a filter actually?

Yes, there's a low pass filter... not that great in my opinion, but it works really well for the low end theory on bass lines.

winz wrote:IMHO, the s950 is one of the most complete sounding samplers akai ever made. you can go crystal clear with the 48khz, you can go 90s hiphop warmth with lowering the bandwith, you can create basslines in two seconds by filtering your samples and laying them on another output....

amen

jibber wrote:Yes, there's a low pass filter... not that great in my opinion, but it works really well for the low end theory on bass lines.

someone said that the s950 got a anagog filter (digitally controlled)
don't remember the thread title
anybody?
i'm searching but not founding the right thread
here we go:
http://www.mpc-forums.com/viewtopic.php ... ter+analog

As far as i remember, the consensus was that the filter is not analog.

The Akai S 612 has the analog filter....

jibber wrote:Yes, there's a low pass filter... not that great in my opinion, but it works really well for the low end theory on bass lines.

I was also disappointed with it, the way everyone hype it up, I thought it would be a match for the best analog filters I've heard.. Not even close.... but as you say for bass, it's great.

Borat wrote:For drums, I also really like the Zoom ST224. It's very cheap, easy to use, has a nice low pass filter and some decent effects. And when you sample drums faster and pitch it down it has that resonnant effect, like the SP12.

Never heard of that one before, got any demos/songs you did with it..

Just found this on youtube, sounds good besides being cam mic recorded .

The ST 224 has 3 sampling frequencies available(32 khz, 16 and 8 I think). I recorded a break from my turntable.
1:straight to my computer
2:ST 224 in 32 khz
3:ST in 16 khz
4:Sampled at 45 rpm, in 16 khz and then detuned in the ST. You can hear the resonnant effect here, it's a bit like the SP 12.

http://www.mediafire.com/?f9cbfmecpcc3p1d

Thanks for the demo, surprised how nice that thing sounds, now I'm going to stick that loop into the emax to see how they compare