The official AKAI S series thread

Great thread! I read it all.

I've got:
-s900
-3200
-s2000

I absolutely love the s3200 and recommend it to anyone. You can get those badbwoys on eBay. I love the Akai sound, and it's a quick sampler to use.
It's got two filters per voice, one of which can be used as EQ, and on top of that, each voice has a "tone" setting...and they sound good.
I fit an SCSI CF reader in it.

Clint wrote:
Model?

A decent branded SCSI CD-Rom should be fine, and cheap.

I have the 3000xl my question is do I buy a regular cdrom and then put an external enclosure on it or do I just buy an external one and not deal with the hassel

I'd just go with an existing external SCSI CD-Rom and avoid the hassle. To my knowledge Akai samplers are pretty compliant and not as fussy with SCSI compatibility as certain samplers can be.

Well I ended purchasing an old apple external one, just waiting for it to get here found some cd's online so we will see how this works out.

Hi, can anybody give me some tips on using the s3000xl / s2000.

I'm making a couple of drum and instrumentprograms and I'm trying to get my head around the way i can work with this. I've read the manual and tried finding info on internet but couldn't find how to set it up.

How do you adjust the volume of a keygroup? Do you make a new program for every drumhit/chop, then adjust the progamvolume?

I though it but be nice to have all the drumsounds from a drumkit in one program. I've tried loudness and velocity settings and everything. Doesn't seem to work. What I like about working in one program is the edit button+key combination so select a keygroup. If I have to make a program for every sound it's a lot more skipping around.

And how do you layer a drumsound? Do you use sample>zone 1234?

Also, do you use the multimode or singlemode?

Thanks!

It seems only possible to edit the program level/volume. So I'll try making a program for every sound. Seems cumbersome.

why do you need a program for every sound? Sample loudness SMP2 page is the thing you're looking for. It sets the sample in that keygroup's zone/sample to the desired level. Have a keygroup for each of your drum samples with one zone/sample.

Note that if your program loudness is 99, then you can only adjust the keygroup's zone/sample loudness downwards.

Thanks mtc!

My program loudness was set at 99. That why it didn't have much effect.

I also found out how to copy keygroups and make a more versatile drumkit( changing attack, filter, loudness settings etc.). Really nice. Sounds good.

Who is still rockin a s3000xl these days here on the forum?

I've got the digital in hooked up to my pc. So it's really quik to record samples (instead of zip/mididump route).

I just bought my first S950. From the TONE Pgm, i am not able to get any tone sound out of any output BUT when i record something in, i can trigger the sample with my MPC but it begins with a tone sound. Am i missing something or is my S950 tripping ?

If it has extra RAM, make sure it's pushed into it's socket/s properly.
Open the bottom and check.
They can come out in transit if not secured-in properly.

Load up the machine without a disk.

Go to the 'sample edit' page and hit the 'PB' button on the S950 to play your sample, to rule out any midi connection issues.

Go to the MIDI page and check your OMNI/POLY settings.

^ Thanks

The Mpc 3000 has a 32 voice polyphony at 16 bit. The best rack mount sampler that best emulates that is the S3000 s
series.
The S3000 series has 16 bit / 32 voice polyphony. Also has some more range when adjusted at sample edit.

Still wondering if my s3200xl is part of the earlier, non-S range in terms of components, converters etc. Inside, it looks entirely different from the slimmer XLs such as 3000xl (e.g., output board etc). Also it's made in Japan.

here is a vid I saw on youtube, it's an old akai info vid on their products from '94 (pre-mpc3000)



it doesn't go in depth about the expansion cards but it does mention a few differences between the models they had out at the time... sadly no s900/s950/s1000/s1100 mentions.

this guy found out that you can actually send samples via SCSI to an s1100 from windows XP and recycle:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v0YHZhZTMk