Loading in OLD Akai sample CDs?

Hi folks,

Can anyone tell me if it's possible to load in old Akai sample CDs (pre 21st century) into a modern MPC (i've got an X)?

I've seen there's quite a few floating around the interwebs, but i'm not sure in what format.

Anyone know what my options are or have any experience with this?

Is there some software that'll take an old AKAI CD-rom image and convert it into a language a modern MPC can understand?

PS, i know most of these old sample CDs sound like $hit, but that's actually the point, i want to make some retro house and garage, and modern sounds are too shiny and nice, i need some of that old school nast-e-ness!

Thanks ......... D

Convert them to .wav and then load them.

richie wrote:Convert them to .wav and then load them.

say what, there won't be any mapping to zones and keygroups.........useless!?!

Lampdog wrote:

Dazzer1234567 wrote:........, and modern sounds are too shiny and nice, i need some of that old school nastiness!

This again.......

Take the shiny ones and damage/wreck/twist ‘em yourself.

Nope, need dem old sounds ...........

Dazzer1234567 wrote:

richie wrote:Convert them to .wav and then load them.

say what, there won't be any mapping to zones and keygroups.........useless!?!

Unless you load them up on an S1000/S3000 you're not going to get much anyways. None of the conversion software does any of it 100%, Chicken Systems Translator gives you nothing but keygroups and sometimes you get a rad program that's panned all the way to the left! No modulation, nada, At least the loop points are intact though. Just convert em to wav and start over.

Okeedokee, thanks anyway, i think i'll go to plan B and try to recreate those old sounds using VPS Avenger!

I actually had some success converting old Akai sample CDs. In general, the best results are when you can convert S1000/S3000 programs into the S5000/S6000 AKP format, which is somewhat close to the current MPC keygroup format.

For this you'll need Extreme Sample Converter (Win only, not too expensive) or Chickensys Translator (cross-platform, kind of expensive).

The MPC will load up AKP files. It's not perfect... you generally lose most envelope settings and some of the most complex velocity x-fade/layer programs might only get partially imported (although that sort of stuff was a bit more rare with the very old S1000 libraries), but still in most cases it'll recognize the keygroup mappings and loop points, which can save a lot of time.

Dazzer1234567 wrote:Hi folks,
PS, i know most of these old sample CDs sound like $hit, but that's actually the point, i want to make some retro house and garage, and modern sounds are too shiny and nice, i need some of that old school nast-e-ness!
Thanks ......... D

Of course it's a matter of taste, but IMHO some of the old Akai S1000 samples can indeed have an interesting, almost grungy quality to them (plus they use up very little RAM, although most people are not concerned by that nowadays...), especially if you're willing to take them out of context a little bit and use the MPC filters and FX creatively.

I converted a Mophatt Kontakt library to AKP and while it’s not the same as using the mophatt or even it’s Kontakt emulation, many of the sounds are still highly usable for layering over samples, since they seem to blend in the mix easily (because they aren’t very complex).
I suppose you‘d get the same results from converting old Akai discs (I actually did Vocal Planet but that’s a different matter anyway). I used Extreme Sample Converter and it took only half an an hour per mophatt bank including testing some of the sounds...