Checking Akai S950 ram

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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by chris... »

Richie Royale wrote: does something even more destructive if you use the built in reverse option.

Blimey. It's trivial to implement the perfect reverse function - just write the sample values out back to front. This is clearly not destructive in any way. Not exactly rocket surgery.

Amazing if the early samplers managed to f*** this up!

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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Richie Royale »

chris... wrote:
Richie Royale wrote: does something even more destructive if you use the built in reverse option.

Blimey. It's trivial to implement the perfect reverse function - just write the sample values out back to front. This is clearly not destructive in any way. Not exactly rocket surgery.

Amazing if the early samplers managed to f*** this up!


Indeed, this is what one would expect, however the Cheetah really does something weird. It seems to change the pitch as well as add more aliasing noise. I guess the guys at Cheetah were more adept at making joysticks than samplers (and a good synth apparently, the MS6). I also have their MS800! What a bizarre product.

I'll post up a clip if I can (and if it is still working, not been powered on in a while! :crazy: )
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

Richie Royale wrote:Very nice. You had the Urei 1620 before didn't you? An original or re-issue? Presumably you prefer the Bozak?

I prev had the re-issue 1620 which I brought new, not all that compared to the original imo... Really noisy too, I know the original is a bit hissy but this was taking the p*ss. The sound was very hard in the mids too, top end not that nice either.

The Bozak is lovely, all class a discrete circuitry. It's a lot quieter than the Urei and the sound with music (especially music with real instruments and propper production) has a very nice quality to it.
It has quite a big musical bottom end, not sure if that's just the eq out of calibration though.
The mic pre's totally wipe the floor with my studio desk (32ch Mackie VLZ pro thing) they also have nice BeyerDynamic transformers on the inputs which also give a bit of gain.

I got 8 sets of NOS ALPS RK-40's to fit to it as it still has the horrible Allen & Bradley pots fitted like all early Bozak's. I'm having it fully re-capped with ELNA caps and fitting one of these to it which will bring the SNR of the phono inputs to a nice 83 dB
http://www.isonoe.com/custom-equipment.html

Not really the best example but here is a quick clip of it playing a old disco record
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0vEJYo12Dh0&list=UU0ysg8Om_zET-YzX9lUZhZQ&index=1&feature=plcp

Can't wait to have it serviced
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Richie Royale »

The Urei sounds a bit crap for a grand mixer then! I bought the cheap two channel Urei DJ mixer which I think is alright, but has very little gain on the channel gains.

I'm sure the Bozak wil be amazing once the pots and caps are sorted out.
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Chaconne »

@ Hollowsun

Thats really interesting. My S950 with 8 mono outs into a mixer and some alesis outboard is all I had at first, so I knew the Akai inside out - and it was a good manual - it seamed written for the 'power user'! I squeezed every drop out of it and it kick started what modest success I have had with music.

Thats the reason really I cant ditch it - it wold seam so undignified, to get what - £150? A plug in? I'll probably keep it until I cant lift it!!!
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Richie Royale »

As mentioned above here is a short example of how my SX16 messes with the playback if you use the reverse option on the front panel. Even with the Soundcloud encoding, you can here the crunch on the third track compared to the second. Both are the same sample, but the second has been played back from the front panel and then reversed in Cubase.

http://soundcloud.com/richie-royale/sets/sx16-example
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by hollowsun »

Chaconne wrote:@ Hollowsun

Thats really interesting. My S950 with 8 mono outs into a mixer and some alesis outboard is all I had at first, so I knew the Akai inside out - and it was a good manual - it seamed written for the 'power user'! I squeezed every drop out of it and it kick started what modest success I have had with music.

:)

The S900/950 was a cracking piece of kit in its way (and its day) - pretty much a Fairlight for a 10th of the price. And, of course, its release coincided with the Atari which was a marriage made in heaven back in 1986.

I take your point about selling it (or not, as the case may be). If you like it, get on well with it and it has a use for you, then yes ... keep on doing what you're doing and good luck to you - more power to your elbow.

Glad you liked my (ahem) 'manual'. Yes - it WAS aimed at those who wanted to coax more out of their S900, know more about sampling in general, etc.. The original 4-pager was just a joke but Akai were very young back then (roughly two years old by the time the S900 came out) and finding their feet so some leeway should be afforded them.

It always makes me smile all these years on to see there's still love for all the old Akai sampling gear I had a hand in.
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by ken long »

Chaconne wrote:£150?

Recent eBay sales in the US have seen them go for $500 on average... crazy.
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by ken long »

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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Chaconne »

Ha - I was just looking at a few ads in the back of SOS. I'll keep a check on ebay then, I mean maybe that sentimentality might melt away!!!

( i see someone hoping for £150 just for the 750K RAM!)

@ Hollowsun 'a fairlight at 1/10th the price - ' thats a good description of how I felt. It seamed a limitless machine to me at the time.
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

The S2800 was my first sampler and loved it, great manual too. It pretty much taught me sampling. Probs the most overlooked thing on it was the "help" button but I thought it was cool.
The 8meg Memory expansion though was almost as much as the sampler hahah
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by ken long »

Chaconne wrote:Yeah it can toughen up a riff if its a bit 'soft synthy', and err...

I guess one or two elements find there way into some tracks, but I'm not sure its vital. On the other hand its a nice looking machine, and worth nothing really so it stays. I think if I did the mod to replace the drive with a card reader, and it had a good selection of kits ready to go it would feel like it was earning its keep - but floppies - it seams a bit embarrasing now!

Floppy emulating card reader takes this baby into the 21st century. Hahaha.

:)

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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Chaconne »

OK - thats pretty cool.

I have looked over that site and considered this - its not a bad price - but the site is a bit confusing.

Can you put stuff on the SD card from a computer, or does it save things only from the S950 memory?

Plus, what do you do, fill it up, save the data / programs, then clear the memory for another load etc? If you dont mind answering a couple of queries here publicly it might interest others...?

Thanks
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by ken long »

Chaconne wrote:
Can you put stuff on the SD card from a computer, or does it save things only from the S950 memory?

No and yes. The card will act exactly like a floppy. You create a 950 disk image for the card. You save to the card as you would a normal floppy except that you obviously now have a great deal more storage on a single card.

Plus, what do you do, fill it up, save the data / programs, then clear the memory for another load etc? If you dont mind answering a couple of queries here publicly it might interest others...?


No problem... That's not my machine but I've done this to another sampler of mine. You can sample / load as much as your sample time permits (i think 26 seconds on full 2.25MB, IIRC). I'm not sure if you can create partitions on the card but as you mention, you can offload the card contents to your PC for a more permanent archival storage.

So 2 real advantages:

1. no longer need to store many floppies (which fail).

2. flexible archival tool for projects.

and of course, the ability to share your project with someone else without mailing them the floppies! :)

On my 3000, I also use a CF solution but via the SCSI. It allows me to edit my audio ona PC, then convert it to the sampler's format, load it onto a CF card and into the unit. I have 32 partitions on a 1GB card which I can pick and choose samples from or load entiore programs. It really saves so much time and allows me to back up my projects easily.
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by chris... »

Chaconne wrote:Can you put stuff on the SD card from a computer

No.

or does it save things only from the S950 memory?

That.
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Pitchfork »

Not to drift off the post, I have also just scored an s950!

In good nick with 1024kwords? - 1.5mb? It will go nicely with my S3200.

I am hoping to use the 950 as an fx unit to grunge up some VST's and the like, as well as loops :D
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

I really don't get the grunge thing with these 12 bit things... Not to sh*t on any ones bonfire but I think it's one of the most over rated things ever.
When you say grunge first thing that comes to mind is this
Image

I've had MPC-60's and they sound nothing but nice..
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

Have a listen for yourself

http://soundcloud.com/fromafarawayplace/sets/sampler-shootout/

There are much better samplers out there to "dirty" up the sound than the poor ol' 950 which imo is a good clean sounding sampler..
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by johnny h »

vinyl_junkie wrote:Have a listen for yourself

http://soundcloud.com/fromafarawayplace/sets/sampler-shootout/

There are much better samplers out there to "dirty" up the sound than the poor ol' 950 which imo is a good clean sounding sampler..

The dirt is in the aliasing when you tune the samples
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

johnny h wrote:
vinyl_junkie wrote:Have a listen for yourself

http://soundcloud.com/fromafarawayplace/sets/sampler-shootout/

There are much better samplers out there to "dirty" up the sound than the poor ol' 950 which imo is a good clean sounding sampler..

The dirt is in the aliasing when you tune the samples

It still sounds clean, if it's anything like the MPC-60 it sounds damn good.. The SP-1200 on the other hand now there's filth, it's like a ring modulator or something.

To be honest the S-3000 sounds worse than the MPC-60... The further you transpose the more muffled the sound gets and it starts becoming like mush, sounds cr*p. It's not gritty/dirty in a nice way imo where's the SP is.

The MPC-60 stays clean and I couldn't really hear any obvious aliasing when transposing, the kicks retain that punch and clarity whilst on the S-3000 you loose punch, fidelity and the will to live.

It could have something to do with this (taken from a SOS article)

"A good sampler should use high-quality interpolation algorithms that are far kinder on samples, even when they are transposed in either direction some distance from their base pitch. As samplers developed, though, the progression wasn't always smooth — for example, the Akai S1000 and S1100 used so-called 'eight-point windowed sinc interpolation', which was a good algorithm allowing a good deal of transposition in either direction, and which introduced artefacts only with extreme transpositions. But the later S2000 and S3000 family used linear interpolation, one of the most basic methods available, as a cost-cutting exercise to make the range of samplers more affordable. In practice, this meant that samples couldn't be transposed too far away from their base pitch without transposition artefacts being heard (a kind of metallic 'mush'). In my experience, hardware samplers seem to handle transposition better than software ones, perhaps because hardware samplers have dedicated circuitry built into them devoted to interpolation, and maybe also because the software that drives this hardware will often be written in the lowest level of machine code to ensure optimal performance under all circumstances, unlike the software interpolation 'emulators' responsible for transposition in a software sampler. Of course, low-quality interpolation will have no effect on recordings when they are played at their sampled pitch, but the usefulness of a sampler is reduced if it can't transpose audio too far away from its original pitch."

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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

Did a how to chop a sample video on the mpc-60 where I sample a record at 45rpm then slow it down in the sampler.. I know the vid is kinda crappy quality but I can't hear any extra grit when I'm dropping that sample down the octaves

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5u4m5qZhX7M&feature=autoplay&list=UU0ysg8Om_zET-YzX9lUZhZQ&lf=plcp&playnext=2

What I will say though is the 60 takes out a bit of bottom end when sampling, this was very clear when I sampled some SH-101 and replayed it back on some speakers that can play low..
Transposing the sample down gave you back this low end in a really nice way without making it muddy.. Being a S-3x man this really is something lovely
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by hollowsun »

vinyl_junkie wrote:It could have something to do with this (taken from a SOS article)

"A good sampler should use high-quality interpolation algorithms that are far kinder on samples....

From 'The lost art of sampling' wot I writ!
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

hollowsun wrote:
vinyl_junkie wrote:It could have something to do with this (taken from a SOS article)

"A good sampler should use high-quality interpolation algorithms that are far kinder on samples....

From <a href="/sos/sep05/articles/lostscience.htm" target="_blank">'The lost art of sampling' </a>wot I writ!

Damn fine read that mate!

Although it still bugs me at night that they cheeped out on the S-3000 series lol (I'm sad :-)

Were the XL's any different to the non XL models in the way they transposed samples etc?
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by Pitchfork »

vinyl_junkie wrote:
Were the XL's any different to the non XL models in the way they transposed samples etc?

I read and I think Hollowsun mentioned (I could be wrong?) that the Akai S3000, S3200 and S3200XL were the same, but the smaller 3000XL was made in a different country and sounded different?

There are thousands of posts now about the non-XL vs XL, and as an owner of the original S3000 3u (since sold) and now owner of the S3200XL 3u, (same as you VJ :D ) I can't really tell much difference?
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Re: Checking Akai S950 ram

Post by vinyl_junkie »

Coolio :) Think you'll like the 950. I know it's odd but I loved not having a waveform display on the MPC-60! The one on the MPC-2000XL is the worst, having to wait for the waveform to buffer.. proper lame!! Especially considered you don't have this issue on the rack samplers

The closest thing I had to the original S-3000 was a S-2800 which was pretty much the same thing other than the amount of ram it could take, outputs and physical size.

It's been too long to remember how it sounded the only thing I can remember is if you sampled with the backlight on you would have a very slight high pitch whine in your samples.
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