Akai S6000 wont talk to my PC. Anyone help with this. Driving me nuts.

[Kolakube]

Hey mate, sorry missed this rely from you.

Id really like to say a huge thank you mate for your efforts but bugger it. Im just going to use Kontact.
Its odd but I instantly know in the first hour if something is going to be for me or not.

A mate of mine from this forum Martin (vinyl junkie)recommended the MCP as a sequencer as he loves his. I had one go of it and bloody hated it. Same has happened for many bits of gear. Andromeda A6, JD-800, MC909.

On the flip side on discovering Ableton Live (version 6 converting from cubase) and the Roland JP-8000 on release in 97 I struggle to imagine writing music without these two tools. The thing I love about these two are to me they are just instant and have been from the offset. IE I sit down and off I go. I hate it when technology gets in the way. An artist doesnt have to mes around for 4 hours getting his brush to work nor a guitarist. Why should we have to?

Anyhow, I digress but just wanted to explain why I havent given this much of a chance. After farting on with the Akai for 4 hours I loaded up Kontact 3 which my mate loaned me with a view to buying of him, and off I went and was done in minutes. A sharp contrast.

Thanks again Steven, hopefully one day I can try and help you with something and return your efforts.

Mickey

[Fuji Ed]

Hi,

thats a pity about Aks-Sys not working. It's a very useful addition to the S5000/S6000 samplers. (have yet to get my hands on a Z series one)

I agree though, there's no point banging your head off the desk trying to get something to work when you could be otherwise writing your music.

Do you have another PC you could try it on? Also, have you tried a different USB cable?

I once had a problem with a USB device... it just wouldnt work. The cable was fine, as it had been tested with other devices and it worked properly. On closer inspection and comparison with another cable, the device or square end of the cable was about 5mm shorter than my other cables, meaning it depended on the USB port it was being plugged into as to wether it made contact or not. Some device's sockets were more forgiving than others.

The shorter cable ended up in the bin as it wasted lots of my time trying to figure out the problem!

I've just remembered you said Windows XP picked up your S6000, so my cable advice above is a bit useless

Hope you're able to get back to your music soon.

All the best,

Ed

[cfb4]

Found this in my aksys folder. Went through all this with multiple 5k's and 6K's in our studios. If you follow all of the intructions it will work. One of the main things is 'updating' the S6000 USB driver to the correct one. Windows weirdness means that even after you've installed the Akai USB driver - windows looks at your s6000 USB after it is plugged in ..... and assigns it's own driver anyway. Go figure.

Read and follow the notes below and it will work quite well.

Rich’s Note:
Install in this order:
aksys253
S56ak253
S56thms
If ya don’t – you’ll have to do it over!!!

The latest (final) downloads are here...

Ak.sys

USB Drivers for S5/6000

V2.0 USB Drivers (Only made available in Japan as an update to work with XP SP2. I installed them and found them to be in order, and noticed a few little niggles I had with ak.sys had been cured. Worth a look)

Themes

PDF Install Guide

Well, other than that, I can't help any further. I truly wish I could as I and many, many others have trouble free use with ak.sys and find it a great help when using the sampler. If, after following all advice and performing all necessary actions, you still have a problem, I can only presume that it is a local hardware or setup issue unique to yourself. Do you have the USB card correctly installed in the S5K ? Are you connecting the USB cable to a direct USB port on your PC's motherboard as opposed to via a hub ? Have you tried different USB cables ? I'm sure you have tried all of those things.

There is always the possibility of a hardware fault, either with your USB card, Sampler or PC but there are so many variables involved, it would be impossible for anyone to determine unless they had physical access to the setup you have.

Good luck
Also, you must be careful to install and connect drivers and equipment in the correct order. Certain USB and Firewire devices are not Class Compliant i.e they are not directly supported by Windows (Windows doesn't come with their drivers already installed) and therefore, if you connect them up before installing the drivers, Windows thinks it can handle it when it can't. So, boot up your PC, leave the sampler OFF, copy over the driver files and place them in a folder on your desktop, boot up the sampler, wait for the PC to ask for the drivers, point the PC to the folder on your desktop containing the driver files and let the PC install them. Bear in mind that before you do this, you should un-install all versions of ak.sys you have on that PC.

Once the sampler is installed, install ak.sys and, fingers crossed, all should be well.

[Kolakube]

Hi Ed

I agree though, there's no point banging your head off the desk trying to get something to work when you could be otherwise writing your music

Think what I have recently realised to myself is in the days of hardware samplers when there was no alternitives it was worth banging your head as there was no other way. These days though, for me esspecially with my mate willingly smirking and thrusting his copy of Kontact 3 my way so he can upgrade i just think, why the hell bother.

No worries re the USB advice mate. Thaks for trying to help. Its still appreciated.

@ cfb4

Hi mate, if that order is different fro the Akai instructions and it will only work one way in one order then whoever wrote the pdf download from the official Akai site have some explaining to do.

I have managed to sell the sampler now so have no way to try. Thanks for your post. Hopefully your advice may benefit someone in the future.

[cfb4]

Hi kolacube,
no problem - yes the order is different (i think?) but I got it off a thread ages ago - the cut'n'paste explanations are from the thread. This way works I have it in a folder called 'Akai AkSys: The Real Way'.

Ready for this: when we upgraded our studio from a quad core Asus-centric PC to a Mac Pro, I went to show our students the Mac version of AkSys. Well, it kept hanging the sampler all of the time and I ended up skipping over the Aksys stuff that year. My tech limbic system was working away on the problem, however, and i realised that the contemporary Mac USB ports were just way too fast for the old tugboat that is the S6000. Off I went to the pound (euro) shop and bought the cheapest hub I could find. Placed it in series with the S6000 and nary a hang since - a model sampling citizen in fact. And the hub conceals the iLok key for Pro Tools where prying eyes will never look for it: on the top of the S6000.

[kayjam]

cheers guys,

was in the same predicament as original poster until i stumbled
across this thread (nearly gave up) ,

'cfb4', followed your installation order and everything works!

ta

[hollowsun]

Welcome to the forum, kayjam...

Glad you're sorted. The S5/6000 and ak.Sys is a powerhouse. Enjoy!

[Kolakube]

Hi KeyJam. Welcome. Pleased this thread is helping people out.

I cant believe me and my S6000 didnt get on because of the official info on the official Akai site.

For what its worth me and Kontakt didn't work out either. Im back to my beautiful and simple S1000. Why fix it if it isnt broken?

[vinyl_junkie]

Hi KeyJam. Welcome. Pleased this thread is helping people out.

I cant believe me and my S6000 didnt get on because of the official info on the official Akai site.

For what its worth me and Kontakt didn't work out either. Im back to my beautiful and simple S1000. Why fix it if it isnt broken?

Sorry mate I haven't had a chance to email you but i have been off my feet this week, may be talk on Sunday? Any way you won't be using your S-1000 for that much longer once you try the EXS-24 in Logic..I know how much you like simple

[Kolakube]

dunno mate. Ive left and came back to the S1000 for 20 years now..

As for logic. Its just another thing to fart on with. Going back to Atari cubase.

[cfb4]

cheers guys,

was in the same predicament as original poster until i stumbled
across this thread (nearly gave up) ,

'cfb4', followed your installation order and everything works!

ta

Glad to be able to help

[Kolakube]

Its such a shame people cannot rely on the actual Akai instruction of the official Akai site and instead have to be lucky enough to bump into c4b4 on this thread or there screwed.