I managed to get a Zuluscsi working with the S5000 without having to go thru the whole process of adding the HD1.img file to it, etc etc etc ....I just straight formatted a 400G SD card to fat32 and it read it straight off the bat. *shrug* I haven't tried to plug into the USB on the front to access the SD yet....I just pop it out and into an SD reader
@@StephenMcLeod I just formatted the SD card as straight single FAT32 partition. It managed to read it just as a standard drive. I actually had my S5000 reading a 400GB SD card as one single partition Just DO NOT use the .img thing that the instructions say to do.
I just tried this. It doesn't work for me with FAT32, but exFAT it works perfectly. I'm not sure why it didn't pick it up correctly before - but this is a way simpler method than what I had been doing. Thanks for the top tip!!
@@StephenMcLeod One other thing I did.....if you switch the SD card when running, the S5000 tries to scan the entire drive bus and it totally crashes because I took out the floppy and replaced it with zuluscsi. The way around this is to essentially hookup the floppy as a dummy in the hard drive bay right next to where it was. Sure, you don't have access to the floppy anymore, but at least it's attached so that the sampler doesn't have a complete freakout when it searches for it and it's not there.
Got the S5k upgraded to 256mb with the SD2SCSI card replacing the floppy ... totally fell in love with this sampler... and use it in my Akai force controlled setup .. use it more for sampling and crunching up stuff over playback .. but have played with groups and sequencing them ... and the USB link card allowing me to direct connect to an external 32 bit PC .. like you its hands on-ness of the device and the whole usage experience that I love .. along with some of the crazy things it can do that a lot of modern stuff has lost .. still use modern samplers .. but the 5k still persists in the setup
Dude, you gotta look up the sysex for the S5000/6000 it can bring it to a new level with sequenced sample swaps or any number of other parameters. Hell you can even program it to load in a new multi or preset from the drive in the background...but I mean...there's far more general use things and less niche stuff you can do through the sysex. S5000 is my main sample workhorse, cause it can just handle so much stuff all at once it's wonderful
@@StephenMcLeod Just use virtualization software running the XP operating system on your fast modern computer! No need to maintain an old window machine when you just need to run the old windows machine's operating system. You have the power of your modern computer, with the legacy Aksys controller software for your S6000.
The E-MU E4XT Ultra is probably the pinnacle of hardware samplers IMHO I highly recommend you get your hands on one if you can . Specs at a glance :128‑voice Polyphony. 32‑part multitimbrality (2 sets of MIDI connections). 64Mb RAM. 3.2Gb Hard Drive. many have been upgraded after the fact as though the cable is a diy job the HD is just IDE Dual 24‑bit effects processors. 21 filter types. 8 Balanced analogue outputs. Word clock & AES/EBU I/O. 240 x 64‑dot Custom Backlit Display. 48‑track sequencer. Arpeggiator.
@@StephenMcLeod I own both an S5000 and E4XT Ultra with RFX32 and 16 analog outputs, the Emu has sonic advantages over the S5/6Ks. E4XT can take a 120Gb HDD on the IDE bus, making it quite the rompler if one wishes, with a lot of synthesis flexibility and lots of automation available
The timing of the EMU samplers is dog shit compared to the Akai’s though. I keep buying an EMU every few years because they sound great but end up selling them because their midi timing is shite.
I completely agree to why hw samplers are super fun. And I'm a huge daw user and commercial library dev for Kontakt & Reason but there is magic to be found in hw samplers. I have a few and I'd love to add a S5000/S6000. I had the huge S1000KB for a while and you can check my video on that.
If you're loving old samplers, look into the Yamaha SU700. It's properly slept on and still easy to find cheap. You can record at a wide variety of sample rates, plus either 8-bit or 16-bit. It has some fantastic sounding effects and the workflow is kind of akin to a primative/LoFi version or Ableton.
I loved your video! I just upgraded my S5000 to use a SCSI2SD card and now I have four 10GB drives that load on startup. It is amazing! Some advice, don't make your SD card drives too large. Think about what SCSI drives/sizes were available in the 90's and they weren't 100GB ones. I tried going big as possible with my SD drives and it created SCSI errors randomly, and dropping down the size to 10GB made it very stable. Could I get stability at 15GB? Maybe, but 10GB was good enough for me. Also, I suggest getting the USB card for your S6000, if it doesn't have one. What can you do with it? Well, if you install an Oracle free software program called VirtualBox, an iso file of Windows XP (32 bit) and a license key, this will allow you to install the companion software for the Akai S5000/S6000 called Aksys. What this will give you is the ability to just drag-and-drop files from your computer (since you will setup a VirtualBox share drive from your host computer that your WinXP instance can access) over the USB cable directly to the newly created S6000 SD card drives. Using this setup, you can prep your samples in your DAW, move them to the virtualbox shared drive, start your Windows XP instance, and S6000, and drag the folder with the files to your S6000 target drive, and go get a beer as it transfers. Easy peezy!
@@StephenMcLeod That is correct and the Z8 also had a “Remote screen” like your S-6000. The reason why these samplers are priced so low is because people has “currently” more focus on samplers with “Lofi” characters like Akai S-950/900, Emu Emax ..Ensoniq Mirage..etc….while devices as S-6000 is more focused on being as “Hi-end” as possible, which is also why you would probably only have seen them in bigger studios in the past. [Retail price £2799, depending on which expansion options you picked] But if you are interested in similar priced “hi-end” sampler devices, then I can recommend, which is currently low priced: - E-Mu Ultra E6400 - “beat munger“, Z-plane filters - Yamaha A4000 - A5000 - „Stand alone effect processor” and “loop remix” < I would not define it as hi-end, but it has interesting features! - Kurzweil K2000 w. Sample option - Samples in combination with the V.A.S.T engine.
Ah, your channel is so cool. Thanks for this upload, it's bringing back a lot of memories! I used to make music on Digital Hardcore on an Akai s1000 and my best mate had the 2000. Totally agree about the 2000's tiny screen! Nightmare. A few years ago I bought a 5000 on eBay for about £150 with dreams of getting the Atari ST out again, but it didn't quite happen for me. Glad to see these things getting used!
I’d love to see you mess around with one of the Yamaha A series samplers. Loop remixing works incredibly well and the loop divide splits a loop into however many sections you want and maps them to midi notes. These are creative things, it may not have some of the same specs as top level Akai and Emu samplers but they’re fun to use. Three effects blocks which can be series or parallel (6 effects blocks on the A5000) and take external input. Some bonkers effects too, real time pitch shift and time stretch as an effect 😀 They load wav files, I’ve done this via a Gotek drive but it’s too much pishing about so don’t bother. Just need to install new encoders!! Did mine years ago and still working fine 👍 Things like changing the sample rate (numerous options) and being able to monitor the ‘effect’ before recording. Clever.
@@StephenMcLeod - it’s the A3000 I’ve got. Doesn’t display waveforms but I’m used to trimming by ear. I’m old 😔 If you can find an A5000 with its 6 effects blocks it’d be worth a punt 👍
I do very much like the A3000, just takes a bit more time without the bigger screen. Old skool 👍 Quick to use when you get used to it. Record a sample, assign a midi channel to it and off you go.
I brought mine new in 98 for £2600 soon as it was released added the usb card which is almost an essential purchase if you can find one or luck enough to have one installed on the one you brought the aksys works great & makes recycle etc a breeze for importing/exporting all those chops etc still use it today
Nice! I have one of the USB cards, though I don't have a computer capable of running aksys. I'm thinking of getting an old laptop dedicated for that buttt unsure
When a 90's sampler has a better screen than your 1000$ groovebox. But more on topic I understand completely, I'm wanting to pick up an Emulator 4 rackmount unit in part as a processing box but also because it gives me access to a ton of the classic E-Mu sounds as well as being able to use the filter on it for external audio because oddly basically no one has tried to clone the E-Mu Zplane Filter set up outside of an Eurorack module I'm aware of I'd like to have access to those older liquid DnB sounds of the late 90's and early 2000's as it was part of what got me into electronic music and the E-Mu sound was a big part of the sound for a lot of acts.
Pretty wild eh?! I don't know a huge amount about the E-Mu samplers... that's a world I am hesitant to peer too deeply into, lest I end up falling down that particular rabbit hole haha. I actually had the Morpheous Eurorack module at one point, but it was too complicated for me to understand, so I ended up selling it. Probably a regret now, but alas!
Yeah they tend to be complicated beasts given that they are at their core not just a sampler but a full sample based synth. But for me they are more my speed than the Akai units of a similar vintage. Not just because I prefer the what I can only describes as the E-Mu sound but just how they are done in general as far as features is more of the kind of stuff I've got uses for. EDIT: I actually was looking into getting a Morpheus and a line level to eurorack injector with it but I quickly dropped the idea when it came out to be more than just buying an Emulator 4.
I got a S5000 and upgraded the outputs, ram, voices, and slapped a zulu scsi in it as well. It's a beautiful sampler and I mainly use it for its 32 part multitimbrality and massive amount of voices and ram...that's to say I load shit I made elsewhere onto it to take the work load off my other samplers that have far more complex synth engines. It's wonderful, does what I need it to, looks cool, and outperforms any hardware sampler on the market, all in all I don't know how I'd do some of the stuff I wanna without it.
I'm happy to be early in the comments. You know me mate, I'm an old guy and I remember when MIDI 5 pin din ports first came out and was considered "new state-of-the-art" tech. The one thing old AKAI hardware are quality builds. Stay with me for a bit... I've been actually playing some small venues again out there, just solo stuff acoustic guitar and singing (YES, it's been a while since I've been playing live).. But what I realized.. Is all the commercially licensed music that I've been writing and I DO REALLY like MIDI and using my computer and DAW, that I REALLY need to practice playing not just acoustic guitar but synthesizers in real time, to get my skill-sets and playing back up to what it was. I think you buying your hardware sampler was a good idea as manually using that with a midi keyboard and playing sounds in real time is again, something that everyone needs to do once in a while, play in real time. My 2 cents. Have a great weekend, cheers.
Glad to hear you are getting out and playing live again! It took me a while to get set up to do once gigs started off - at least with electronic stuff. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to the S6000... even though it's pretty heavy and bulky it would be fun to lug it to a gig just to see people going wtf... Take care!
Such an honest answer...this shit looks so cool! That daws are so damn boring. It’s cool sometimes when you have people around you challenging you and pushing your creativity but otherwise it’s a struggle to want to make anything for myself in a daw alone.
Yeah man. I use Logic for recording/mixing and adding effects, but like you said - it's ultra dull for creating. It feels and sounds too wooden. I much prefer working with external sequencers and gear hooked in.
I bought my S5000 back in ‘97 when it came out for the princely sum of $4,500 CDN. (about $8k in 2023 dollars). 64 voices, 8 outputs, 32MB of RAM, USB card, effects board and I installed a 128GB SCSI drive in the internal drive bay. It was the business. Used it as my piano, drums, found sounds and lo-fi vocal loops (Ministry was a big fave at the time). I really should pull it out of storage to see if it boots up.
Love it. Also strangely attracted to the rolls royce devices (of their era) which are basically modern landfill now. On a similar tip I can thoroughly recommend Yamaha's A4000 and A5000 samplers, for being incredible in terms of UI/usability and basically complete synths that happen to use samples. One thing is the encoders go weird, though I think they can be replaced - you can also drop in IDE to Compact Flash adapters to trick out their memory! Looking forward to a nerdy run through of the interface and your use case …
Thanks man! A few folks have pointed out the Yamaha samplers in particular - they are meant to have sweet effects routing. I am trying to not fall down that rabbit hole, buuuuut... I can feel it happening.
@@StephenMcLeod Yeah the effects are particularly good, there's multiple blocks, all sorts of FX (like amp modeling as well as reverbs etc) and IIRC you can bake the effects into the sample quite easily.... Again watch for dodgy pots tho but they can be replaced.
Since daw was a thing,the topology of making music has changed.Hardware synths were no longer needed as they can be simulated and analog mixers were no long needed because software would do the job.I see no reason to own hardware audio devices anymore but for some reasons that sometime things can go wrong with software and PC and having hardware synths whose independent sounds can be a good backup.
When the S6000 was released it was the ultimate "must-have", but that did not last long. I worked at Sam Ash on 48th Street in 03-05', and in late 04' we could not give these away for $400 to 500. It was hard to see, especially with how much I would have killed for one in 99'.
Some classic AMFAS quotes there in the beginning!! 😁 This sampler is amazing really, l love how you did all the mods for it! And I definitely know what you mean when referring to that 90s sample sound too, I think the Volca Sample is killer for that actually! Just wish it had a lot more memory! lol 🎹🐀
I just use a very outdated now piece of software for all my sampling playback, FXpansion's Guru. It was followed by Geist which is even better if you can get a copy of that, let me know if you want to sell me it. The sound library with Guru is massive (around 5 gigs worth) and with Audacity which is free you can sample anything you want and load it into Guru which will play nicely in any DAW i believe. It's basically the best drum /sample machine i've found for the money. It will even work in win 10.
You can just get an Emu ESI with OS3 and you get access to a huge library, all EMAX, EIII, and the Proteus CD-R, and all the Z-plane filters. The Emu sounds are better than Akai, but you can of course read Akai anyhow.
Still I think you should try S1000. Depending on the input level after certain value it will start adding additional harmonics rather that distort immediately as other samplers. I don't know of any other hard soft sampler that does that.
I think the S950 would be next on my list, since it's 12 bit... but they are so pricey every time they do appear. The S1000 is 16 bit I believe, but not sure if it can be switched down to 12. If it can, that might be a contender...
@@StephenMcLeod BTW I forgot to say, S1000 uses sinc interpolation, so definitely will sound different to S6000 which afaik is linear, I just hope the prices haven't gone insane like S950 and S1100. Also forgot to mention - regarding the keymapping, it takes 30 seconds to map 61 keys on S1000, it's really super fast.
Ohh Check the Ensoniq samplers. They have much more to offer in a sample mangling terytorium compering to the Akai samplers. Especially the EPS16+ or the ASR10. It is still difficult to find a DAW or a propper VST to compare with the Ensoniq machines.
I was going to o get one but went with EMU E6400 Ultra w. Hard drive back then. A few years later I was going to get Akai Z8 because it's the MPC4000 sound in a rack. It's 24 bit for that Z8 w. Hard drive too. I still have my E6400 and right now I'm about to record to Renoise so I can arrange. My Akai MPCX and E6400 ultra are theee samplers then recorded to Renoise DAW. I just sample what I ever I come up with on Pro 1 synth and Access Virus TI2 and then layer them. It's fun and it doesn't get old.
I had one of these back in the days, packed with everything, including USB used together with AkSys from my Mac, the main problem is the time it takes to load stuff into the sampler's RAM, huge bottleneck, else it's a lovely machine. For more fun, the later EMU and Yamaha rack samplers had loads of nice filter types, in that department the S6000 was a tad bland imho.
I love recording drum breaks into the Akai S5/6000 especially when experimenting with mic line level. Squashes any distortion VST. If you have the fx card the delays can sound extremely wild with very short delay values. Reverbs are smooth too, albeit a bit dark. The modulation routing is OK but nowhere near as flexible as the Emu Ultra series. Filters are great too. 👍🏾
@@StephenMcLeod yes. But when you record at the two higher recording levels especially ‘mic’ you don’t even need to clip…. 😅 . Layer one of those under your clean break. 🔥😣
The Z series were the last of the akai samplers The z4 and z8 series rack mount samplers. I prefer to use hands on hardware ill be far more engaged and creative. Humans are tactile critters.
I bought one of the new MPC One retro editions to use with my Legion Go Windows tablet to make kind of a franken S600One thing. It's going to be fun for me at least
its fun to see you go all in in this old gear. I have an Akai cd3000 and the mpc 2000. It has been dormant in a travel case for awhile. If I am not mistaken there are some old apps to run on mac or PC that let you set up the programs. there is a possibility you can make it work on a PC. Think the Kurzweil samplers were on the same level.
Hell yeah. I'm an old gear fanatic. There are definitely some older bits of software that you can use to manage things, though for the S6000 it's thankfully less necessary thanks to how much you can edit on the machine itself. :)
The main argument for having an old rack sampler in 2023 is the slowed down sample sound. When you do it in Ableton it sound like shit...on the Emu ESI sampler series or Akai MPC or S series it sounds great, interesting full of flavour.
@@StephenMcLeod I was time stretching for the first time on the EMU . A drum loop at 160 bpm to time correct to 125. My goodness it's grainy.. the Akai did a better job. A little grainy but better. Acid Pro daw I remember just does it smoother.
Hihi, I bought a week before the S5000 with 192mb ram and 64 voices for €300. And I bought an external SCSI2 CD-ROM from Yamaha for €89 and a SCSI 2 cable for €33. I downloaded the Akai factory libraries for free and burnt them on CD-Roms. And now I am sound wonderland on cloud no. 7 😂 I am also no Fan from software samplers, instruments. The only VST Instruments which I use are East West Symphonic Instruments and the great VPS Avenger 2, and some effect Plug ins - thats it. The rest, or vize versa are real Hardware Instruments, Split on three Studios. VST Instruments are in my opinion good for poor kids, which can’t buy real instruments or people which can‘t play piano or cover band personal.
Love old samplers. You should get an e-mu e4 range machine and do some videos on it :) I had the e6400 which was great: lots of interesting stuff going on sound design wise, but came across the same thing you mentioned where it doesn't support wavs - only the ultras do. It worked well with the scsi to sd though, and the cool thing with those is you can do scsi 'through' or whatever it';s called, where all chained devices can access the same scsi drive.
Oh that's awesome I forgot about SCSI through. I'd love to try out the emu devices, but that's a particular rabbit hole I am scared to fall down ha. They seem to be pretty pricey, buuut I will keep my eye out!
They aren't all 16 bit, no - and the gritty sound is more associated with the 12 bit samplers from the S Series, but they get reeeal expensive. I actually just put together an article looking at the different ones that might be interesting - www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/akai-s-series-samplers
"look cool as fuck". yeah! and 10 of them in a rack looks 10 times fucking cool:) you are so right with what you´ve said! thanks for your very cool, Inspiring videos!
I've still got most of my old Akai units, 2x S950, 2x S3200xl, S3000xl, S6000, MPC60ii, MPC2000xl se1, ASQ-10 and recently an MPC1. - Yeah, the S6000 is pretty cool, but personally the S3200xl is my all time favourite S-series sampler. For drums I usually sample into an S950, save the samples to floppy, then load the floppy into a S3200xl - which converts the file - and take it from there, that way I get all that grit and crunch from the AD converters of the S950, but all the extensive editing, etc available in the S3200xl I've kept the S6000 purely as a collector's piece, it's actually been sealed up in its flight case for over a decade now - if I'm honest, I never really gelled with the workflow, - too many options for me, it's really powerful, but for just drum machine samples, breakbeats, bass tones and spoken word, which is all I've ever really used samplers for, I personally found the S6000 to be overkill. That said, if you're also going to be using an Akai for evolving pads, atmospheres, and massive libraries, modular loops, etc - it's the best hands down, as the filter and envelope options are superb. - love to ALL, feel no hate
Thanks for the thoughtful and in depth comment! I've taken a look at the S3000XL before, but not the 3200XL. That seems like a beauty. It's awesome you've got the S950 too! I know I said my goal here wasn't to get the old crunchy Akai sound, buuut if I managed to get my hands on an S950 for a reasonable price I would jump at the chance. Using them to grit samples up is a great idea.
@@leewightman8619 Hopefully One day I will get it repaired. It was at the heart of my live setup back in the day. 8-track sequencer that was rock solid It used to trigger my Juno and Novation Drum Station. Played a many all nighter with that rig. Those were the days
@@StephenMcLeod Yes, it is and I agree as I'm coming out of the box after 20 years. It would sit nicely in my new rig. I need to track someone down that can repair it. I even have the outboard expander which is pretty rare. Gives you 6 outs It's expanded to 16 meg of memory for about 40 seconds of sample time. Learnt how to chop on that machine. Great live, the Sequencer was rock solid, as tight as the Atari St. . It needed to be at some of the gigs I did 😵💫
Had my Akai s6000 from new and its always played an integral part in my studio. I would never sell it. Absolutely not. SHhhhhhhhh!!!! Between me and you, i couldn't sell it even if i wanted to........it knows way too much!!
mate you forgot the best thing -- you can have different fIlter / envelopes /velocity setttings for each key group-- (you cant do that on the crap logic sampler! ) ,,,
@StephenMcLeod If you ever do, get the keyboard, not the rack. The hipsters bang on about the rack unit, but it lacks keys, sequencer, comfortable top button access and restrictions that make the ASR-10 what it is.
@allmyfriendsarejpegs don't know how much free time you have but I recently got this WAV sound set..pretty DOPE ! Peace th-cam.com/video/0o4ELEhhNHs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=hTlWpk6GK9DJlkg4
Nothing has come close to the last gen or rack samplers. Although every time I went to buy an s5000 or s6000 the idea of an EMU XT4 always temped me away
Computer computer that’s all we fkn hear. As a pastime working on old hardware is a great experience… doing all this on a computer as a pastime is like playing a fkn computer game Hardware all the way
![Setting up ZuluSCSI with a vintage sampler [Akai S6000/S5000]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/XbDvZviMXck/mqdefault.jpg)
![Setting up ZuluSCSI with a vintage sampler [Akai S6000/S5000]](/img/tr.png)
I managed to get a Zuluscsi working with the S5000 without having to go thru the whole process of adding the HD1.img file to it, etc etc etc
....I just straight formatted a 400G SD card to fat32 and it read it straight off the bat. *shrug*
I haven't tried to plug into the USB on the front to access the SD yet....I just pop it out and into an SD reader
Oh yeah? When I did that it still showed me all of the other empty hard drives, as it was set up to read 7 of them. How did you get around that?
@@StephenMcLeod I just formatted the SD card as straight single FAT32 partition. It managed to read it just as a standard drive.
I actually had my S5000 reading a 400GB SD card as one single partition
Just DO NOT use the .img thing that the instructions say to do.
I just tried this. It doesn't work for me with FAT32, but exFAT it works perfectly. I'm not sure why it didn't pick it up correctly before - but this is a way simpler method than what I had been doing. Thanks for the top tip!!
@@StephenMcLeod yeh....messing about with all those img files was just not working for me.
This method is waaaaay easier.
@@StephenMcLeod One other thing I did.....if you switch the SD card when running, the S5000 tries to scan the entire drive bus and it totally crashes because I took out the floppy and replaced it with zuluscsi.
The way around this is to essentially hookup the floppy as a dummy in the hard drive bay right next to where it was. Sure, you don't have access to the floppy anymore, but at least it's attached so that the sampler doesn't have a complete freakout when it searches for it and it's not there.
Got the S5k upgraded to 256mb with the SD2SCSI card replacing the floppy ... totally fell in love with this sampler... and use it in my Akai force controlled setup .. use it more for sampling and crunching up stuff over playback .. but have played with groups and sequencing them ... and the USB link card allowing me to direct connect to an external 32 bit PC .. like you its hands on-ness of the device and the whole usage experience that I love .. along with some of the crazy things it can do that a lot of modern stuff has lost .. still use modern samplers .. but the 5k still persists in the setup
Hell yeah!!! What setup have you got for the usb card? An old windows machine? XP? Think it's work getting an old laptop or something for that?
Dude, you gotta look up the sysex for the S5000/6000 it can bring it to a new level with sequenced sample swaps or any number of other parameters. Hell you can even program it to load in a new multi or preset from the drive in the background...but I mean...there's far more general use things and less niche stuff you can do through the sysex. S5000 is my main sample workhorse, cause it can just handle so much stuff all at once it's wonderful
@@StephenMcLeod Just use virtualization software running the XP operating system on your fast modern computer! No need to maintain an old window machine when you just need to run the old windows machine's operating system. You have the power of your modern computer, with the legacy Aksys controller software for your S6000.
The E-MU E4XT Ultra is probably the pinnacle of hardware samplers IMHO I highly recommend you get your hands on one if you can .
Specs at a glance :128‑voice Polyphony.
32‑part multitimbrality (2 sets of MIDI connections).
64Mb RAM.
3.2Gb Hard Drive. many have been upgraded after the fact as though the cable is a diy job the HD is just IDE
Dual 24‑bit effects processors.
21 filter types.
8 Balanced analogue outputs.
Word clock & AES/EBU I/O.
240 x 64‑dot Custom Backlit Display.
48‑track sequencer.
Arpeggiator.
E-MU samplers are a rabbit hole I don't want to fall down, but I guess it's inevitable ha.
@@StephenMcLeod lolz . They are a different worm hole for sure , but the filters and effects engines are worth the effort . Cheers !
@@StephenMcLeod I own both an S5000 and E4XT Ultra with RFX32 and 16 analog outputs, the Emu has sonic advantages over the S5/6Ks.
E4XT can take a 120Gb HDD on the IDE bus, making it quite the rompler if one wishes, with a lot of synthesis flexibility and lots of automation available
you guys should check out Ableton 8.
The timing of the EMU samplers is dog shit compared to the Akai’s though. I keep buying an EMU every few years because they sound great but end up selling them because their midi timing is shite.
I completely agree to why hw samplers are super fun. And I'm a huge daw user and commercial library dev for Kontakt & Reason but there is magic to be found in hw samplers. I have a few and I'd love to add a S5000/S6000. I had the huge S1000KB for a while and you can check my video on that.
Actually, I thought the main thing you sampled for making music was single malt.
That's for special occasions!!
@@StephenMcLeodadmit it: you're sucking back the Buckfast!!!😂😂😂
@@BigStereoVR sook sook sook
It's impressive how much gear you have..and the fact you know how to use it all
Who says I know how to use it all?! Haha.
If you're loving old samplers, look into the Yamaha SU700. It's properly slept on and still easy to find cheap. You can record at a wide variety of sample rates, plus either 8-bit or 16-bit. It has some fantastic sounding effects and the workflow is kind of akin to a primative/LoFi version or Ableton.
That is a beautiful looking thing!!
Bought one!!
I loved your video! I just upgraded my S5000 to use a SCSI2SD card and now I have four 10GB drives that load on startup. It is amazing! Some advice, don't make your SD card drives too large. Think about what SCSI drives/sizes were available in the 90's and they weren't 100GB ones. I tried going big as possible with my SD drives and it created SCSI errors randomly, and dropping down the size to 10GB made it very stable. Could I get stability at 15GB? Maybe, but 10GB was good enough for me.
Also, I suggest getting the USB card for your S6000, if it doesn't have one. What can you do with it? Well, if you install an Oracle free software program called VirtualBox, an iso file of Windows XP (32 bit) and a license key, this will allow you to install the companion software for the Akai S5000/S6000 called Aksys. What this will give you is the ability to just drag-and-drop files from your computer (since you will setup a VirtualBox share drive from your host computer that your WinXP instance can access) over the USB cable directly to the newly created S6000 SD card drives.
Using this setup, you can prep your samples in your DAW, move them to the virtualbox shared drive, start your Windows XP instance, and S6000, and drag the folder with the files to your S6000 target drive, and go get a beer as it transfers. Easy peezy!
I think the last rack sampler from Akai was the Z8, which was like a MPC-4000 in rack.
ahhhh you are completely right. I forgot about the Z8! It's a 24 bit thing right?
@@StephenMcLeod That is correct and the Z8 also had a “Remote screen” like your S-6000.
The reason why these samplers are priced so low is because people has “currently” more focus on samplers with “Lofi” characters like Akai S-950/900, Emu Emax ..Ensoniq Mirage..etc….while devices as S-6000 is more focused on being as “Hi-end” as possible, which is also why you would probably only have seen them in bigger studios in the past. [Retail price £2799, depending on which expansion options you picked]
But if you are interested in similar priced “hi-end” sampler devices, then I can recommend, which is currently low priced:
- E-Mu Ultra E6400 - “beat munger“, Z-plane filters
- Yamaha A4000 - A5000 - „Stand alone effect processor” and “loop remix” < I would not define it as hi-end, but it has interesting features!
- Kurzweil K2000 w. Sample option - Samples in combination with the V.A.S.T engine.
Ah, your channel is so cool. Thanks for this upload, it's bringing back a lot of memories! I used to make music on Digital Hardcore on an Akai s1000 and my best mate had the 2000. Totally agree about the 2000's tiny screen! Nightmare. A few years ago I bought a 5000 on eBay for about £150 with dreams of getting the Atari ST out again, but it didn't quite happen for me. Glad to see these things getting used!
Get that Atari out!!!
Big up Fidel, make more noise please
@@leeman2470 th-cam.com/video/kMgW2DjGP6k/w-d-xo.html That's the last thing I did, it's not very noisy though.
I’d love to see you mess around with one of the Yamaha A series samplers.
Loop remixing works incredibly well and the loop divide splits a loop into however many sections you want and maps them to midi notes.
These are creative things, it may not have some of the same specs as top level Akai and Emu samplers but they’re fun to use.
Three effects blocks which can be series or parallel (6 effects blocks on the A5000) and take external input. Some bonkers effects too, real time pitch shift and time stretch as an effect 😀
They load wav files, I’ve done this via a Gotek drive but it’s too much pishing about so don’t bother.
Just need to install new encoders!! Did mine years ago and still working fine 👍
Things like changing the sample rate (numerous options) and being able to monitor the ‘effect’ before recording. Clever.
Oh yeah? I've seen an a3000 but was unsure whether to take the plunge or not... I've heard the effects are pretty cool mind.
@@StephenMcLeod - it’s the A3000 I’ve got. Doesn’t display waveforms but I’m used to trimming by ear. I’m old 😔
If you can find an A5000 with its 6 effects blocks it’d be worth a punt 👍
@@leftmono1016 Ohhh I've been looking at the A3000 as I can get them for a nice price. HmmMmMm.
I do very much like the A3000, just takes a bit more time without the bigger screen. Old skool 👍
Quick to use when you get used to it. Record a sample, assign a midi channel to it and off you go.
I brought mine new in 98 for £2600 soon as it was released added the usb card which is almost an essential purchase if you can find one or luck enough to have one installed on the one you brought the aksys works great & makes recycle etc a breeze for importing/exporting all those chops etc still use it today
Nice! I have one of the USB cards, though I don't have a computer capable of running aksys. I'm thinking of getting an old laptop dedicated for that buttt unsure
When a 90's sampler has a better screen than your 1000$ groovebox. But more on topic I understand completely, I'm wanting to pick up an Emulator 4 rackmount unit in part as a processing box but also because it gives me access to a ton of the classic E-Mu sounds as well as being able to use the filter on it for external audio because oddly basically no one has tried to clone the E-Mu Zplane Filter set up outside of an Eurorack module I'm aware of I'd like to have access to those older liquid DnB sounds of the late 90's and early 2000's as it was part of what got me into electronic music and the E-Mu sound was a big part of the sound for a lot of acts.
Pretty wild eh?! I don't know a huge amount about the E-Mu samplers... that's a world I am hesitant to peer too deeply into, lest I end up falling down that particular rabbit hole haha. I actually had the Morpheous Eurorack module at one point, but it was too complicated for me to understand, so I ended up selling it. Probably a regret now, but alas!
Yeah they tend to be complicated beasts given that they are at their core not just a sampler but a full sample based synth. But for me they are more my speed than the Akai units of a similar vintage. Not just because I prefer the what I can only describes as the E-Mu sound but just how they are done in general as far as features is more of the kind of stuff I've got uses for.
EDIT: I actually was looking into getting a Morpheus and a line level to eurorack injector with it but I quickly dropped the idea when it came out to be more than just buying an Emulator 4.
I got a S5000 and upgraded the outputs, ram, voices, and slapped a zulu scsi in it as well. It's a beautiful sampler and I mainly use it for its 32 part multitimbrality and massive amount of voices and ram...that's to say I load shit I made elsewhere onto it to take the work load off my other samplers that have far more complex synth engines. It's wonderful, does what I need it to, looks cool, and outperforms any hardware sampler on the market, all in all I don't know how I'd do some of the stuff I wanna without it.
Awesome! S5000/6000 solidarity!!
I'm happy to be early in the comments. You know me mate, I'm an old guy and I remember when MIDI 5 pin din ports first came out and was considered "new state-of-the-art" tech. The one thing old AKAI hardware are quality builds. Stay with me for a bit... I've been actually playing some small venues again out there, just solo stuff acoustic guitar and singing (YES, it's been a while since I've been playing live).. But what I realized.. Is all the commercially licensed music that I've been writing and I DO REALLY like MIDI and using my computer and DAW, that I REALLY need to practice playing not just acoustic guitar but synthesizers in real time, to get my skill-sets and playing back up to what it was. I think you buying your hardware sampler was a good idea as manually using that with a midi keyboard and playing sounds in real time is again, something that everyone needs to do once in a while, play in real time. My 2 cents. Have a great weekend, cheers.
Glad to hear you are getting out and playing live again! It took me a while to get set up to do once gigs started off - at least with electronic stuff. I'm looking forward to getting stuck in to the S6000... even though it's pretty heavy and bulky it would be fun to lug it to a gig just to see people going wtf... Take care!
@@StephenMcLeod Hey, that the way it was done in the "old days"! LOL... maybe that why I have back issues.. LOL..
Such an honest answer...this shit looks so cool! That daws are so damn boring. It’s cool sometimes when you have people around you challenging you and pushing your creativity but otherwise it’s a struggle to want to make anything for myself in a daw alone.
Yeah man. I use Logic for recording/mixing and adding effects, but like you said - it's ultra dull for creating. It feels and sounds too wooden. I much prefer working with external sequencers and gear hooked in.
Amon Tobin used 1 back in the day. I always wanted one. Seemed like a beast of a machine with all those outputs & that crazy controller on the front.
Love the 16 outputs!!
I had the chance of buying one of these fully expanded off Gumtree for £150 about 10 years ago , I dithered , never bothered and regretted it since
Oh dang that would have been a bargain
So, for example, you can set the envelope generator on
a snare sample, to add a slow attack on the VCA envelope-makes it a lot more realistic--
It's really sturdy and well build, it's an exclusive machine. I love the old samplers.
I bought my S5000 back in ‘97 when it came out for the princely sum of $4,500 CDN. (about $8k in 2023 dollars). 64 voices, 8 outputs, 32MB of RAM, USB card, effects board and I installed a 128GB SCSI drive in the internal drive bay. It was the business. Used it as my piano, drums, found sounds and lo-fi vocal loops (Ministry was a big fave at the time). I really should pull it out of storage to see if it boots up.
Hell yeah that's awesome! You definitely need to dig it out. They are amazing things.
Love it. Also strangely attracted to the rolls royce devices (of their era) which are basically modern landfill now. On a similar tip I can thoroughly recommend Yamaha's A4000 and A5000 samplers, for being incredible in terms of UI/usability and basically complete synths that happen to use samples. One thing is the encoders go weird, though I think they can be replaced - you can also drop in IDE to Compact Flash adapters to trick out their memory! Looking forward to a nerdy run through of the interface and your use case …
Thanks man! A few folks have pointed out the Yamaha samplers in particular - they are meant to have sweet effects routing. I am trying to not fall down that rabbit hole, buuuuut... I can feel it happening.
@@StephenMcLeod Yeah the effects are particularly good, there's multiple blocks, all sorts of FX (like amp modeling as well as reverbs etc) and IIRC you can bake the effects into the sample quite easily....
Again watch for dodgy pots tho but they can be replaced.
You're not helping!!! I'm in Korea at the moment and strongly considering hunting one down...
Since daw was a thing,the topology of making music has changed.Hardware synths were no longer needed as they can be simulated and analog mixers were no long needed because software would do the job.I see no reason to own hardware audio devices anymore but for some reasons that sometime things can go wrong with software and PC and having hardware synths whose independent sounds can be a good backup.
When the S6000 was released it was the ultimate "must-have", but that did not last long. I worked at Sam Ash on 48th Street in 03-05', and in late 04' we could not give these away for $400 to 500. It was hard to see, especially with how much I would have killed for one in 99'.
I don't remember the S6000 going for 400 bucks I think they had a blowout at about 1000, I bought many things from Sam Ash.
I believe Underworld used this sampler back in the 90s, back when they did improvised live shows. Such a beast
Aw nice, I didn't know that!
Some classic AMFAS quotes there in the beginning!! 😁 This sampler is amazing really, l love how you did all the mods for it! And I definitely know what you mean when referring to that 90s sample sound too, I think the Volca Sample is killer for that actually! Just wish it had a lot more memory! lol 🎹🐀
I really need to play about with my Volca Sample more!!
i used multiple S300/ S6000's back in the day -- they were Great ! (still have one or two in storage !)
Get em out!!
I LOVE THIS SAMPLER
I just use a very outdated now piece of software for all my sampling playback, FXpansion's Guru. It was followed by Geist which is even better if you can get a copy of that, let me know if you want to sell me it. The sound library with Guru is massive (around 5 gigs worth) and with Audacity which is free you can sample anything you want and load it into Guru which will play nicely in any DAW i believe. It's basically the best drum /sample machine i've found for the money. It will even work in win 10.
You can just get an Emu ESI with OS3 and you get access to a huge library, all EMAX, EIII, and the Proteus CD-R, and all the Z-plane filters. The Emu sounds are better than Akai, but you can of course read Akai anyhow.
I'm not seeing 16 outputs or a detachable screen on the ESI!!!
Still I think you should try S1000. Depending on the input level after certain value it will start adding additional harmonics rather that distort immediately as other samplers. I don't know of any other hard soft sampler that does that.
I think the S950 would be next on my list, since it's 12 bit... but they are so pricey every time they do appear. The S1000 is 16 bit I believe, but not sure if it can be switched down to 12. If it can, that might be a contender...
@@StephenMcLeod BTW I forgot to say, S1000 uses sinc interpolation, so definitely will sound different to S6000 which afaik is linear, I just hope the prices haven't gone insane like S950 and S1100. Also forgot to mention - regarding the keymapping, it takes 30 seconds to map 61 keys on S1000, it's really super fast.
Ohh Check the Ensoniq samplers. They have much more to offer in a sample mangling terytorium compering to the Akai samplers. Especially the EPS16+ or the ASR10. It is still difficult to find a DAW or a propper VST to compare with the Ensoniq machines.
I'll keep an eye out for them! They do tend to be muuuch more expensive mind you.
I was going to o get one but went with EMU E6400 Ultra w. Hard drive back then. A few years later I was going to get Akai Z8 because it's the MPC4000 sound in a rack. It's 24 bit for that Z8 w. Hard drive too. I still have my E6400 and right now I'm about to record to Renoise so I can arrange. My Akai MPCX and E6400 ultra are theee samplers then recorded to Renoise DAW. I just sample what I ever I come up with on Pro 1 synth and Access Virus TI2 and then layer them. It's fun and it doesn't get old.
Mpc X and Virus sounds like a dream combo! Do you still have the emu 6400?
I had one of these back in the days, packed with everything, including USB used together with AkSys from my Mac, the main problem is the time it takes to load stuff into the sampler's RAM, huge bottleneck, else it's a lovely machine. For more fun, the later EMU and Yamaha rack samplers had loads of nice filter types, in that department the S6000 was a tad bland imho.
I love recording drum breaks into the Akai S5/6000 especially when experimenting with mic line level. Squashes any distortion VST. If you have the fx card the delays can sound extremely wild with very short delay values. Reverbs are smooth too, albeit a bit dark. The modulation routing is OK but nowhere near as flexible as the Emu Ultra series. Filters are great too. 👍🏾
Ohhhh. You mean recording them in and over-driving the input? That's an interesting idea. I'll need to give it a bash!
@@StephenMcLeod yes. But when you record at the two higher recording levels especially ‘mic’ you don’t even need to clip…. 😅 . Layer one of those under your clean break. 🔥😣
@@Strafuzz Now there's a pro-tip!
Eager for a demo video of this thing!
Ohhhh it's coming.
The Z series were the last of the akai samplers The z4 and z8 series rack mount samplers. I prefer to use hands on hardware ill be far more engaged and creative. Humans are tactile critters.
Amen!
Great video. Hardware rules! 🍻
Hardware4lyfe
I bought one of the new MPC One retro editions to use with my Legion Go Windows tablet to make kind of a franken S600One thing. It's going to be fun for me at least
Nice!!
Workflow is important. Bitwig is really awesome with all it’s features, but it’s more fun mess around with hardware.
Definitely. I'm a big believer in changing your workflow to get different results.
its fun to see you go all in in this old gear. I have an Akai cd3000 and the mpc 2000. It has been dormant in a travel case for awhile. If I am not mistaken there are some old apps to run on mac or PC that let you set up the programs. there is a possibility you can make it work on a PC. Think the Kurzweil samplers were on the same level.
Hell yeah. I'm an old gear fanatic. There are definitely some older bits of software that you can use to manage things, though for the S6000 it's thankfully less necessary thanks to how much you can edit on the machine itself. :)
The main argument for having an old rack sampler in 2023 is the slowed down sample sound. When you do it in Ableton it sound like shit...on the Emu ESI sampler series or Akai MPC or S series it sounds great, interesting full of flavour.
The old streeeetch effect is particularly cool.
it's 2024... I bought a S3200XL and today a S6000 both like brand new :) Why... I NEED THEM 😂
Nice!!! The S6000 is awesome. I love it.
Can you actually run 8 outputs from the s5000/s6000 with ADAT? I thought it was just the stereo out.
Apparently so, though I've had a hard time getting my interface to recognise it at all sadly
Sounds like it is going to be a fun setup!
It better be! Cost enough damn money!!!
Very cool. I do use hardware samplers. EMU E6400 ultra and MPCX. If I'm to get another one, for nostalgia reasons it's the Akai Z8 from 02.
Akai Z8!! What a classic.
@@StephenMcLeod I was time stretching for the first time on the EMU . A drum loop at 160 bpm to time correct to 125. My goodness it's grainy.. the Akai did a better job. A little grainy but better. Acid Pro daw I remember just does it smoother.
And they sound good too!
Hell yeah!
Hihi, I bought a week before the S5000 with 192mb ram and 64 voices for €300. And I bought an external SCSI2 CD-ROM from Yamaha for €89 and a SCSI 2 cable for €33. I downloaded the Akai factory libraries for free and burnt them on CD-Roms. And now I am sound wonderland on cloud no. 7 😂 I am also no Fan from software samplers, instruments. The only VST Instruments which I use are East West Symphonic Instruments and the great VPS Avenger 2, and some effect Plug ins - thats it. The rest, or vize versa are real Hardware Instruments, Split on three Studios. VST Instruments are in my opinion good for poor kids, which can’t buy real instruments or people which can‘t play piano or cover band personal.
Love old samplers. You should get an e-mu e4 range machine and do some videos on it :) I had the e6400 which was great: lots of interesting stuff going on sound design wise, but came across the same thing you mentioned where it doesn't support wavs - only the ultras do. It worked well with the scsi to sd though, and the cool thing with those is you can do scsi 'through' or whatever it';s called, where all chained devices can access the same scsi drive.
Oh that's awesome I forgot about SCSI through. I'd love to try out the emu devices, but that's a particular rabbit hole I am scared to fall down ha. They seem to be pretty pricey, buuut I will keep my eye out!
My glasses also keep slipping off end of nose. I may use some glue. JD800 red glue!
Are all akai S samplers 16 bit to get that gritty distorted sound? Looking for one to use with mpc 62
They aren't all 16 bit, no - and the gritty sound is more associated with the 12 bit samplers from the S Series, but they get reeeal expensive. I actually just put together an article looking at the different ones that might be interesting - www.perfectcircuit.com/signal/akai-s-series-samplers
Like your video. Subscribed.
Why thank ye!
I like these machines. Probably not as much as Emu products like an EMAX. They do look cool, though.
I wouldn't say no to an EMU either!!
"look cool as fuck". yeah! and 10 of them in a rack looks 10 times fucking cool:) you are so right with what you´ve said! thanks for your very cool, Inspiring videos!
Hell yeah. Better than some boring VST...
@@StephenMcLeod yeah totally , please go on with your videos and thanks
I've still got most of my old Akai units,
2x S950, 2x S3200xl, S3000xl, S6000, MPC60ii, MPC2000xl se1, ASQ-10 and recently an MPC1.
- Yeah, the S6000 is pretty cool, but personally the S3200xl is my all time favourite S-series sampler.
For drums I usually sample into an S950, save the samples to floppy, then load the floppy into a S3200xl - which converts the file - and take it from there, that way I get all that grit and crunch from the AD converters of the S950, but all the extensive editing, etc available in the S3200xl
I've kept the S6000 purely as a collector's piece, it's actually been sealed up in its flight case for over a decade now - if I'm honest, I never really gelled with the workflow, - too many options for me, it's really powerful, but for just drum machine samples, breakbeats, bass tones and spoken word, which is all I've ever really used samplers for, I personally found the S6000 to be overkill.
That said, if you're also going to be using an Akai for evolving pads, atmospheres, and massive libraries, modular loops, etc - it's the best hands down, as the filter and envelope options are superb.
- love to ALL, feel no hate
Thanks for the thoughtful and in depth comment! I've taken a look at the S3000XL before, but not the 3200XL. That seems like a beauty. It's awesome you've got the S950 too! I know I said my goal here wasn't to get the old crunchy Akai sound, buuut if I managed to get my hands on an S950 for a reasonable price I would jump at the chance. Using them to grit samples up is a great idea.
128 poly voices!!!! Holy moley!
Insanity!!!
Yeah the 256 🐏 I was like that was a lot in 98” but 128 poly crazy
Can you use a Akai mpc 3000 with it?
I am sure you could, yeah. What do you have in mind?
Where did you buy it?
eBay
just rebuilt an old vista box with an adptec scsi card and got mesa running on a remote desktop from my mac ha ha
Amazing! Maybe I'll need to source one...
Up in my loft I have a ASR 10 keyboard sampler; sadly the power supply has given up the ghost 😢
You need to dig that out and get it repaired! Those are meant to be awesome.
Dam I was looking for one of them
@@leewightman8619 Hopefully One day I will get it repaired. It was at the heart of my live setup back in the day. 8-track sequencer that was rock solid It used to trigger my Juno and Novation Drum Station. Played a many all nighter with that rig. Those were the days
@@StephenMcLeod Yes, it is and I agree as I'm coming out of the box after 20 years. It would sit nicely in my new rig. I need to track someone down that can repair it. I even have the outboard expander which is pretty rare. Gives you 6 outs It's expanded to 16 meg of memory for about 40 seconds of sample time. Learnt how to chop on that machine. Great live, the Sequencer was rock solid, as tight as the Atari St. . It needed to be at some of the gigs I did 😵💫
Let me know who’s interested in one, i have a fully upgraded one and it’s close to brand new with no scratches, in perfectly working condition
Had my Akai s6000 from new and its always played an integral part in my studio. I would never sell it. Absolutely not.
SHhhhhhhhh!!!! Between me and you, i couldn't sell it even if i wanted to........it knows way too much!!
Now I want to know what samples are on there...
mate you forgot the best thing -- you can have different fIlter / envelopes /velocity setttings for each key group-- (you cant do that on the crap logic sampler! ) ,,,
I didn't actually know that! Awesome stuff.
6:10 caught me off guard lol
The stuff of nightmares
why on earth not the MPC X ??
Double the price. Not as many outputs... For a start!
If it works for you that's great.
It does
If you're going for the best sampler ever, you might as well get an ASR-10, it's better in every way.
Quite a different beast mind you. Not least in price. :)
@StephenMcLeod If you ever do, get the keyboard, not the rack. The hipsters bang on about the rack unit, but it lacks keys, sequencer, comfortable top button access and restrictions that make the ASR-10 what it is.
Work flow over sound!!!! That’s crazy never
Huh
Roland MC909 is pretty TASTY..
Don't give me more things to buy!
@allmyfriendsarejpegs don't know how much free time you have but I recently got this WAV sound set..pretty DOPE !
Peace
th-cam.com/video/0o4ELEhhNHs/w-d-xo.htmlsi=hTlWpk6GK9DJlkg4
S1000 for Screamadelica I think
oooh nice
Nothing has come close to the last gen or rack samplers. Although every time I went to buy an s5000 or s6000 the idea of an EMU XT4 always temped me away
I'd love to try an emu but scared of falling down that particular rabbit hole!!
blud done bought the Akai microwave 💀
I actually have a microwave that looks suspiciously like an akai product...
@@StephenMcLeod Whoa! What model is the microwave?
Ive got a Mesa2 with a powerbook g3. 👍
sexy
Oh aye.
Wee tiny screen? Ach no I've got Mesa.
Uh ye can drop wav files to a s2000 in Mesa I've just done it.
S6000 uses aksys.
Oh aye!
oh aye
1:05 🤘
Haha no point sugar coating it.
MESA 2. ❤
More buttons to break!
I do have a habit of breaking things.
Ive got a s2000.
s2000 ftw
Uh the s6000 is a bit yucky wheras the s900 is a gem.
I'd rather an S950!
@@StephenMcLeod ok you're a s950. Done.
go plastic by squarepusher
I had no idea they used an S6000 for that. That's awesome. Thank you!
allmyfriendsareshrek
Why would you buy a hardware sampler in 2023? Are they not completely redundant? Why don’t you use a sample library on your computer?
indeed
Computer computer that’s all we fkn hear. As a pastime working on old hardware is a great experience… doing all this on a computer as a pastime is like playing a fkn computer game
Hardware all the way
Emax SE HD
Good? Bad?
S1000 kills.
Opamps.
Why would your s6000 be in Iraq ??? 🤔🤔
Whit
7:13 😂