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

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


I've had MPC-60's and they sound nothing but nice..

Edited by vinyl_junkie (03/04/12 07:58 PM)

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..

Edited by vinyl_junkie (03/04/12 09:26 PM)

Quote vinyl_junkie:

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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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The dirt is in the aliasing when you tune the samples

Quote johnny h:

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Quote vinyl_junkie:

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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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The dirt is in the aliasing when you tune the samples

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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."



Edited by vinyl_junkie (03/04/12 10:13 PM)

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=U U0ysg8Om_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

Quote vinyl_junkie:

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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....

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From 'The lost art of sampling' wot I writ!

Quote hollowsun:

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Quote vinyl_junkie:

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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....

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

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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?

Quote vinyl_junkie:

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

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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 ) I can't really tell much difference?

Edited by Pitchfork (04/04/12 07:25 AM)

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.

You raise some interesting points V.J.

I would say that the S950 is actually quite 'nice', but indeed it does subtract bass. I would hesitate to use it now for sampling nice analogue synths.

I find it gives a sort of 'glassy' texture to samples - making the sound a little distant. The other thing it seams to do is hype the mid range a bit, and add attack to dynamic samples. A way to hear this is to sample a riff using chords from a soft synth, something a bit stabby say, and on playback it will have more body and attack - almost like it has been through a compressor.

But I agree, there is very little grain or dirt on anything recorded on an S950 - but it does make the sound slightly hard in some way. If you listen to say Peter Gabriel records from the 80's you can hear how lots of low grade sampling actually makes for quite a rough mix. Those early digital 80's albums sound quite harsh. Once you get to the next generation - by the S1000 - things sound a lot smoother - house records from the period sound quite analog, rather than grainy.

One good trick with the S950 is to make a tiny loop, until the buzzing makes a note, and then use that for a dirty electro side chain bass. Bit of trial and error for the right sample, but any bit of complex audio will generally do - MONSTER!!!

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