Akai s950 midi digital sampler service manual (20 pages) Recording Equipment Akai S950 Install Manual. Replacement display (19 pages) Recording Equipment Akai S01 Operator's Manual. Midi digital sampler (64 pages) Recording Equipment Akai DEEP IMPACT. The S700 is aberrant in a few ways. Introduced at the same time as the S900, it was actually a module version of Akai’s keyboard-based X7000 sampler. Both the X7000 and S700 were modeled after the S612, and as such, is a 12-bit sampler with the same filter and effects, though they included some advancements in editing functions.
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- Akai S950 Manual
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- Akai S950 Tone Programming
- Akai S950 Tone Program Manual
- Akai S950 Sampler
Fade
The Beat Strangler
*** illest o.g. ***
One of the most popular hardware samplers over the years for hip hop producers was the Akai S950. Essentially an upgraded version of the S900, this sampler became popular amongst hip hop heads, namely for its 12-bit linear sampling capabilities. Most producers would stack this with an E-MU SP1200, giving them the perfect 1-2 punch to deliver some knockout, hard-hitting, rough-as-can-be hip hop tracks.
History
Produced between 1988 and 1993, Akai gave this machine a 48kHz sampling rate, with a maximum of 2.25 MB of RAM, and features such as crossfade looping and pretrigger recording. Those features were on the S900, but were considered optional, so you would have had to upgrade your machine to get those options.
Features
Even though the S950 had a 48kHz sampling rate, by having that it reduced the maximum sample time, taking up more room. There were eight outputs, and this was also the first Akai sampler to have time stretching, which of course enables you to alter the sample length withouth messing with the pitch, and it did a great job at it since most time stretching (or stretching too much) will give your sample an artificial sound to it.
One of the best functions of the S950 was to use it for drum loops, which is a huge plus for hip hop production, giving you 12-bit drums. A nice feature that was also added was the fact that you could use S900 disks and even S1000 disks with the S950! That's a big bonus because who would want to get rid of their S900 disks with all those old samples, just because of a new format? Props to Akai for that feature.
Usage
The S950 was never meant to be a fancy-looking machine, but it definitely got the job done, and it did it well. Sure, there were some well-known issues with this unit such as some of the expansion chips could easily fall out if you threw your machine around (who would do that?), plus the disk drives would sometimes fail and it could be costly to replace them.
Many, many, many hip hop producers used the S950 over the years, guys like Pete Rock, DJ Premier, Clark Kent, Da Beatminerz, Lord Finesse, and the list goes on. If you ever see an S950 for sale, think about picking one up if you're feeling nostalgic!
Here's a video showing the sampling features of the Akai S950:
WRONG!
You can read/write Akai S900 disks with Omniflop, and it works flawlessly under XP. (actually ONLY XP is supported!) (EDIT 02/18/2010: Omniflop 2.2c has been reported to work with Vista)
WHAT YOU NEED:
- PC with floppy drive (not USB!)
- Registered Onmiflop program (it's free)
- AKAI S900/s950
- Floppies (Modern HDs work ok, just put some tape on the HD hole...)
- Samples
- Patience :)
WHAT TO DO:
Akai S950 Tone Programmer
Akai S950 Manual
First install Omniflop. Later on, when trying to read a disk it will ask for a key and if you don't have it already the wizard will ask to mail the author to get one. Mail him and get your key. (he's very kind and usually replies within 24h. EDIT: I see from the site that now registration is done via WWW...)Get a floppy, if it's HD put some tape in the hole.
Format the taped disk in the S900 and save some samples on it.
If you are running OS 4 on your AKAI and want to access the samples later from the PC remember to disable 'SAMPLE COMPRESSION' from the DISK menu. If you just plan to backup your floppies you can leave compression ON.
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Fire up your Omniflop, do the free registration thing, and set it in READ DISK mode using its simple wizard. When it comes to select a format choose the following:
Now insert the AKAI floppy in the PC drive. and go 'NEXT' REMEMBER TO WRITE PROTECT THE DISK AND PUT SOME TAPE ON THE HD HOLE! If you don't write protect it and something goes wrong you may lose you data. You've been warned...
Akai S950 Tone Programming
Now save the file, use .img extension.
Akai S950 Tone Program Manual
Your backup is done. You can write it back to a floppy at anytime, remembering to put some tape on the hole. The best is to format the floppy on the AKAI before writing back images on it.With Omniflop you can also write back to floppy the new OS 4.0 and load it into the AKAI. Instruction will follow. Information about the new(er) OS 4
Akai S950 Sampler
Next article: How to load samples from AKAI floppy disk images.