Yamaha A5000 as an effects unit

[Annoying Twit]

Something I read suggests that the Yamaha A5000 standalone sampler can be used as an effects unit. I.e. that the internal A5000 effects, which seem quite well specified, can be routed so that the A5000 can process real-time signals, as a dedicated effects box would be able to do.

 

Is this correct?

 

I'm thinking that I'd like to buy a standalone effects box, with the Behringer DSP2024p or FX2000 being a strong contender at the moment. I don't need perfect effects quality, as if I wanted to record something in anger, I could use waves plugins in protools etc. But, something to sit on a table with my TX7 would be good.

 

Given that a A5000 sold for

[Karma1]

I used to have one of those Yamaha samplers, although I think mine was an A4000. If I remember correctly, they can be used as a stand alone effects unit, although I never used it like that. You could probably download the manual and check it out. While the Yamaha samplers were not as well known as Roland, Emu, and others, they are quite decent for the money and have some nice features.

[mildbill]

I bought an A5000 when they were dumping them. Never really used it all that much, and traded it in on something else.

You can use it like you want, but I suppose how much use you get out of it depends on whether you like Yamaha's fx. If you use it as a sampler also, ya - it's a pretty good deal.

[Nightsynth]

I have an A3000 that I've used as a standalone effects processor in the past. It sounds great!

[Annoying Twit]

Thanks for all the info. Looking at the manuals, they're interesting beasts. I'd like to know what the multi-peak filters sound like. I presume not as flexible as Emu's z-plane filters, but with more variability than a more standard fixed filter type.

 

The list of effect types for the Yamaha A5000 and A4000 seem very good, and as you'd expect are very appropriate for processing the output of a synth. I did smile to myself when I saw the bit in the manual where a waveform sample was selected, and the choices of sample were a list a bit like: "saw", "square", "pulse", "sine", "triangle", etc. You can tell what they're thinking

 

Particularly since quite a few of the effects are multi-effects per block (I presume), I think that the three effects blocks of the A4000 would be adequate for what I want to do. The A3000 has fewer effect types, and some interesting ones have disappeared, but again, probably enough for what I want to do. So, I can start the long patient ebay-watch.

[DINpluggedIN]

 

 

Those waveforms are "built in" -- you don't have to load them, unlike other samples. In that respect, the A4000/A5000 are synth-like.

[Annoying Twit]

 

Those waveforms are "built in" -- you don't have to load them, unlike other samples. In that respect, the A4000/A5000 are synth-like.

 

 

So you could never ever sample anything nor load any sample data, and still the unit could be made to generate all sorts of sounds. Interesting. I think their engineers had their thinking caps on.

[poumtschak]

Yes, back to the A3000 and Teklab era, there were demos tunes using only the integrated "analogish" waveforms. The filters and synths parameters are very - very - powerful, making the sampler an almost-VA. It sure kills any ROMpler of the same decade.

Too bad it's a bitch to edit without a software editor (think bZone), and suffer way too many idiosyncrasies (proprietary filesystem, horrific read/write time, scsi-noise, never corrected bugs).

 

Yamaha solved some of these issues on the later units, but it was too late and software samplers took over.

 

Given the price, pick the A5000.

I'm not sure you can route the 3xEFX to the other one, but 126 voices and 2x3xEFX blocks sure can't hurt, especially since you can assign CC to some parameters.

 

 

Just make sure your rack is deep enough.