Vintage Sampler Emulation w/Yamaha A-Series

[aeon]

I recently wrote a post on another forum about using the Yamaha A-series samplers to emulate the sound of vintage digital samplers.

 

The 6 effects blocks (3 on A3K, A4K) allow for deep control and creative timbral options that go way beyond vintage AD/DA and linear interpolation in terms of emulating a vintage digital sampler.

 

Here is an example of this kind of processing:

 

 

 

Each of these fx blocks has mix control, and their parameters may be moduated in real-time via controller or internal step-sequence LFO. This serial chain can be reconfigured in other ways, e.g. dual parallel, multi-sum, etc.

 

With on-board samples the A5000 has 6 fx blocks to the A4K's/A3K's 3 fx blocks - nice indeed if you are an fx slut, or if you are using the sampler multi-timbrally or for drum duties (compression + dirt for 6x drum samples is sweet).

 

That said, if you use the sampler in live mode, that is, fx on the analog inputs, the A5K is the same as the A4K/A3K - you can only use 3 of the fx blocks.

 

Not so bad really - I use one of two serial chains to give the "vintage sampler" sound to live input from other synths:

 

-> beatchange (transients) -> beatchange (sustain) -> lofi ->

 

or

 

-> techmod -> loreso -> lofi ->

 

There are other algos that also give some nice modulated digital hash and dirt in the Yammy samplers that I did not cover here. I love my A5000 as an effects device as much as I do a sampler. It often gets used as a colored "preamp" for other synths.

 

I appreciate the sound of vintage samplers, no question. That said, feeding a modern sampler with "ahh" waves generated via vocal physical modelling and then processing as above is a fresh take on the classic Fairlight vox sound.

 

 

cheers,

Ian

[Don Solaris]

Very nice work. Stuff like that should be kept in some sticky thread.

 

I had A-4000 but sold it due to its "speed". Otherwise, a very good sampler.

[Guest Anonymous]

These ideas make me want to get one but, I really want a Emax Rack and maybe a Akai 900.