Load time for samplers

[Midiguy]

I'm new to samplers, and just got a used AKAI S5000. I don't have any samples yet, other than the one floppy disk that came with the unit. I've read a lot around here about the time it takes to load samples, and someone said it can take up to 30 minutes to load a 16 meg sample from a SCSI zip drive.

 

Does this mean that every time I want to use say 100 megs of samples to play a sequence that I have to wait like 2 hours for it to load from a SCSI hard drive into RAM? I think this would be enough to make me sell it and just upgrade my synth (JV-2080) to either a Fantom or a Motif.

[greenshag]

I have an a4000 by Yamaha, and load times sucked for samples before I put in an internal hard drive. I used to spend 15 minutes loading samples from floppies into the thing while setting up for a show, blahh, I hated it. Now, I just pull all my samples from the hard drive, and it takes about a minute, this is about 30 megs worth of samples though. I don't know how long a scsi connection would take, as I have yet to go that route.

[Analog Kid]

the S5000 doesnt suffer from the problems you mention.

again, as i mentioned before, theres no reason to sell it, its an awesome machine...

[sevensinner]

I used to use the sampler in my Triton Pro via SCSI using an external SCSI Zip100 drive (from 1996 - and still works! no click of death yet - knock on wood right?) and even for loading drum samples it was rather painfully slow. Might have to do with the SCSI-2 interface but the Zip drive itself as slow as hell. I'd think a hard drive would go a whole lot faster.

 

Course it sure beats using the floppy drive.. Yuck..

[powerpop]

Originally posted by Midiguy someone said it can take up to 30 minutes to load a 16 meg sample from a SCSI zip drive.

 

That would have been me. My 'sampler' is a Yamaha EX5 which has PAINFULLY slow load times. If I do any live work which will require samples, I load my samples into the Flash RAM before the date of the performance. Then they're ready as soon as I turn her on.

[Midiguy]

I don't have any external drives yet for the S5000. Is there any way right now to store sounds? Of course whenever I sample something and turn off the machine, all the samples are gone. I'm not about to start messing with 3.5" floppies.

[Yoozer]

 

Originally posted by Midiguy I don't have any external drives yet for the S5000. Is there any way right now to store sounds?

 

Does it have the USB expansion? While I'm not familiar with the S5k or said expansion, you could do the programming and transfering of samples with Ak.Sys which is supposed to see it as just another external drive. You could drag & drop in that case.

 

Otherwise, it's the floppy drive for you. There's also transfering via MIDI, but that's even slower.

 

The Yamaha samplers are indeed really slow compared to their Akai and E-mu brethren. On the other hand, a full 32 mb Compact Flash card for my MPC-1000 takes 2.5 minutes to load - times four if you max out the memory and want to load that to the fullest. This is with a single .wav file. I'm hoping they'll bring out a laptop-sized harddisk for it, as there seems to be space as well as the appropriate holes in the inside for it. I don't know if the workstations you propose are as elaborate in sampling and soundmangling as the S5k is, and if they use flash storage - that's also slower than SCSI.

 

 

Of course whenever I sample something and turn off the machine, all the samples are gone. I'm not about to start messing with 3.5" floppies.

 

That's the old school way, but I can imagine your apprehension when you want to dump a full orchestra library in there. On the other hand, it is supposed to be used in a studio environment where you have the luxury of patience, compared to a live gig that should be set in minutes.

[Analog Kid]

im almost sure the S5000 supports the SCSI sample dump standard, which is ok.

you need a scsi card on your computer to do it

 

I see scsi drives going for 10 bucks on ebay, and there can be 7 scsi ids in a chain, so stock up on them

 

also, you might want to, just for the hell of it, enter the word "Akai" in your "search engine" of choice p2p

 

CD drives are fairly cheap also. ChickenSys.com has a program called Translator which is great for Akai owners.

 

there may also be an mLan option for your sampler IIRC.

[clusterchord]

i'll just add this: dont measure the speed of loading in s5000, by speed people get on workstations and on yamaha samplers, thats slooooow. Dedicated samplers like AKAI 5000, 6000 and Emu Ultra series are very fast. My triton studio was painfully slow when compared.

 

I did a measurement to confirm this just now: my E4XTU needed 42 sec to load 126 Mb worth of samples (344 samples total).

 

As suggested earlier get a hard disk for it and a cdrom by all means. Used smaller SCSI disks are cheap nowadays, but if i recall correctly S5000 6000 series can use an IDE disk (much more Mb per $), just like e-mu ultra series. This way you have independent operation from computers (that's "normal" mode of operation for hw samplers). also, that way you can move it arround (to a gig) without lugging a comp.

 

Aditionally, it can be used with Ak.Sys to reach your computers HD's as well, and AKAI uses the same DOS file format on its media, which allows you to manage files freely on a comp.

 

therefore, software like Chicken Sys or CDXtract are not exactly needed for akai sample storage, but are invaluable if you plan to change the file format from AKAI to WAV or vice versa, for example, when you want to use an akai sample in your DAW audio track etc). Also great when translating akai cdroms to be used by VSTi sampler like Kontakt, Halion. get one.

[Midiguy]

Originally posted by clusterchord

Used smaller SCSI disks are cheap nowadays, but if i recall correctly S5000 6000 series can use an IDE disk (much more Mb per $), just like e-mu ultra series. This way you have independent operation from computers (that's "normal" mode of operation for hw samplers). also, that way you can move it arround (to a gig) without lugging a comp.

 

I'm not real familiar with the difference between an internal SCSI hard drive and an IDE disk. Can someone help me out here? What is my best alternative to installing some sort of internal drive to my S5000?

[Lava Lamp]

The s5000/6000 will not accept an IDE without an expensive SCSI-to-IDE adapter (~$150+). You can put up to a (I think)70 GB SCSI hard disk inside the s5000, but you'll need the appropiate power cables and SCSI cable (which can be purchased on eBay for a couple dollars).

 

The akai.sys sofware is great and should come with the USB card (~$120) but sample dumps from computer to s5000 over USB is slower than uploading from an internal SCSI hard disk inside the s5000.

 

Check out Amon Tobin's site www.amontobin.com for an album done entirely on a s6000.

[clusterchord]

You CAN put a IDE disk onside the s5000 ! it accepts both kinds.

 

if you want an EXTERNAL disk, buy SCSI, since akai only has SCSI connector.

 

so, get an internal disk, and be done with it. everything else is nice as an option, but you NEED an internal disk first.

 

and an external scsi cdrom to be able to load sample librariers cdroms in it.

 

this is barebones sampler operation. later you can play with hooking to a PC, editing on a PC etc

 

 

and good point Lava Lamp, if you are, eventually, going to hook it up to a PC and use AK.SYS , do it via SCSI adapter , not via USB (sloooooow).