Making good use of a Akai S2000

OllieDodge

New member
I found a guy selling an Akai S2000 Sampler on Craigslist for 75 bucks. I' might be able to talk him down to 50. I have an MPC1000 that I have used for years and I love so I don't really need it for chopping or sampling.

I was thinking of getting it more for the sample library that the guy has with it. He has a bunch of floppy discs full of older drum sounds and sound fx that I thought might be cool to dig through. I also thought it might be cool to experiment with it in terms of summing or fx or just to run sound through it to see if it colors the sound at all.

Does anyone here know anything about this device? does anyone know if its worth 75 bucks? (or 50 bucks) Does anyone know of anything about it in general that makes it cool/fun/good sounding?
 
Thats a good price, its def worth 50.

I'd use it to run some drum samples through it will add color.
 
The S2000 is basically an S3000, it just has a smaller screen, needs to boot from a floppy disk and did not ship with the same amount of outputs as the S3000 (although you could add them as an expansion option)

Hook a S2000 to a PC via SCSI and you can transfer samples back and forth and edit the S2000.
 
bro im in the same boat i have a s900 with my mpc4000 i just run my drum samples thru the s900 and resample in the mp. use the filters you'll come out with good sounds
 
Akai s2000 SOS

I was given an Akai s2000 sometime ago. It didn't work so I left it for months then found it and discoved it was just that the operating system disk had broken. I got a new one and it works.

I don't have a budget for investing in my studio so I try to make the best of what I have and since my pc is to tired to handle software plugins etc I'm now making my MC307 my main sequencer and plan to trigger the s2000 from it to give more colour to my tracks. I mainly plat to use it for drums.

All this being said I have to questions:

1. I have a zip drive but no zips, I looked online at buying zip disks to be presented with zip disks formatted several ways.....PC...IBM etc. Can anyone tell me what format I need to get to simply save samples and programs made in the s2000?

2. I managed to record 2 samples via the audio in and trim them etc. All I want to do is set the key zones so the kick is on C for example and the snare on D. The manual is not written simply and appears not to have this procedure written step by step. I followed some suggestions on other forums yet no luck.

Is it because I have no floppy or zip yet to save to? I got to the page where you select the span and set it to play on C0 C0 yet could not hear my sample when selected and could not assign? (I can hear the sample when I select in sample mode so I'm certain the machine works).

Hope someone out there can help, I'm gagging to make some music and seem to have spent last few weeks with my head in manuals to no avail!!

Thanks
 
Any zip disk will work, but you should never Akai format a zip disk like it's a hard drive, so use "Arrange" instead of "Format".

I can't answer your second question because I use Akai's MESA software to do that sort of thing.
 
Akai s2000

Thanks for the info on the zip disk. I've just ordered some from ebay. I worked out where I was going wrong with the key zones too.

I'd like to try Mesa and also the recycle method. I have recycle but no scsi card. Anyone have any advice on what scsi card to get? I have no idea about scsi. I have a compac presario SR5025AN-b. I've been looking at scsi's on ebay but don't know where to start.

Any tips would be much appreciated:)

---------- Post added at 04:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:40 PM ----------

Anyone know if this would work? Adaptec ASC-29320A PCI-X Ultra320 SCSI Card
 
Not sure about that SCSI card, you would probably need to disable the ultrawide negotiation to get it to work, so I would recommend going for the Adaptec AHA-2940AU, you will also need the right cable and if you plan to add a second sampler I would recommend getting an adapter module for the 50 pin internal connector too......When you first set everything up you will most likely need to download some shit and drop it into the right system folder to get shit up and running.
 
Akai s2000

Mate thanks for the heads up. Managed to hunt that card down on ebay plus a cable for about $20 all in. Hopefully I can get in all communicating.

Big Thanks
:cheers:

---------- Post added at 01:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:40 PM ----------

Might be back on here for tips on what shit I need to get shit happening :)
 
Hi there,

I'm having difficulty finding my loaded samples in the Program page. After I've loaded my samples from the floppy disk, I can eject the disk and still find the samples in the Sample page, but not in the Program page - which means I cannot create Multi programs etc. I can edit my loaded samples, but all that appears in my Program page is TEST PROGRAM 1.

Can anybody help please?

Cheers,

thekid
 
Hi,

I've just recently been studying the manual to my machine which I recommend. That sounds pretty normal. You have to create the programs for the loaded samples unless you've loaded a program that is. But you say you just loaded samples from a floppy. Go onto single mode, hit edit then use the group page button and scroll down 6 pages till you get to the page ZONE 1 Assign. You should see that written under the page title is KG sine? Or another sample perhaps. Use the data wheel to scroll through the samples. The S2000 has 4 zones you can assign with different samples for use as stereo pairs or velocity switching etc.

After you've set your samples and key spans etc you can save the program which you can name before or after you edit, then you can bring it into your multi.

Hope that helps? The manual is freely available online. It's not laid out in the best fashion and I'd recommend reading from start to finish as jumping in at different points is hard to follow.

Good luck
 
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