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Akai S3000xl

1996, 32 note polyphonic, 44.1khz / 16bit stereo digital sampler.

Akai S3000

It was once my dream to own one of these machines. I previously had a Roland W30 which was my main sampler for some time and a fantastic bit of kit but I always wanted the S3000 as it was full bandwidth, stereo, and it had the commonly used and great sounding Akai time-stretch.

It is a shame but I very rarely use this unit any more. I have all my samples from all my old music on floppy disks plus I did make some multi-sampled patches when I first got this sampler so it does still get used occasionally. However, the obvious advantages of software samplers and the on-screen mouse and keyboard interface have taken over. Mainly due to speed of use, it can take hours of button pushing to make a multi patch in the S3000 where I can make one in a matter of minutes in a soft sampler. Plus the routing means with software you can have almost unlimited outputs setup without using half my mixing desk to do it.

A piece of musical history and probably the most popular sampler of all time but other than looking cool it's not something that has much value to me in the studio anymore.

Akaizer

Akaizer

So, is there anything my ancient Akai is useful for in the modern world? Timestretch?!?! (ttttiiimmmeeeessstttrrreeettccchhhh). So I hit the studio and fire up my S3000 to get that classic authentic 90's time-wretch on one of my vocal samples, plugging in jack leads from the PC into the Akai and back, erm how does this work again... damn this takes a long time .. and why won't it do what I want ... 30 mins later: I wonder if there's a decent software emulation...?

10 minutes after that I've got a library of wavs of my vocal sample in a selection of different lengths, pitches, and cycle lengths, and all sounding very Akai indeed! Much quicker, easier, more convenient, and I can't hear anything that makes the software processing any different to the S3000 in my rack. The software is free with no adverts, it's stable, runs on anything, the only thing it doesn't do is open mp3's, but that's no great problem. Nice one Ben!

Resources

Keyboards / Synthesizers

Drum Machines

Sequencing / Mixing

  • Alesis Monitor One
  • Alesis 3630 Comp/Gate
  • Behringer 4xGate
  • LA Audio 4x4 Comp/Gate
  • Mackie SR 24:4
  • M-Audio Fast Track Ultra
  • Akai MPK-61

Samplers / Multitrack

Effects Units

Other Stuff

  • Samson Condensor Mic
  • AKG Dynamic Mic
  • Dean Bass Guitar
  • Yamaha Pacifica 6 string
  • Roland HandyPad
  • Zoom H1

To listen to some of my music: Music / My Music