Midibox and Akai

[atomsize]

Hi all!

As anyone used the midibox to control the various functions of a akai sampler? like the LFO's Filters etc etc... if yes, is it hard? i'm getting a Akai s3000xl and would like to know if it would be possible to use the Midibox to control it.

thank you all!

[arumblack]

Should be fairly easy. to be sure you could get the manual from akai's website and check the midi implementation of the unit.

[moebius]

Hi,

It depends on how much control you want. S3000XL has pretty nice internal modulation routing possibilities. For midi modulation, there's only one "Globally" set midi CC (and only few choices for that: CC2, CC4 or CC7) to be used "freely"... But - if you don't use "channel aftertouch" for anything, this controller is also free to be used.. Just look at the manual :D

But if this isn't enough - It's time to do some coding.. As far as I remember ANYTHING on S3000XL can be controlled using SysEx (Yup, you can order Akai to load a program off harddisk, if you just know the right SySex ;)).. And MB's "meta events" can be used to do that.

SysEx specification can be found from: http://www.akaipro.com/int/download/sysex.html

Bye, Moebius

[atomsize]

i just got my s3000xl today... i'm going deeper undermanual  ;D

one thing is certain.. midibox SEQ will be connected to it ;D hehehehehe

merry x-mas you all!

[moebius]

I hope Akai will Bring You Joy! :D

(It's a REAL sampler you know..) Damn, I wish I had all the bells and whistles you can get as an option. I'd love to have a look at the service manual, or the actual Flash card to see if it's "clonable"..

Merry, Xmas - Moebius

[atomsize]

if theres a way to do it and its not hard.... let me know... ho knows we can clone it? ;)

[Rowan]

Hi Moebius,

If you need the flash RAM card let me know I was offered sh*t loads of Akai upgrade parts for the S series samplers for next to nothing by the New Zealand distributer of Akai about a year ago, they have a stock of parts that are now practical worthless (as far as they are concerned anyway).

I used Akai sapmlers for a number of years and still love them to bits, unfortunatly I sold my sampler rack last year, (3 x S2000 and a roland S770) and wish I still had them. Even though the S770 sounded fantastic it was an aboslute pig to program compared to the S2000 (the funny thing was that the S770 had a CRT and mouse, compared to the tiny 16 x 2 LCD on the S2000)

Atomsize:

Get yourself a SCSI card for your computer and MESA or the other program that I can remember the name of to edit your programs, makes life MUCH easier! Does the S3000xl have a HPF, if it doesn't let me know and I tell you how to trick any S-series in thinking it has one, presto drun'n'bass bliss. 8)

Regards

Rowan

[atomsize]

hi rowan!

unfortunally i'm at work... so only in this weekend i'm going to be able to see the akai working in my hands ;)

my main thing now is to put a zip drive inside or a hard drive... i already have a scsi card and the guy that sold me the akai put in the package a nice cool scsi cable. All the disks and user manual in excelent shape. I've downloaded the MESA2 and i'm going to download the Millenium too. Do you have upgrade parts for it? like the filter board ?

I dont know if my akai is fully upgraded in memory, but i have some older simms at home, i'm just praying that they work :D

HPF? hi pass filter? i dont think so...i think it only has a low pass filter...yup..just checked on the manual...only low pass filter (digital) -12dB/octv with ressonance.

best regards

[Rowan]

Hi atomsize,

I don't have the parts, but I can talk to the distributer to find out if he still does, It will have to be after the new year, I on vacation.

HPF = High Pass Filter, you don't need the filter board if you can sacrifice half the polyphony of the sampler. it's rather complex to explane but rather simple to do. Can the S3000xl invert the phase of samples? If i remeber correctly it can, if not you need MESA, Peak or WaveLab to be able to do the HPF trick, find out if it can invert the phase. Inverting the phase of the sample is the key trick to getting these samplers to act like they have a HPF, firstly sort out if you can do this on the S3000xl then I'll attempt to explane how to do it (I havn't used a S-series sampler for over a year so I'm a little rusty).

I used these beasts so much I'll pass on as many trick as I can remeber.

Regards

Rowan

[atomsize]

thanks Rowan

when you came back from thoses vacances, check it for me for thoses filters boards.

i'm going to see asap if there is that option of inverting the phase of the sample, and let you know.

do you have any ideia about putting a zip drive inside the akai? or even a hard drive? does it already have inside a scsi connection? i'm getting tempted to open the damn thing...hehehehe...

have a nice vacance ;)

[Screaming_Rabbit]

do you have any ideia about putting a zip drive inside the akai? or even a hard drive? does it already have inside a scsi connection? i'm getting tempted to open the damn thing...hehehehe..

... as far as I remember, you can mount a SCSI HD drive inside. I'm using the external connection and have it connected to a 1U 19" framed CDR and ZIP (both SCSI).

I think the SCSi interface was a standart feature on the S3000XL.

Greets, Roger

[atomsize]

i'm getting second thoughts about putting a hard drive, since i cant find any here for a decent price... probably i'm going for the scsi zip drive, but is it fast enough? i'm a little afraid that it would be slow...

merry x-mas all!

[Screaming_Rabbit]

It's not really fast  ;)

Let me see in the studio, when I'm back from Holidays. I bet, I still have some old 2GB SCSI 10'000rpm drive waiting to be (ab)used.

Perhaps you just have to remind me. Where do you live? (shipping costs)

Greets, Roger

[atomsize]

i'm in portugal, is hard to put a drive like that inside the akay or is it better to put it in a external case?

i've saw some pics of akai s2000 hd installation, abd i noticed that the scsi connector is there for s3000xl only... seems to me that the board for s2000 and s3000 is the same(?)

best regards

[Screaming_Rabbit]

As I said, I'm not shure about it's possible to mount a drive inside the S3000. There is no problem to connect it external.

If there is space and an internal connector, it won't be hard to put it there.

You just have to set the correct SCSI IDs. - Check the manual. Specially when you connect the sampler to a SCSI board of your computer, you propably have to set the S3000 controller to slave (default is "master")

Greets, Roger

[moebius]

Hi,

S2000 and S3000XL have same PCB, just stuffed differently to support different GUIs.

There was something called "internal mounting kit" to put a HD inside, as there are no mounting brackets for HDs there. SCSI bus has (at least on S3000XL) 50pin internal connector)

I've been thinking of putting a ZIP drive in the place of the disk drive - should be possible. Last time I opened mine, I tried what happens if disk drive is disconnected and Akai booted up ok, just flashed something about "disk drive not ready", before booting fully up ;)

My external 1GB Harddrive is definitely faster than ZIPs - but SCSI ZIP still has ok transfer rates ;) (You can do direct to disk recording with it! :P)

And Don't "FORMAT" your SCSI devices, just "Arrange" - I'm having problems with some ZIP disks and only recently found out, that you shouldn't never format them :/

For Everything SCSI and AKAI: http://akaiscsifaq.digidude.net/

Bye, Moebius

p.s. Rowan - I'm VERY interested in upgrading my Akai - I'll get in touch when your holiday's over ;)