Akai S-1000 / S-1100 / S-3200 Samplers

Only few pieces of gear can rightfully claim to have changed the course of recording and music history. One of those is the Akai S-1000 series of 16-bit MIDI hardware samplers (S-1000, S-1100, S-3200), without those the 90’s musical landscape probably would have sounded and felt differently. The S-1000 series evolved out of the S-900/950 12-bit samplers, the predecessors that defined the workflow for the S-1000 series.

I used the S-1000 series extensively, and had both the S-1000, the S-1100 and the S-3200XL models, all fully RAM expanded to 32MB each. By the help of these I managed to play back all vocals and audio tracks for my first album “Slow Down” (1992), without having to resort to tape recorders. All tracks on this album, are “live” MIDI sequenced playbacks from Cubase, without tape.

The timestretching algorithm

One of the really interesting features on the S-1000 series, was the ability to stretch out a sample, to make it aritificially longer, by inserting interpolated samples into the sound. The somewhat rough and quite recognizable effect made it onto hundreds of hit records in the 1980’s

Misc. Akai tips & shortcuts

Load S-3200 data from DAT

– DAT machine Optical out to S-3200
– SAMPLE EDIT -> REC -> INPUT: Digital OPTI
– GLOBAL -> DAT -> LOAD

Save Akai data to MO-disc (Magneto Optical Disc)

– GLOBAL > SCSI> S3200=ID1 / MO  = ID6 Sector 1K

Record (save) and play back (load( S-1000/1100/3200 data to a DAW
Dither = OFF, Levels = 0dB
S-3200: SAMPLE -> REC -> INPUT: DIGITAL ELEC
S-3200: GLOBAL -> DAT -> LOAD
Check “RECEIVING 44.1” is read (or 48K if using that)
Play the DAW recording of the data

Formattering a JAZ-disk for use with S-3200
Hard Partitions: 60MB
MAX: 17
Use ARR option rather than FORM