AKAI Samplers Floppy Replacement

[yayajohn]

Anyone with AKAI hardware samplers.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134021467392?h ... R4CqpZnCYA

I just installed one of these in my AKAI CD3000 and it works great! Quite an upgrade to a timeless piece of gear.
(Bud I noticed you mentioned you had a few of the S1000's on another thread)

[Bud Weiser]

Thank you,- bookmarked !
That´s not expensive surprisingly,- some want more than twice as much for a Gotek drive.
I own 2 S-1000, but only one of these is currently working since we recapped the PSU last friday.
We did on the other too, but it has an issue still.
The other 2 are S-1100, which I prefer because it doesn´t multiplex,- instead offers individual Burr-Brown converters for every single output and the stereo main out.
And it has AES/EBU out too as well as the FX board.
Now it would be interesting to know if it would accept that drive too.
I´ll investigate.

The EMU E64 might deserve such drive too.



Bud

[yayajohn]

I've had mine installed for a couple of weeks and no issues at all. If you email the company I think you will get a timely response. They were very helpful answering all of my questions.

[Bud Weiser]

I've had mine installed for a couple of weeks and no issues at all. If you email the company I think you will get a timely response. They were very helpful answering all of my questions.

I guess the shipping costs an custom will make it way more expensive here.

And at least to me, the drive´s display arrangment might make it cumbersome to read ´cause one has to tilt the head all the time.
The drives display itself is very small in addition so I wonder if I cann read it at all even wearing glasses.

So my questions here,-

1.)
Do you use the drive w/ rotary file selector and black OLED display ?

2.)
When scrolling thru files on drive, do they show up in the samplers (larger) dispay too before loading,- similar to using an external SCSI drive ?

3.)
Can you store complete sample CD content to this drive as a "volume" and then pick single programs and related samples from a given "volume"?

background:

I´ve found a guy offering a cardreader drive,- advertised for S-2000 / 3000 XL, which also works for S-1000 and S-1100.
It´s more expensive, but it connects to the sampler´s internal SCSI port while sitting in the floppy drive slot.
The old AKAIs recognize SCSI media w/ a size of ~ 500MB max.,- so when you fully loaded the sampler (8 - 32mb RAM) you stored volumes and not only what a floppy disk can store.

I understand the drive you use replaces a floppy drive w/ new drive handling modern media,- but it also acts like a floppy drive still.
Means,- it loads floppy disk images as also uses the floppy drive bus,- not SCSI.
Is that the case ?

When using the card reader drive (see link below), it acts like a SCSI drive, HDD, MOD, Syquest 44/88, ZIP or Jazz w/ the option storing and loading both, floppy disk size content or entire volumes,- and while scrolling thru and/or selecting files being stored on the drive (by using the AKAI frontpanel !), you get info about everything on sampler´s display.
The cardreader drive w/ the card inserted supports 4 "drives" with a size of 500MB and individual SCSI ID for each "drive".
The card is "hotswap", so you can change cards while the sampler is running.

The floppy drive is gone then.

https://www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anz ... 81-74-2807

This is a commercial dealer and expert for such solutions too (see his other offerings)

So, I don´t want storing and loading floppy disk content to/from modern media only,- I want the same w/ the sampler´s entire setups/volumes and faster than the floppy drive bus is.
Up to now, I uses ext. SCSI drives, preferably small MOD (magneto optical disc) ´cause these are removable and I have ´em mounted in 1HU 19" racks.
I also own the others, CD-ROM/ HDD combo rackmounts, Syquest removable etc.,- w/ 2HU too bulky for today´s demands, but they worl still.

The cardreader drive would be an improvement and I wonder if the Gotek drive would be too and in the same manner.



Bud

[yayajohn]

Bud;
-The one I bought uses the internal floppy drive connections (even makes the fake noise of the floppy too)
-The manufacturer preformatted the flash drive with blank sectors to coincide with a floppy disk's size so you can store what you normally would have on the floppy but now you don't have to swap out disks. He also installed a good selection of samples for the user.
-My emulator display is not sideways but I can see how your's would be so i guess that sucks.
-First use the floppy emulator's controls to navigate to the folder you want to load/save, then select "floppy drive" on the AKAI display and use the same load/save procedures as before.
-The updated OS system (2.0) loads automatically (I was using a floppy to do this up till now)
-I HAVE NOT TRIED THIS, but apparently you can remove the flash drive and swap out files on your computer.
-I have an external SCSI drive since I first bought it in 1994 -it is really noisy but AKAI sys has a park cmd which helps. The original CDROM drive is painfully slow!! If I find a way to upgrade that to a higher speed then I probably will.

So to sum it up: whatever you used the old-soon-to-be-broke floppy for before is what you use the emulator for with some great additional benefits added on

[astroman]

... The cardreader drive would be an improvement and I wonder if the Gotek drive would be too and in the same manner.

In some way of course... but my experiences with such a device (Microtech PCD47) on EMU weren‘t too bright.
Memory specs of the flash medium didn‘t matter, loading speed of a Transcend 266x was identical to a noname cheapo.
More severe: all EMU formatted CFs stalled at some (arbitrary) point in time with complete data loss.
(of course they worked flawless until that point...)
Maybe it‘s better with Akai, though, but at that pricepoint it‘s worth considering. In particular as you already have a working solution with SCSI peripherals.

Btw I can lend you mine for a while, so you can try it out. Just don‘t want to sell it because I may need it for an old Mac in case I happen to find one for an acceptable price. (low priority project)

[yayajohn]

Just dug this up......looks very interesting as an alternative to an external spinning hard drive.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/174874372199?m ... olid=10050

[astroman]

Yes, it avoids the problem I mentioned above when the sampler directly communicates with the flash storage medium.
(in theory it shouldn‘t matter because SCSI just presents a block device... )
It‘s also cool that you can simply add a CD (or HD) image to it. Good find

[yayajohn]

So I took a leap and ordered one today (got to thinking about how old that external HDD drive is after I posted here LOL)
but the company followed with this message:

"New message from: chickeneps (563PURPLE_STAR Star)
There are cool things about RaSCSI, specifically the WiFi access to images that fund the SCSI data chain. But in some ways RaSCSI can be overkill - after all, it is a full blown computer masquerading as a storage device.

We are very, very close to removing our RaSCSI SKU from eBay because we (kind of) don't have any in stock. We COULD assemble some, we have plenty of RaSCSI daughterboards but very few Pi's - the extreme rarity of Raspberry Pi's due to chip shortages makes us want to keep as many as we can here.

Not only that, there's a standing issue with S1000's with data corruption on loading and saving. We don't know if that applies to CD3000's, but it does NOT apply to XL types.

But, better, I would recommend the ZuluSCSI that we have listed on eBay, it is simpler than RaSCSI, works better without the complications and issues RaSCSI has.

Would you like us to cancel this purchase and you can re-buy the ZuluSCSI? If you still want the RaSCSI, we'd be willing to put one together though, it take a couple days. It will use a Pi Zero 1.3, not a Pi Zero 2 (which is faster), and I can't guarantee the S1000 won't appear on the CD3000. (I assume yours is non-XL).

Let me know."

I found and ordered the ZuluSCSI, it was more expensive but hopefully it will work as advertised.

[Bud Weiser]

Btw I can lend you mine for a while, so you can try it out. Just don‘t want to sell it because I may need it for an old Mac in case I happen to find one for an acceptable price. (low priority project)

Thx for the offer !
Which drive do you own?
HxC or Gotek ?

Which old Mac do you need ?
I have some PPCs,- 1 7300 or 7500 (or such) which has at least 1 NuBus,- and there are 2 G3 beige,- IIRC,- 333MHz and enough RAM too.
I need only one of the G3.
I also have a G4 "gigabit ethernet" 450 dual, 1GB RAM, which is set up w/ a RME 9636 card (2 ADAT I/Os & SPDIF I/O) and a Alex Hixon "Jam Port" serial interface to connect older but stable MIDI interfaces like MOTU MidiTimepiece 2, Opcode or Emagic Unitor 8 (mk II) and AMT 8.
It runs Emagic Logic 6.4.3 (w/ dongle) and Emagic Sounddiver 3.0.4.
There´s Mac OS 9.22 and OS-X 10.4.11 on separate drives installed and you can boot into each.
It required a OS-X licence because I´ll keep it for my G4 Powerbook.
Same w/ Emagic Logic Audio Platinum incl. all the virtual instruments.

I have Powerbook G3 Lombard and G4 DVI, so I don´t need the G4 tower urgently.



Bud

[Bud Weiser]

Just dug this up......looks very interesting as an alternative to an external spinning hard drive.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/174874372199?m ... olid=10050

The problem might be the 500 (or 520) MB limit of the S-1000 and S-1100.
So it´s important you can store and load "volumes" which can be anything in between 2, 4, 8 - 32MB chunks and accordimg to the RAM size of a given AKAI sampler.
When it´s all limited to disk images (HDD Floppy or CD) that´s not enough,- even it´s cool reading disk images from modern flash media.
To me it´s not clear how to store a (or several) volume(s) into a disk image.
Maybe I misunderstand something, so I´m open for any advise and corections.



Bud

[Xite Knight v2.0]

Anyone with AKAI hardware samplers.
https://www.ebay.com/itm/134021467392?h ... R4CqpZnCYA

I just installed one of these in my AKAI CD3000 and it works great! Quite an upgrade to a timeless piece of gear.
(Bud I noticed you mentioned you had a few of the S1000's on another thread)

I got one from this seller for my Ensoniq SQ-80. Made my life much easier. As a bonus, it came preloaded with tons of presets for SQ80 + ESQ1.

[astroman]

Thx for the offer !
Which drive do you own?
HxC or Gotek ?

oops, late reply, sorry... it‘s neither, just a plain SCSI device, this one
https://reverb.com/item/14799285-microt ... -cf-2000xl

As mentioned it worked well, until total blackout (at least 3times), but of course I can‘t tell if that was a software fault or simply media failure.

By „old Mac“ I meant an M68k box, like the LC475 or similar Performa to rescue some old floppy data.
But I don‘t want to spend 100-200€ on this or do a long journey to pick one up and it‘s not urgent in any way.
(it would be interesting how a pizza box performs with flash media, though)

You certainly may use the PCD47 for a couple of months or longer.

[Bud Weiser]

oops, late reply, sorry... it‘s neither, just a plain SCSI device, this one
https://reverb.com/item/14799285-microt ... -cf-2000xl

As mentioned it worked well, until total blackout (at least 3times), but of course I can‘t tell if that was a software fault or simply media failure.

I guess, SCSI error.
Akais are picky on SCSI as also w/ their internal memory cards (and/ or slots)

By „old Mac“ I meant an M68k box, like the LC475 or similar Performa to rescue some old floppy data.
But I don‘t want to spend 100-200€ on this or do a long journey to pick one up and it‘s not urgent in any way.
(it would be interesting how a pizza box performs with flash media, though)

You certainly may use the PCD47 for a couple of months or longer.

O.k., I see,- I don´t even know such Mac.
PPC 7xxx is my oldest and not in use.
Before, I used Comodore SX and ATARIs.

B.t.w., are there any favoured places where I can sell retro computers and peripheral devices,- C-Lab, Emagic, Steinberg/Jones and Digidisign (SoundTools) and related software for acceptable money ?



Bud

[astroman]

I suspect the CF cards a bit more. I had dozens of them when I tried to make them working on a Roland SP808.
The SP808 has an ATA port, not an IDE one (both may have identical connectors) and it was stunning how much variation there was with different CF cards.
It didn‘t work out and I sold the machine (at least for a good price)... some consider this fail of a user interface cult

This cult factor is most important in vintage sales...
With Digidesign it seems super low, I bought a Mix24 this spring for 400€ which was on offer for longer than 1 year.
(2 DSP cards, 888/24 + 882/20, USD Sync box, 1 Y-cable, 3 regular cables)
It went into a G4/800 that was 20€ from the local recycling center. Ridiculous...

Akai seems to have gained some reputation recently, in particular S900/950, but S1000 appears to be upward, too.
Z4 still the underdog...

[Bud Weiser]

This cult factor is most important in vintage sales...
With Digidesign it seems super low, I bought a Mix24 this spring for 400€ which was on offer for longer than 1 year.
(2 DSP cards, 888/24 + 882/20, USD Sync box, 1 Y-cable, 3 regular cables)
It went into a G4/800 that was 20€ from the local recycling center. Ridiculous...

Yeah, that´s insane.

I guess the cult factor appears for collectors and museums when it´s complete systems.
For the Digidesign SoundTools devices (DA, AD/DA and "Digital Interface" w/ S/PDIF and AES/EBU) I have the Accellerator card for ATARI Mega ST, the computer (Mega ST4) w/ keyboard, mouse, a mint orig. HDD, original boxes and docs and original boxed software (Sounddesigner II & Masterlist, Sounddesigner Universal for vintage samplers incl. S-1000 as well and Digidesign Turbosynth).
Just only an example,-
and there´s a complete setup for C-Lab/Emagic Notator SL, Notator Logic ATARI, LOG3 (NSL dongle intern), Unitor-2, Combiner (dongle expander), Steady Eye (video sync) and orig. print manuals as well.

I guess these could be interesting for some and I wonder what the best platform to offer these is.

Another is for synth hardware, where "Reverb" might be the best platform to offer:
Yamaha KX-76, TX816, QX-1 sequencer incl. orig. print manuals and QX-1/ TX-816 demo disks.
8-ch. Denoiser and a 19" rack for TX816 and the denoiser in addition.

Akai seems to have gained some reputation recently, in particular S900/950, but S1000 appears to be upward, too.
Z4 still the underdog...

I recognized offers for AKAI S-1100 w/ up to 32MB RAM are the most expensive @Ebay "Kleinanzeigen" where S-900/950 where the most demanded by hip-hop producers.



Bud

[yayajohn]

I found and ordered the ZuluSCSI, it was more expensive but hopefully it will work as advertised.

So I installed this yesterday:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/175251147243?h ... SwUA1ieHHF

This will replace my ageing external spinning hard drive that is about as noisy as a vacuum cleaner LOL. This one does not even rquire a power source.
Took a while to figure out how to access it but seems to be working fine. The extra bonus is that before I had one drive and now I have 6 so hopefully I will be able to load all or most of my CD libraries onto that drive.

[Bud Weiser]

So I installed this yesterday:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/175251147243?h ... SwUA1ieHHF

This will replace my ageing external spinning hard drive that is about as noisy as a vacuum cleaner LOL. This one does not even rquire a power source.
Took a while to figure out how to access it but seems to be working fine. The extra bonus is that before I had one drive and now I have 6 so hopefully I will be able to load all or most of my CD libraries onto that drive.

Great find !!!
But DB25 SCSI isn´t Centronics 50.
So, how do you connect to AKAI IB-103 SCSI interface card ?

https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=akai+i ... bsal31.jpg

Does anyone provide DB25male to Centronics 50male cable ?



Bud

[yayajohn]

They provided the cable and you can choose the length and yes it has the proper pins. Don't know if it is a special cable or off the shelf.


https://www.cables4computer.com/Cabling ... Cable.html

[yayajohn]

The problem might be the 500 (or 520) MB limit of the S-1000 and S-1100.
So it´s important you can store and load "volumes" which can be anything in between 2, 4, 8 - 32MB chunks and accordimg to the RAM size of a given AKAI sampler.
When it´s all limited to disk images (HDD Floppy or CD) that´s not enough,- even it´s cool reading disk images from modern flash media.
To me it´s not clear how to store a (or several) volume(s) into a disk image.
Maybe I misunderstand something, so I´m open for any advise and corections.



Bud

This is the company that I bought the ZuluSCSI from. (I'm sure you're familiar with them)
http://www.chickensys.com/index.html

I suspect this is what you need to build a "volume" to be loaded on your legacy AKAI samplers.
I am investigating the free version to see how "user friendly" it might be before I even think about trying to build my own volumes.
Currently I can use the internal CDROM to load the samples into the sampler then save them to the ZuluSCSI drive.
This is a slow process though and if I can do it on the computer directly to the SD card then that would be ideal. I have already converted my whole AKAI collection to use with the STS samplers so theoretically I should just be able to load them on the SD card?