Akai's S01 Midi Digital Sampler. It seems almost obsolete these days. Released in 1993, this 2-space rack unit offered 8-voices of polyphony, and 1 MB (expandable to 2 MB) of sample memory for about 15 to 30 seconds of sample time. Yeah, it's pretty weak, but for the time it was an excellent entry-level sampler or even as an addition to your S-1000, S-1100 or MPC2000. Sampling specs are 16-bit and 32 kHz (not cd-quality). The sampler only records samples in mono. Built-in 3.5 floppy disk drive lets you store your samples or load from libraries (it has no SCSI interface).

The eight trigger buttons on the front correspond to each of the 8 samples you can have and can be used to trigger them. You can truncate your samples, transpose and loop and even reverse them. The S01 features two MIDI inputs, which can be switched with a switch on the front panel. There's one mono sample input, one mono output and one headphone output at the front panel and one mono output at the back. Playback and sampling can be controlled with an additional foot-switch.

train of thought

May 22, 2013 @ 6:57 pm

used by RP Boo as mentioned in this article
http://davequam.wordpress.com/2010/06/09/like- [beep] ing-mozart-an-interview-with-r p-boo/

Daiwai

March 26, 2013 @ 2:07 pm

IN reponse to jazzbloke

Are those 95 3.5 sample disks useable for S2000 sampler? If yes, I would be interested. Thanks.

bumbaclart

February 13, 2013 @ 8:19 am

seeing music gear from this era classed as "vintage" makes me feel old :)
These seemed like fantastic value for money back in the day but looking at the specs only 8 note poly and no stereo sampling it seems pretty limited. I opted for a Roland DJ-70 for £1000 in the end. Probably worth about £5 these days!

jazzbloke

October 3, 2012 @ 6:40 am

i have about 95 unused 3.5 sampler disks is anyone interested in them?

analog monster

May 25, 2012 @ 4:05 pm

two great things that makes this sampler an almost daily tool for me. I have replaced the internal drive with an hxc floppy emulator which gives you an SD card interface. I have a 2 gig card that will hold about 1000 virtual floppies (the files are about 2mb per virtual floppy) that you can name so you can find samples easily.

But the real reason I use this daily is I have it circuit bent, giving some really nasty digital distortion. The way it distorts is dependent on what files are loaded into the ram so you always get something new

<54321>

 

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