Akai S01

This sampler i must say is in my opinion easier to use than the s2000 i used to have it took me ages to find out how to assign midi channels to program on that machine
On the S01 mind you i load the sound in press a bank button tell it what channel ide like it to be played on and WOW ITS THERE!!!!
Amazing
The manual is very easy to follow' easier than making a cup of tea

The polyphony is 8 notes max wich is fine
it has no built in effects exept for the reverse function and the knob for altering the pitch in transpose.
the reverse function is not visable on the front but if you go to the start and end points and reverse the amounts it play's backwards.
NEAT!!!!
The touch sensitivity on this unit is exellent and responds well to the velocities and mods
Another wierd feature is the 2 midi in sockets this is usefull if you are running the sampler in edit mode and you dont want to accidentaly send a corruption signal to the midi out just switch the midi select to either 1 or 2

The unit is limited by the mono input only but this i am hoping to resolve by bying a budget fx rack with stereo outs and placing it in line with its mono output.
that will show it !!!!!!
The quality of sound recorded in are ok as long as you mono the signal first then it is a wonderous.
That way you have no sound loss then when you play it out then you can bounce it between chorus or echo in the final mix or just flood it with tonnes of reverb.

I have had this unit for a month now and would trust it fully on any gig or session

if you ring the technical dept they can usually blind you with science but if you keep pestering them you usually win through

Well done akai this is a brill little unit (but mono) its a shame that the other samplers are to difficult to use and follow
it is sitting quite proudly in the rack next to the k4r the Boss Ds330 the Boss Se50 it loves the yamaha sy55 as a friend and gets on tremendously with the atari 1040 st .
I recomend the akai s01 to anyone who just whants to sample stuff the simple way or as a first sampler for that bedroom enthusiast

WICKED AKAI WICKED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

very simple

S01 can use only 8 sample.

good for drums,bass
preseted sinewave is good for bass
smooth low frequency
lofi hi frequency

easy sampler but
Now I dont use S01.
because I get MPC2000xl

if not enough money youhave
I recomend KAWAI Q80 and AKAI S01

totally streamlined interface. not a single redundant option. you look at it for about 15 seconds and you know it inside out. ("there's not much it can do" explains WHY it's so dead-easy tho.) super-quick sample looping, trimming, mapping.

max of 8 polyphony spread over max of 8 parts. only mono-out is big bummer. fixed 16bit, 32khz samplerate with 15 seconds of sampling time. which is ok for a drumkit and some small extra or so. maps samples over a keyboard. sound quality is hifi.

this thing LACKS the following features: scsi to connect it a computer or zip or cd-rom (so it's hd-diskdrive only = matches the 1 or 2mb memory tho), lacks filters, any other eq, onboard effects and expansion-option to add multiple outputs (so it's stuck with the mono-out!). therefore, it's hard (read mission: impossible) to make up for the lack of filters, eq, effects by using outboard gear unless you take the time to resample your sounds once in a while. even though the machine operates like a breeze, this makes it quite a bit slower.

sounds are as good as you put in the machine. the machine won't alter them much (trimming, looping, set release, split by velocity). never noticed change in the sounds anyways. so i like it. it can alter pitch over midi which could be considered an effect (sometimes a very cool and underestimated one too - the limitations here force you to go with what's there and still make the best of it). sounds aren't terrribly 'expressive' - a piano-sample doesn't give the thing pedals or whatever. it's not a machine to put nuances with. only does rough sketching.

superdependable and not alot of stuff that can break either.

no longer supported anywhere, but i don't need them anyways.

if only it had had an option to include more outputs, it would have been the perfect budget studio sampler. as it stands, i still like it because, what it does, it does quickly and correctly. also consider what low prices these go for. perhaps you're one of those people who wouldn't use the resynthesis or filter-options of their kurzweil anyway. then this could be for you. worth 100$ imo.

pretty easy once you get the hang of it. mine did not come with a manual so it took a few hours worth of messing around to figure out everything. the akaidisk program is great. lets you transfer .wav samples from your pc to your akai sampler

8 voice polyphony is nice. i didn't like the velocity sensitivness. the 2 midi ins are nice for keeping multiple devices connected to it. no filters, no fx but still nice. it's only mono though.

it samples at 32k but can load and play 44.1k samples. that is nice. it takes up your ram though.

so far...yes. but i'd have to give it more time to see how stable it actually is. sometimes it won't load samples via akaidisk. i haven't figured out why not yet.

never called akai. the 1mb ram upgrade is way too expensive (about $100).

i would buy it if it was lost or stolen. i am thinking about buying another so i can use them as drum modules. then i can program my tr-707 to play the s01 sounds via midi.

Couldnt be easier.

Limited features, but I like the simplicity. I does great samples and looping. Thats all I need in features.

Sounds GREAT!! Better than the S900 & S950 I had which were only 12-bit. The SO1's 16-bit sound is much nicer. But there are probably samplers out there that sound better but not for this price.

Built like a Sherman tank!!

They are helpful.

I would replace it with another S01 cuz I love how easy it is to use.
There are more capable units out there, with way too many features for me. I like to keep things that are easy to operate and function well.
That's the SO1. You dont need to read the manual at all. Cool!!

This is the easiest sampler I have ever laid my hands on. NICE for a change, to not be bogged down with too many choices. Yet sort of limited in the features dept. Manual is excellent.

As I said above, it is somewhat limited in features. But it can sample very nice 16-bit quality samples---VERY easily since there are so few features to worry about. I like that. Keep it simple!! Mine is not expanded so I have the 1MB of memory, but that is fine since it can store samples to disks which are inespensive and plentiful. Mine will do 15.6 secs of sampling with the 1MB of memorey. The memory can be expanded pretty easily Im told and is still readily available. I have found that to be an unecessary modification though.

Sounds are really nice IMHO. Akai is well-known for that. Im very pleased with the sonic quality of my samples made with the S01. Does loops very nicely.

This unit is built like a tank. Practically indestrucatble. However it does have a disk-drive which means it might not be the best for gigging. I simply use it in my studio. Never had any problems at all. Very rock solid unit!!

Talked with them once and they are pretty helpful and professional.

I really love this sampler due to its streamline nature. Its so easy to make samples and loops. However, if you want tons of editing features, then you will have to pay a heck of a lot more and deal with all the consequential complications of all those choices. I dont need the headache, so this baby is for me!! If it was lost or stolen, I would try to find another. I only paid $225 shipped for this one and it is truly MINT. I am very happy with it overall. I have other samplers too, but I always reach for my S01 because it is so user friendly.

Matrix stylo editing with 2 buttons, couldn't be simpler, but this
could also be due to the very limited edit options.

No filters, no LFO's nothing really...except for some basic attack
and release enveloppe's. Responds to velocity. HD Diskdrive, no SCSI,
max. expandable with 1 MB to 2 MB. 8 samples, 8 part multitrimbal.
The only thing it does is sampling in S1000 16 bit quality. It can
read S1000 samples though.

Clean 16 bit Akai sound , but things like basedrums seem difficult to cope with for
the S01.

Very reliable, though gigging could be dangerous because of the
diskdrive.

There isn't much support needed for this machine, the diskdrive is
a standard HD drive so if that brakes down it isn't a real problem.

Really outdated sampler, though the sound is clean and above all it
operates fast. I don't use it much because I don't like storing
samples on HD disks. If this thing had SCSI it would certainly be
a lot more attractive. Don't pay more then $100, or go for the
S20 or better still the S2000 which is a thousands times more powerfull
in the sound editing dept.