Akai S20

ok tired of reading nothing but disses for ths great ..soon to be classic... peice of gear!

this is a stupid easy to use sampler... ridiculously easy to use... the only problem is.. woah.. you have to use your ears! ... listen to the phrase... and loop it.. simple as that.. you can fine tune your loops with the lil lcd but if you know what your doing then you can get this thing rocking in seconds...

manual is decent... some typos but has a nice casual air...

as for features..

it has no effects (which is fine by me.. the thing is a sampler.. NOT a shitty effects box) .. put in a sound.. you'll get it back on the other end... you can degrade the sampling rate to make it a lil crunchier and save on memory.. you can also pitch them and adjust the levels the samples play back.. and all of this is easy as pie to excecute.. very smooth..

sure this unit isnt packed with features but honestly ask yourself when was the last time you've seen an "all in one" box do everything at all well?.. to include mountains of features drives the pirce up and compromises on other features.. this unit samples, that is it! and it does it extremely well..

the midi is good as the sequencer isnt the greatest... so sync it from a 505 or sumpin...

i'm giving it an 8 bescause this units feature is SAMPLING and it does that with aplomb..

ok here we go.. this is where this unit shines.. . now if you make wimpy pop rock or something super slick (wudda yah need a smpler for anyways?) then i would say you may be slightly disipointed.. if your a stickler fer data and numbers then yes you'll be annoyed that this thing only has 33khz 16 bit sampling... yawn... but its the sounds! and this thing sounds great.. put in a phat kick.. you get yer phat kick right back.. with an extra lil bit o grit that is truely musical and pleasing.. the thing sounds great!

its a breeze to use.. especially if your familiar with more old schooly type gear... because thats what this is basically.. a baddass old school sampler.. sounds come out nice and crunchy... it's not an sp1200 but damn its not 1500 bucks either!

disk drive is possibly a tad funky.. hasnt given me any problems... but others have complained.. thing isnt made of steel or anything so be a lil careful.. but ive dj'd with one and played live gigs with it (loading sequences / samples from disks with no problems) and never had a problem and its tiny.. fits right over the mixer...

don't know.. i'm scepticle of all companies costomer supprt though...

ok i would be pissed if it was destroyed, lost, stolen etc...

why? because there is absolutely no other sampler out there for this price whatsoever! this is a forgotten modern classic... for the same price you'd be getin a used dr. sample or a shitty yamaha loop factory or some zoom thing (and we don't ever wanna see zoom in a studio now do we?) ... so look at it... this thing has got 16 mgs of ram! and disks are cheap... the boss is a joke for more money.. the elektribe s is the only unit that tempted me .. but this was half the money! ..

i use a computer for any insane beat slicing anyway (none of that recycle shit though.. ) .. i use this as a performance sampler.. namely to sample things live on the fly and play em back.. wack the pads.. that sorta thang.. but i have made tracks using this thing... and they sounded great.. super punchy very phat.. very nice... i've got a bunch of machines i like to use (old drum machines mainly) and nice guitars , sweet drum kit, tonnes of software.. and of the lot this is definatly one of my favorite peices of kit... its simple.. and its badass.. and it has a nice old school vibe about it too... go get one before the price goes up!

The easiest sampler to use if you've got a good EAR... otherwise trimming editing and processing loops can be a bit on the tough side.
The manual I have (the French one) is absolutely terrible: the grammar and spelling are completely random. Who did the translation?

8 voice polyphony in mono, reduced to 4 in stereo. Not too good duh? but for the price it is a real bargain. Compare to other products in the same price range: it's the better you can get.
16 samples in memory at any given time is a limiation as well
The pads are not velocity sensitive
1 Mb memory expandable to 17 Mb
Storage media: floppy (...)
Excellent MIDI capabilities, two midi modes are available, one to use the s20 as tone generator (MIDI NOTE ASSIGN OFF) and one to just emulate the pads on an external keyboard or drum machine (NOTE ASSIGN ON).
It is 16 part multitimbral.
No filters, no effects no nothing.
Sampling frequency: 32 Khz (can be downgraded to 16, 8 and 4 Khz and extra lo-fi sound...)
Sampling engine is 16 bit.
The built-in 4 track sequencer is purely and simply a FRAUD. AKAI could as well have left it out because when you get down to it you realise it actually is USELESS.
The sampler is nonetheless extremely versatile and its midi implementation (including programme changes etc.) is excellent given the instrument limitations.

The sound is a bit crunchy and the his tend to be lost. armonies are limted as well (especially in the high range) due to the 32 khz sampling frequency.
Otherwise the sound is OK. It is nonetheless specific to this sampler.
This means that the sampler has a musical personality of its own, which is GOOD.

Super extra realiable. Itnever failed me in two full years of use. It's been for a long time (14 months) my only sound module, played it every day, stayed on four days in a row (couldn't bother with saving the full loaded memory...).
The pads are ok but I almost never use them so they do not wear out.
annot be used on a gig unless you have TWO because you can't load a new sample while the s20 is in use. Loading and saving is a long and tiresome process.

n.a

I have a very good opinion of the s20. For many reason I think it is an excellent *my first sampler* and the good news is that it can still play a good role in a growing studio. I now have two synths and an akai s3000xl sampler alongside the grey box and i still use it a lot as a sketchpad (it is so fast) and as a drum machine.
It still compares nicely with the competition and IMO eats up even newer machines such as the yamaha su200 or the roland sp202.
The only new sampler that could beat the s20 in terms of price/performance is the Korg electribes sampler.
I wish the s20 had a better storage media, the floppy is not enough for the 17 Mb memory.
It has really a great value if you can buy it used (as i did). Its current price new is really out of the way!

The french resource for the s20 is here:
http://persoweb.francenet.fr/~plionnet/FreezerMan/musique.html
with tutorials, tips and a forum.
En Francais seulement my friends!

the ease of use is half and half, the midi side is easy, but when you is trying to use the sequencer it is a pain in the ass, there is no features on the sampler to support the sequensor, what is the purpose of having a sequensor when you do not have any functionality for it, like what was akai thinking!!!!!!????

I like the fact that you can midi it to an external sequencer in set the midi channels but other then that it kinda of sucks.

I don't know if it is just my sampler or what but when I sample most of the time, I get like a pop at the ending or sometimes the beginning of my samples.

the problem with reliability I had with it is that the disk will not format sometime with certain floppys, and sometimes it have troubles reading formated disk, so I suggest that if you make a song that you really like make a back up file, cause you may never know what could happen with this piece of you know what!!!!!!

I tried to tell them about the pop I was getting at the end and the begginings of my samples, I even carried it to one of their sites, they said, OH you just have to edit that out with the trimming in stuff, that when I knew that I was stuck with a piece of shittttt!!!!!

don't buy it!!! if you are on a budget then I understand, but I found out it is just better to buy the top of the line stuff you come out better in the long run, whats a few extra dollars for something that you know is going to last in work right.

Shit
A fuckin matrix with just a few LEDs :o(
The manual (I mean the french manual) seems to have been translated with a low priced software translator :o(

Features? Huh? There are some features on this box???
Apart editing your samples, maybe resample them, there are NO features!!!

Yeah, sounds OK, but 44.1kHz would have been welcome too.

Not the best, not the worst, one or too crashes but that s all.

Never had to deal with Akai guys.

I don t like to critiize gear, but the S20 is an exception... I m student, I do not have a lot of money, and I assure you that the S20 is the WORSE piece of gear I have.
No possibilities, shit, shit and shit! :o(

This is a very simple machine to use, but the display is very small and doesnt tell you much about what is going on.

Its a peice of garbage. The only thing you can do with your samples are loop them and transpose them.

Sounds as good as you make it sound BEFORE YOU SAMPLE IT INTO THE S20! There are no onboard sounds, nor are there any effects that you can add to your own samples. So whatever you want to do to the sound, you have to do with another piece of equipment.

Never crashed on me or anything. It deleted one of my disk with samples and sequences on it once though.

Never delt with Akai. If I did, I would yell at them for making such a peice of garbage.

Overally, it is a peice of %#$@. If you are a begginer, it just make life harder because you will soon realise you need other equipment along with the s20 to make songs. For expirenced producers, there is nothing you can get out of a machine so simple. It has absolutely no power and is a waste of money. The only reason I am giving it a 2 is because it helped me to realize what other equipment I need and what I dont need. This is definately something I dont need.

I'm sick of reading reviews praising this unit's "ease of use!" If you call lining up LEDs in a matrix and scrolling through a 4 digit numerical display "easy" then what is difficult? Editing loops is like pulling teeth. For me, working with this device takes all the joy out of making music. I'd rather enter loop points on an abacus.

The 8-voice polyphony is adequate, as are midi capabilties. It ships with 1 MB RAM, and is expandable to 17 MB. But as another reviewer pointed out, it would take 11 floppy disks to store all of RAM. That's too bad, because you HAVE TO save your work, because it took you 10 years to edit those samples.

It plays what you put into it adequately.

I've used it for only 6 months, and the floppy drive sometimes doesn't work.

This product is very affordable, which is about the only good thing I can say about it. I know that you get what you pay for, but this sampler is so cumbersome to use that I use it mainly as a studio dust collector.
And like much of Akai's gear, this has to be the ugliest looking unit of its kind.

The easiest piece of hardware I ever had. Very simple editing using the edit matrix. I prepare loops on a PC then transfer samples onto AKAI formatted diskette using AKAIDISK program. S20 accepts samples from all the S-series but 44 kHz ones are automatically transposed when imported. AKAIDISK helpfile claims that transfering stereo wavs is not supported. It's not true: the program creates a pair of samples on AKAI disk out of a stereo wav, and S20 loads them both in one bank.

Polyphony isn't enough when using stereo samples (only 4 simultaneously). It could be better to embed a possibility of panning mono sounds in further versions. Or to make some individual outs. Lack of SCSI is another problem, and the unit supports only open-loop SDS communication, veeeeeeeery slooooooow. Transfering 4 sec sample from my PII/233takes about 10 minutes. So there's no means for PC stereo samples transfer except for re-sampling via S20's line input. So if you expand the unit up to 17 MB RAM you'll need 11 disk swaps to fill it 100%. Very boring and time consuming.

One thing I cannot beleive in: why does S20 with its 32 kHz sound phatter'n'better than SBLive sf2 samples with 44? The difference is obvious.

I wait for the moment when the buttons fail to respond. The red REC button must be the first I suppose, it's used to enter changes when editing. Tap tempo sometimes produce double clicks instead of single. But my S20 still seems to be reliable after 6 months in use.

The company's very friendly! Once I tried AKAI customer support for a malfunctioning VCR, they responded immediately. I'm sure AkaiPro will do the same if something happens (better not, though).

It's worth my $450 for full RAM upgraded. It is my very first hardware sampler, a nice addition to a pair of old analog synths and a sequencer/drum machine. Best for loop based music as a standalone unit. I wish it had filters as BossSP202, and SCSI, and a little dedicated software support.

Easy to use. The manual is pretty straightforward and clear. Learning how to edit a sample is a bit more difficult than recording one, but that's not saying much because recording is a snap.

Records up to 14 sec. How much of that is consumed depends of whether you choose to do it in 32, 16 or 8 khz and whether you want it stereo or mono. Has 16 sound banks in which to store samples, obviously they can be looped. You record your stuff into a common computer diskette, which is nice.

Very good sound quality. Tap button adjusts the speed of the sample with just you punching in a rhythm.

It's not the sturdiest thing in the world, but it looks like it can hold its share of a beating if taken care of.

Great sampler. At $500 it's good, if u can get it for less than that it would be a hell of a deal. It's not an independent drum machine although it fits that purpose perfectly; that is, it can't generate its own loops but plays them back once you've recorded them in the machine. I make my beats/sounds with Fruity Loops and record them into the S20 and then into a diskette. It's a no-frills, serious machine. I really like it.