Akai S20

any one who can read and count can use this machine

it dosen't claim to do more than it can and it does what it can very well.

the sound is not realistic. it sounds like a sega genesis. and thats why i love it. i think that it must have some type of built in limiter as well. it never really clips in the digital sense, rather, it just gets fuzzy. which sounds good.

i have performed many times with a number of different s20s and they all pull through. the disk drive and the buttons are the first thing to go.

i've owned 2 in the last 7 years. the first was the best it was about a year old when i bought it and it was my first real sampler i paid 400 dollars for it in 1997. i slept with it the first night that i got it. this is the best sounding sampler ever made, it is the warmest, thickest, grittyest sampler ever. the only thing is that this sampler is quiet and requires post output amp to sound loud, but that is a dust speck on the solid tank of a machine that this sampler is.

the last one that i bought cost $60 w/ shipping off of e bay. the disk drive is a little funny but it still works and still sounds great as ever.

the first one was conected to a phantom load and began to smoke. it, along with my friends s20, was destroyed. that is to say that the inputs no longer work. the samplers still load and play disks from other s20s. that was september 11th 2002 odd.

Making loops couldn't be more simple. I had it down in an hour or so. There is no waveform editing but if you pitch the sample you're editing way down you can get the start and end points bang on. Make sure loop length equals sample length and you're done.
The manual tells you everything you need to know.

8 voices of polyphony i think which seems to be enough as I sample in mono. No effects. The pads and buttons make a loud clicking sound when pressed. It takes a 16mb expansion ontop of the 1mb standard giving you over 4 minutes sampling time at 32khz mono. The worst feature of this machine is you can only have one bank of 16 samples loaded up at a time, leaving a big chunk of the memory unused. If you could load multiple banks in and switch between them the s20 would kick some serious ass. No SCSI either, just floppies.
It claims to have a sequencer but it doesn't!

I dj deep house and the s20 is a fantastic addition to just mixing between two decks. You can get one loop in sync with the record that's playing, hit 'master tempo' on the s20 and the whole bank is synced up. I really enjoy using it for djing but if you want something for the studio go for an old E-mu - way more features very similar price.
As a dj tool I give it an 8.

When mine arrived by post it wasn't recognising the memory stick. I pulled it out, put it back in and everything's fine. The floppy drive sometimes won't read or write discs but it's really easy and cheap to pull out and install a new one. I just haven't been bothered.
Overall I think it's very dependable.

I asked a couple of questions by email and an answer in about 12 hours.

I've owned quite a bit of synth gear over the years and this is definately the easiest to use. Very limited but plenty of fun. If it's a cheap 90's phrase sampler you're after this is the one to get! If it could load more than one bank and had an actual sequencer this thing would not leave my side!

So easy! I probably had help at college when using it but about a week (I remember) I was so easy I picked it up in no time. There's not much of an Operating System if not then there's isn't one at all. It's all-straight forward: you plug in your source (via 2 phono's) press 'rec', set the levels and choose (mono or stereo) then hit either of the big chunky buttons (1-16). Then edit it (cut,trim,loop,resample etc)

features? not many really. Not sure what polyphony is but if i were you i would have all your samples mono as stereo will eat up polyphony.
In case you don't want to hog up all your 16 midi channels you can do 'Prog's (programs) this just means you can have lots of samples on ONE of 16 midichannels but each sample has its space on the keyboard (you map them out).
Oh yeah and all your usual edits (no time stretch or filters though!)

I put 6 because of the damn floppy drive fuss you have to go thru.

Sounds chunky'n'crunchy. It's true - grit and grunge is added which is nice.
Also the 'Resample' feature isn't just there to fit more samples on disk but you can use it to get some super-crunchy lo-fi sounds. goes down to 4bits (actaully is it bits or sample rate? most likley sample rate)
anyway. Yeah... good bass too. Sample an 808 bass drum and it comes out with that punch at the begining and the HmMMmmmmmm at the end.

careful with the powerlead on the back it might fall out and in some case you might loose all your samples (HAS ***NO*** internal harddrive)
Built like a shit brick house..dropped it but it still works fine. But don't hit those sample pad buttons too hard just in case.

bah!

Good but can eat up MIDI channels. I only have this S20 and an old Roland MC-500MKII and altho that's all i have - I make the best Acid-house music anyone has heard just using 16 samples!

Yeah it's good buy one and don't beleive people who say it's crap - it's not!

Indeed, it is quite easy to use. But that's considering I'm used to gear without intuituve displays, (hence the 4-digit diplay on this one).
There isn't much you can do with it, which is really why it's just so damn simple.

If it had a bigger display, maybe even one that could display
all the letters of the alphabet, then maybe I'd give it a ten.

Polyphony? I'm not sure. My manual's missing, but I think it can play up to 8 channels, (4 stereo). Why should I tell you these things anyways? I'm not the designer of this sampler. That's what the product specs are for!

It's pretty transparent if you're working with tape recordings and records, but watch out when sampling digital or other >15kc audio.
There isn't any filtering on the inputs so it'll create all sorts of
whacked-out sub-harmonics and aliases when you record that crisp stuff.

If you're going to record that kind of material, chop it off at
15KHz with a good equalizer.

Using rates lower than 32 makes for really nasty sound.
The output is only filtered for the 32K rate, so it's the only
one that isn't going to sound like crap. Use 32, or, if you have
another equalizer, stick it between the output and your amp or whatever and cut off the upper bands. (3.5KHz cut-off for 8K, and 7KHz for 16K)

Don't wiggle the power cable. There is not a smidgen of memory-backup in the S20, so you'll lose everything if the power is interrupted for even half a second. Save to disk often, and put a stick-on cable tie thing on the back so you can't pull the connector out.

No comment.

This is basically the bare-bones phrase sampler. If you're a band that does alot of freakish music with samples of cable-tv preachers and percussion loops, this is the cheap sampler for you.

I actually have a remix 16 but they seem to be very similar. Very easy to use great for little samples to spice up a dj set. (if prepared in advance). Very easy to loop on just listen to the start/end points as you twiddle the knobs and ignore those random numbers.

polyphony is shit. 16 samples. 4 at once (in stereo). yet to work out how to get scsi to work and find 16mb simm to upgrade. Sequencer isokay as a a quick test bed but overall is pointless. use a pc sequencer controlling the samples via midi.

Great for trip hop. easy to loop and sample from record deck.

built like a tank. solid metal case with replaceble faders. only problem is some leds in mine have slipped and re hard to see.

n/a

Definately worth the 85 quid i payed. first sampler i bought having played around using dj cd decks to loop cds. Anyone who thinks this is hard to use should try making a track using a dj setup - 2 loops n cd and 2 decks.

I had S20 back to 1999. It made most of loops and drums. S-20 is quite easy to use and sound was enough for me.

Polyphony cuts when stereo loops used, but it was still enough for my need. No effects or other processing. Easy to loop stuff. I had maximum 17megs RAM and that was more than enough.

Good sound quality. Sadly no cool filters and stuff in this machine but it ment to be phrase-sampler and very cheap one.

Why I sold it? It wasn't able to save any settings. So everything I made to samples they vere gone when I restarted it. For live use, it would be great for the price but nowadays with software samplers, I wouldn't get it. Also there is no SCSI so it's quite painful to use floppies only. If you have not much money and want live-sampler, Akai give very good quality with little money.

Easy to use, almost too easy. :)

very small feature list, but for the price who'z crazy enough to complain....just basic sampling and easy looping mainly.

The sound is perfect for my ears. 16 bit is a little better than 12 yet it still has that grunge quality that I like....not quite as clean as the 20 bit or higher

very much rock solid like all Akai stuff---built like a tank

they are helpful and nice guys...when you can get thru on the line that is

try to get one with 17 mb of memory so you dont have to mess with the upgrade. This is a great value in a sampler. Low on features but absolutely the cat's pajamas for LOOPING!! This baby does that so well, that I may get another one at these prices. dont buy it if you want full featured sampler....this one has looping in mind and simple drum beats...works like a charm

pretty easy to use in terms of getting samples in. beat loop function was kind of neat when i first got it but later realized unincredible this feature really was.

sample playback, thats about its only feature. no tweakablility at all. very disappointing.
i aslo hated loading my samples from floppys. it took forever and sometimes didnt work at. maybe it was corrupted disks.

sound quality was good but i had hard time expressing my self throught this little box of plastic.

no, i used with out back up live and it crapped out on me. it wouldnt load my samples.

never called

this was my first sampler and after being so frustrated trying to get it to do something cool, i gave up on electronic music all together and started singing country music. well, not exactly but i havent bought another piece of electronic music gear since. i sold it about a year and a half after buying it. i guess its a good box if you want to learn the absolute fundamentals of sampling and playing with loops but thats about it. i couldnt imagine trying to use it as a dj. in a live band it was pretty useless and as a studio production tool its just to0 limited to really make anything happen.

this box just wasnt for me....

this is the most simple and quick way to sample that i have experienced! for the few nay-sayers of it's ease of use, i say go find an old casio sk-1. it's 1 second of sample time and 1 button operation will suit your under-developed sampling skills well.

the S20 is lacking in this department...no effects, limited polyphony,
useless sequencer, limited editing. then again akai made no claim of overwhelming power. the idea was to provide a stereo sampler with a good amount of memory capability at a reasonable price. they succeeded admirably.

it's a sampler, therefore you get back what you put in. if you are a creative musician, there are no limits. i will say though, that the S20 adds a certain crunchiness and reproduces beat and basslines with a fatness not heard in most samplers. this makes it ideal for hip hop, trip hop and similar loopy styles.

i have used the S20 for about 5 years now and have had no problems with it.

i have had no need for customer service

i have been using synths, samplers, and other midi gear for 18yrs.
if the S20 were lost or stolen, i would certainly re-purchase. i am sure i could pick one up for alot less than i paid new 5 years ago.
it is hard to beat for ease of use and phatt sound.

Read the manual (very straight forward), power up, load the demo discs and off you go. No assigning samples to banks / groups / presets / audition zones, just pound those buttons! I found editing to be remarkably straight-forward if you use your ears and don't get bogged down in the sample numbers whizzing by in the LCD. You can audition the sample as you edit by holding down the relevant pad, so it's easy to hear the start / end points of your sound.

Most of the features have been covered below, so I won't go into all of them again, but adding more memory makes this a very useful sampler. I expanded the memory to 4MB for #20, which gives me just over 73 seconds of mono sampling. I run out of pads before I run out of memory. The option of a SCSI upgrade (like the Remix 16 had) would've been nice, just for booting samples back and forth to my mac (no Akaidisc type option for mac users) and a step time sequencer instead of a real time sequencer would be great, but I knew this wasn't an MPC when I bought it, and I have my mac to do the sequencing....

Love the crunchy phat sound of the 32k samples, stuff sounds great straight off the records (my main sample source!) No FX, but I didn't want any, good velocity / key range / release and mono trigger functions make this unit ideal for drums.

Rock Solid. No wobbly OS upgrades or SCSI issues to worry about, have used it live a number of times without any worries

I've never really had the need for customer support, but I once emailed Akai about possible SCSI upgrades, and they were very prompt in letting me know that there wouldn't be one (!) I also ordered some sample diskettes, which arrived promptly (and cheap too!)

I bought this new in early 1998 (don't remember exactly how many UKP I paid) because I'd done lots of research into samplers, and this was the one that fitted my requirements and budget. I'd buy another, and if I ever see a cheap enough unit second hand I'd be tempted to buy it and have two on the go. I have hundreds of discs of samples now so I'd definately miss it if it was gone. I've used it on nearly all my music as my main sampler for drums and loops, and I know the machine inside out (which doesn't take long!) I've even sequenced entire tracks on the 'live' sequencer, by taking a little time out to work out which buttons you're pressing where (and being able to count to four!) this gives a great old school feel to tracks. Basically this is a superb phrase sampler and makes a nice little drum box. I can only imagine that those who didn't like it bought it off the shelf without knowing the specifications fully, and were disappointed with the lack of certain features. Like all things, alot comes down to personal taste, but I for one love the playability and hands on appeal of the S20. Akai's idea to make a desktop version of the SO1 was an inspired idea in my opinion. As someone else has mentioned - the S20 has all the attributes of a future classic......

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.