Akai S900

there isn't much that I can add that already hasn't been added about this unit. the s900 isa dinosaur. i'm currently running the 1.2 ROM OS but i am looking for a boot disk for the other OS's for the s900. if you have the newer OS's please hook me up! jules used to have a site that had a download for the atari disk image of OS 2.0 but his site is logn gone. oh well...would be nice to add the extra filters and time stretch.
http://xfader.com/akai <-- s900 resource page

the s900 (rack) i recently got has the marion system 16bit upgrade MS-9C. without the OS however, it's unusable and i'm going to have to remove it as well as the trigger board that also requires a newer OS. however, if someone blesses me with the OS, i'll have a fully blown s900 (minus scsi of course) midi sample dump is standard with this unit as well as via the rs-232 port that you can use with an old DOS PC and sampelvision. no on board sequencer but if you rig this up via MIDI and Emagic Logic (even old version), you're set!

i was listening to It Takes A Million... by PE last night...the bulk of that record was used with an sp1200 and an s900/s950 however i'm sure that a lot of tweaking was done on a professional board as well as with outboard gear. it's difficult to describe the type of sound these samplers playback. the whole concept of "warm", "grainy", "metallic", isn't really good enough to describe how much these samplers alter sound. it has it's applications. some instruments are realistic...some aren't...great for hip-hop and anything you want to make sound ummm...just trashy. no on board effects like the s1100.

it's built like a tank! this s900 is actaully going to be used as a back up to a kurzweil k2000 as soon as someone blesses me with new boot disks. i think i've already expressed how valuable those have beomce to me. apparently akai never made a way to copy the OS from disk to disk. they just made a bunch and when they dissapeared they dissapeared.

none!

check out

http://xfader.com/akai for s900 resources

i used to own one in 1995 and 10 years later i had to get another. it'll definitely get a lot of use and when it breaks down and i can't find replacement parts fo rit it'll be used as a center piece to a piece of art work that will display all the gear i have accumulated and it will collect dust...maybe it'll be good as a TV stand. http://xfader.com/akai

The S900 was my first sampler, but I learned to use that thing immediately. Working, especially editing samples, with the small display - in contrast to todays displays or even remote control software like 'Ak.sys' - may be one hurdle to take.

8 voices, 12-bit, 7.5 to 40 kHz sampling rate, 750kB RAM.
That doesn't sound very impressive, but back in 1986, the S900 was the only affordable midi sampler with such features combined with a straightforward user interface.

Many users today might prefer the S900 as a drum/percussion machine. But it's also a great and easy to use sampling toy for nice 'avantgarde' and 'lo-fi' effects.

I had 4 S900 units since 1986. One of them 'died' of power supply failure caused by excessive heat. I sold another one.
There are still 2 of them working perfectly in my studio.

The S900 must be a very solid gig instrument.

According to my experience, Akai Support here in Switzerland was slow, but quite reliable and friendly.

I never used the support on the S900 though, but for several upgrades on a S5000 (memory, effects, usb-interface, software).

Software updates for later samplers are sneaking it slowly as well.
Try their homepage (www.akaipro.com) for information.

One of the most reliable an easy-to-use samplers I've owned. This machine was built to work like a horse :-)

If you find one for $200 or less, it's a good buy.

It just takes some time to figure it all out.

8 voice in mix (mono) out, but monophonic when using the other outputs

It's an old sampler, but can be very useful instrument. Heavy though.

Seems there has been lots of troubles with disk drives. Eats disks! Keep at least 2 copies of any valuable sounds. Crashes now and then - after restarting the machine, everything's fine again. Familiar for Windows users... Power supply broke down. Too expensive to replace. Too bad! Nothing lasts for ever.

I used it for 6 years and was happy with its possibilities. If it wasn't a real bargain, I wouldn't buy it again now. A good soundcard might be a better investment.
I have an html formated manual for anyone in need for it.

I am using whatever software the unit originally shipped with (back in 198x). The guy who sold me the unit suppplied an OS upgrade on a floppy, however I never load it because it is not compatible with stuff that you save under the original OS.
I also don't know how to copy the later OS it because it is AKAI format and I run PCs.

Once you get over the "sampler learning curve"--I am refering to all samplers here--the unit is very easy to use. Recording samples is straight forward with a level threshold trigger. It took about a day for me to start making tracks with it though (I'm not exactly the sharpest pencil in the box). The manual sucks, but they all pretty much do so we'll let that slide..

8 outs, 8 outs, 8 outs! I use this sampler as a drum machine and it performs that task very well. I have it loaded with Roland TR-909 and TR-808 samples, plus several other custom samples I created. The timing on the unit is rock-solid and its response to different velocites is good. The unit, like all samplers I know of, has a transpose function, however, of course, there is no timestretch available.

No effects or expansion is possible (other than a board--if you can find one these days--that adds 8 analog INs for use as drum triggers)--which must totally rock with a Roland TR series box.

The units major downfall is that it only has 720KB of RAM making it pretty useless for anything other than a drum box. But, I have the unit programmed with several drum kits and I have never ran out of memory--even sampling at the max rate (16000). Obviously the unit lacks most of the modern features you can find on today's samplers.

There is no question that this unit is best as a drum machine. The sampler is 12-bit and this makes your drums sound delightfully harsh and gritty (depending how much you want to abuse the levels)-think 1984 RAP grit. A 909 kick sample on this unit sounds better than the original. There, however, is bit of quantize noise at the low end, and some noise on most of the jacks, BUT remember, garbage in, garbage out. Adjusting my levels yielded far better sound quality.

You can absoultly depend on AKAI samplers. My S900 is at least 12 years old, has changed hands 6 times, and has never crashed on me once. The s900 is truly built like a tank--it's heavy as hell. Every once and a while the big knob falls off (only when I am moving the unit around) but that is nothing that a bit of super-glue wouldn't fix (if I was not so lazy). I don't gig / play out, however if I did the unit's weight might be an issue.

Never delt with them, but I have heard from others that Akai is not the best company for support.

With the price of samplers dropping like a stone these days it is tough to say If I would buy this unit again.

The unit has a very unique sound, and is excellent for techno / house drums (once you learn how to properly sample stuff). I have used it for other stuff than drums, and it added quite a bit of character to the mix, however drums are what its best at. If it were lost or stolen, I would probabily look at a fully expanded AKAI s2000 because mainly because it is aprox $600 USD, and I wouldn't even know where to find another s900. If you are considering an s900 or s950 (more memory), please don't get me wrong, at $200 USD, this unit still has a lot to offer musicians on a budget because of its output routing flexibility.