Akai Z8

OS version 1.45.

In terms of workflow this sample uses the classic Akai MULTI-> PROGRAM -> KEYGROUP-> ZONE->SAMPLE setup. So the flow is familiar but deeper than previous akai samplers. Manual is not substantial or detailed enough and skirts over a great deal of important information. The Presets that came with it vary in quality but I feel that there is no standout presets that do this sampler justice.

The Panel layout is tragically let down by the position of the shift key. The shift key is essential for a lot of operations but is located just below the Jog wheel and it feels as if it is crammed into too small a space. A better option would have been to locate the button on the top of the panel.

Polyphony is acceptable at a non-expandable 64 voices. The FX by themselves are not great but the flexible FX routing gives you the ability to get much better results. The z8 has either an ADAT optical board or an 8 output analogue board. The Ram can be expanded to 512mb and the internal hard drive can be expanded to a 120gb IDE drive. By offering industry standard formats in Ram and storage and by abandoning its own archaic proprietary filing system Akai made a wise move.

One nice feature is the ability to resample it's own outputs and also the Q-fx function that allows you to render effects as you sample in real time or offline at a lter date.

Akai lose a point for the Z8 for advertising features that do not exist (direct from disk samples??) and glaring omissions like the inability to audition samples from the hard drive.

Akai regain that point for the z8's use of ak.sys Software for controlling the sampler from a computer. It's possibly the best feature of the sampler. Now that most recording is DAW based the integration of Ak.sys into the working environment makes it more valuable than ever.

As a sample playback device the sampler is pretty transparent but offers a huge amount of control over the sound. The filters are not classics by any means. They sound very clean and digital but the sheer variety and amount of them makes for some great sound mangling posibilities.

The Mod matrix is very deep and very comprehensive. Same goes for the level of control over keygroups. Add the Q-Link controls for real time control of the sound and the possibilities are endless. Although, as stated in another review, the absence of Q-link control over FX parameters is another glaring omission.

When I got mine it had a defective FX board that caused the sampler to crash. Once the board was replaced it worked perfectly. I've had no problems with it since.

I would be reluctant to bring it to a gig because of the internal Hard-drive and the slightly Flimsy nature of the control panel.

Also the hard drive is quite noisy. Particularly when it is not in a rack.

The S5000/6000 was of a better build quality.

Never got a response when I contacted Akai so Null points for them.

In this day and age of software samplers it is refreshing to go back to a hardware based machine. The workflow and subsequent results are very different from the modern software based methods. The Z8 is a machine that's easy to use but also very deep.

In places it feels unfinished. Another few OS revisions would have probably made a huge difference. Also by today's standards, it is a bit slow when it comes to processing and disk access.

As it stands, the Z8 is still a very viable and capable machine.

Software version 1.45

This machine is really really easy to use - if you have even worked with a sampler before or with an AKAI machine - this one explains itself. There are no presets, you get out what you put in it! Given the complexity of the tasks it can do, the interaction design of this machine is actually outstanding.

The manual is a little general, not commenting on some important issues. Easy to read tough if you need it in the first place.

Has basically all a musician needs. For all the music genres. It's a sampler. There are 4 efx and with the possibility of using 2 of them simultaneously. Has some 30 something filters (!!), deep editing possibilities and you can modulate almost everything with everything. The only machine i ve seen that exeeds this one is a Kurzweil k2600 or similiar.
Either you're making electronic pop or harsh techno, the editing possibilities are endless.

Mine has 80 GIG harddisk, output option and lots of akai sample cd's free put on the harddisk.

Of course the winner is the usb connection with the AKAISYS software. What else do you need?

Since it's a sampler - it just plays whatever you put into it. Because it's 24bit it sound great: open and wide.
But for my ears the sound has a very metallic feeling to it. Not warm and analogue but harsh, cold and metallic. But that is just what i need. Since I m into techno.
The only machines that sound as good as the Z8 that I ve heard were Asr 10 and K2000.
I ve tried to use some software samplers for a while but still come back to this one. Combines all the best from both worlds. Physical and virtual
The efx are really good. Exept for the distortion which sounds more like an "aluminium" add on to the sound.

never crashed - and i dont expect it to
The only shitty is that the case is from metal but the detachable panel of plastic, which makes it easily trashable when gigging. Too bad the front panel is not made of metal as well.

Even tough this thing is really stabile I often save my stuff to the computer hd. Very easy and fast with the AkSys of course.
This machine will easily survive the next century.
It's just an apocalypse of a "sampler"

Never had any problems and I don't expect to have any.

definitely a pro, super flexible, great sounding piece of gear with never ending possibilities. My other gear includes Machinedrum, mpc 2000xl, Allen & heath, some outboard gear and vst synths. The z8 is when it comes to sound, the center of my setup.
The only thing that could be improved is the plastic front panel. AKAI schould make it of metal.

This product just has it all and doesnt lack anything for me. It's just top of the line for a reasonable price thease days.
it's true that software sampling like Kontakt is really good these days and far cheaper. But to run a good software setup you also need to have a dedicated computer, and a good (expensive) soundcard. Then it's not that cheap afterall to switch to software. WHy would you anyway, if there's the z8?

using the latest os, the sampler is quite ok to use, typical akai sampler, took me around 30 min. to figure it out. some button functionality is somewhat clusmy though, perticulary the shift button, wich hides a number of menus and options depending on where you are in the display window.

manual is ok, but does not go into detail about anything, basicly aimed at the beginner. could be much better.

quite action packed, it is very functional and versatile.
the effects were surpisingly good, as the fx boards of previous akais were horrible. this one is better. got mine fully expanded in every way, and it is the best akai sampler yet, with some exeptions...

sounds good enough, like a digital sampler. a little harsh in the top end perhaps, typicaly digital. modulation is a little clumsy.. and very limited. not all parameterers can be modultated..like the envelope sustain levels, why? but the akais are boring though, dont expect a very creative machine..it plays back sound, and thats it. but alot of sound though....,512 mb actualy. i use the akai for sample playback, and a k2000 for any creative things. they complement eachother.

well....it crashes sometimes, if you put on a sysex filter, the display freezes, the sequencer is useless, it stutters and bounces in time. room for improvment. i have actually used it live without backup..., but not without a certain nervousnes, but for normal operation, it is quite stable, but some of the more specific functions are not reliable...and where are the direct streaming from disk? nowhere to be found! even though they advertised it as a key function, the z8 cannot stream directly from the disk. and the internal disk doesnt work, this is a nightmare, you have to format the disk on a pc, as the z8 just freezes when you try to format a disk. and even after that, the z8 wont read the disk. i have to sendt it for service now,they can deal with it. and the main value wheel, is totaly crap, it starts to behave like my old s2000 just after a few months! meaning that left is right and right is sometimes both, and you dont expect that poor quality for a 3.000E equipment!

Well...they didnt even answer me.
i asked them about the direct streaming, and nobody has answered me at all, like its a big secret that it lacks some of the functions that is was announced with. and the HD trouble..well, the local distrobutor got me to format a disk on my pc, with this litlle program, and guess what...it screwed up my computer big time!
and it still is not read in the z8! ohhh dear!

hmmm...i probably wouldn buy another one, if this one was broken or stolen, its like the sampler equivalent of microsoft...leaves alot to be desired.

but in theory, it should be the best sampler ever, but its not really 100% reliable....

OS version 1.27. The manual is typical for a high tech product - rather vague and confusing at first glance. I've learned more about how to edit using Aksys. This is my first hardware sampler, so I'm completely new to the samples/programs/multis functions. The Akai architecture is pretty easy to figure out and most of the functions are pretty easy to figure out. There are some sounds already loaded and they are pretty good, but one should make their own. Aksys is a PC editor and is much easier to use than the menus on the sampler. The manual is a separately downloaded PDF file and you have to go looking for it, so I will deduct for that. Without the manual, Aksys is not terribly intuitive to start. Once you get the start up and communication worked out, the rest of the program is easy to use. It's a very powerful sampler, so it is not going to be simple to use.

Mine shipped with 250MB of RAM, which I upgraded to 512MB, and a 60GB hard drive. 64 voice poyphony, 2 Midi Ins and 2 Midi Outs, expandable with 8 more analog outputs or Adat outputs, USB connectivity and a SCSI output. With the availablity of USB CDROMS, Zip drives, and hard drives, I doubt I'll use the SCSI. The Z8 front panel is removable so that you can get it to your desktop and the Qlink feature is great for live twekaing of sounds. While I wish the Q link worked with some of the efx, it does work with volume, pan, filters, and LFOs, so there is still a lot of damage you can do to a sound.There are built in effects, but I haven't used them extensively, so I can't really comment on how good they are. The filters are great and there are lots of them. I decided on the Z8 due to the feature set and I haven't found anything that it won't do yet.

It's a sampler. It sounds as good as the samples you feed it and the depth of the programming of the keygroups. The fact that I can port .Wav files via USB means no degradation of the sound. It's pretty quite except when you are transferring data, then there is some drive noise in the background. This should be looked at by Akai, but it shouldn't affect real operation of the unit under normal use.

I haven't had any issues with it yet. I would treat this like a laptop computer - the hard drive is probably the most delicate part of the unit. Inside, everything is latched and screwed down pretty well, so it should be useable for gigs. I'll probably start carrrying a backup hard drive with me. If I were touring, I'd definitely bring a backup with spare drives.

Haven't needed it yet. Downloads are available from the US and global web sites, should be centrally available. The upgrades on the OS come on a regular basis, but Akai should list what each upgrade fixes.

If it were lost or stolen I would definitely replace it. I've been using soft synths and samplers for a couple of years and I've had a phrase sampler (Yamaha) and this is way above those. No latency, no glitching, easy to program, portable, lots of polyphony. I bought this because of the feature set and the fact that Akai has migrated to DIMM memory (SIMMs are hard to find), and IDE hard drives (SCSI are even harder to find), so this is the next generation of hardware.

OS version 1.27, ak.sys version 2

It's easy to use, basic tasks like work ok on the sampler itself, editing patches is more comfortable with ak.sys

64 voices (should have been 128!), fx: chorus, flanger, tape echo (!), reverb, enhancer, compressor, lots of filters. Most fx are very usable. The Z8 can be expanded with 8 outputs and 512 MB of memory (16 MB standard is really insulting!). It is equipped with a usb host port and a usb port for connecting with a pc. You can hook up more Z* in a network. The model I bought was equipped with a 38 gig hard disk with akai sample libraries from older models, and some extras.

The Z8 sounds great, very clean. Most fx are very usable. The sounds/programs on the hard disk vary in quality, but some are very good.

Seems solid. It is like a computer though, the hard disk is just as fragile. For gigs, I probably clone the hard disk to be sure...

It was *really* hard to find the USB drivers that are needed to use ak.sys. I found them on the American web site, ignoring the warning that the software offered was for American models only. They were not to be found on the international web sites!

It's really a different world than the software samplers (and the EWS 64) I've used. Frustration ends here! Worth every penny! The ak.sys software is not super, but quite stable and very usable, with a good response time. Only complaint is that the polyphony is 64 voices. I'd surely buy this one again!