Yamaha A3000 Sampler

Once you understand the concept of how Samples and Programs are organized, you'll see that it is very easy and convenient to work with this sampler... (at the beginning is hard to understand)

the effects processor built with the unit is reason enough to choose this machine instead other similars. The midi player is not wonderful, but is a nice value added.

definitely oriented to electronic music!

at first appears to be fragile, and knobs at the front still scare me, but I never had problems until now.

only one time I contacted support (asking about the OS upgrade) and they contacted me in a few days

Hardware samplers are devalued in this days due the "virtual PC samplers". Is a pity that many people are giving these machines in auction sites. Is a very powerful machine and a serious alternative to the Akai S5000 series.

version 1,
once you understand that to use this sampler you have to re-think how you work . i have owned emus and akais and a Roland rompular.
The sample wave data" is the starting point (bottom of function tree). you assign each sample to a midi channel (its own) and route it to a output and fx before you "turn it on" in a "Program/patch" (128 available)
no pre-sets, but it samples sound good especially with the on board fx and filters.once you understand how the hierarchy works its easy! took me a few days and endless searching through forums to realise this! the manual which is as thick as a telephone directory is not very clear it does though have a a couple of tutorials that are quite good if you are new to sampling.
the A3K power user guide you can download is more helpful.i got quite a few hints and tips from the harmony central forums...........

the 3 built in fx are quite good and they can be linked together, i am just discovering them ..techmod sounds good especially of kick drums..
re verbs/delays & echo's are OK and usable, phasers, flanger's sound good, distortions good . there a few specials in there too.excellent value for the money you pay now for these samplers as other's in the same price range don't have these features as standard.
polyphony is good and more than enough for my uses.
I bought mine with the optional output board included which i would recommend as you wont be able to track one down as they are discontinued.if i get a AK4/5 i will take this with me as i expect they are compatible with these modal.
memory expansion (128 meg 4 x 32 sticks) is cheap i got mine of a German e-bay seller for ??25. its very cheap to expand and easy to install

this sampler works well for electronic dance orientated music- techno and drum and bass. though i don't see why it would not sound good with any keyboard player in a rock or soul-funk band with the right samples inside it..
the on-board fx are good and you can us it as a stand alone fx unit with up to 128 programs which you can save to disk and load up to use a s a fx unit.
reacts well to velocity, not sure about after touch as i don't use that much...

this unit seems very reliable in the studio and sounds great-
but because it suffers from a few bugs ie the notorious front knobs not responding to every press, a common fault in a3k samplers ( though you can replace these or clean with a contact cleaner) i would definitely pack this up in a flight case with extra bubble wrap at the front to stop the knobs getting broken off.Why Yamaha did not make these more re-sussed ( not stick out so much) is beyond me as there is plenty of free space inside the unit!!!
also the scsi is very slow to save and load, i don't have a hard drive in mine yet and just use a omega zip 100 mb disk drive. i have a few problems with mine.I was able to import akai s2800/emu es12000 samples from Zip disk then all of a sudden the ak3 decided not to recognise them and lock up the A3K with no buttons , knobs active!
not sure what this problem is as I have not owned it long and still on the learning curve.

i have sent Yamaha a e-mail and waiting for a reply- so no opinion as yet.. get more help from the Yamaha yahoo group or harmony centra forums..upgrades are easy enough to do your self , also simple repairs of knobs can be done by novices.

if this was lost or stolen? yes i would get another, but i would buy the A4000 or A5000 as they are very cheap and have better features. in fact i think i will trade my a3000 soon for a a5000 as soon as i see a cheap one i will buy it.
i love the features on this sampler, it has good fx, filters, plenty of outputs.easy to upgrade with ram memory, hard drives which are all cheap now!
i hate the way the knobs stick especially knob 5 which is used for loading and saving!!! i am going to buy some "deoxit d5" contact cleaner and spray it up!
the sampler is a bit confusing to use especially if you have been a Akai/emu user , but once you understand that you first asinine a midi channel to each individual sample along with -FX & output you will be laughing. manual is bit confusing and un-clear.Though has a few tutorials which are good if you are new to samplers.
easy to sample on this unit and it places samples up the keyboard like a Emu does.no wave sample display, but just use your ears! or get the the pc editor and a scsi card if you are that botherd, i started out wit a Akai S950 making hard core and never needed any thing but my ears to trim loops and edits and i think it is good practice to do this !

for the money you pay for this sampler it is better than a akai s3000,and a emu esi2000 .Both of them have there good points especially the Emus have simple os system, but are expensive to upgrade with the optional extra boards.
very good value , good sound easy to use.a modern classic buy one now before everyone realises how cheap and good they are , or better still get the a5000!

I brought this sampler with ver 2 pre installed. At first i found it easy to set the unit up, get my first sample recorded and auditioned. Also found it easy to get sevral samples recorded, edited and keymapped, so this was quite cool. I then tried to create a program for use on a live set; after setting it up and saving it, i found if i loaded another program or restarted the unit, it would not remember the samples, but would recall all the effects and mapping. This was wierd so i looked in the manual and found it very hard to follow and understand. I found editing samples quite tedious, intill i came across a SCSi card and some sofware, which made this sampler a joy to work with, the software also sorted out the program recall problem. i eventually worked out that yamaha was using a diffrent language from what akai used and found that there was not a problem, but yamaha could have said in their manual.
I cant comment on the preset disk, as this was not included when brought the unit.

I have being using the A3000 for multipul purposes, including sampling and effects. Because this unit has three effects blocks, it makes it brilliant as an outboard effects processor as well as being able to sample and process sound. The sound quality is good and the editing features are good. the only thing which lets this sampler down is the screen size and the inability to display waveforms, but is not a problem if you have software. The A3000 has a built in sequencer on board but i have never used it, because i use my keyboards internal one. I have upgraded the memory from standard to 128MB, this has improved the sampling time alot and is faster processing samples and effects. The unit has a built in floppy drive which is, very slow. I have installed a HHD to make life easier, but this also painfully slow and sending stuff from the computer is even slower. the polyphony is good, but low, but not a problem (i can crash the unit from leaning on the keyboard.)
i believe you can get a digital board for this, but i have found that i can channel digital from my pc and the A3000 picks up my soundcards connection (says nothing about that in the manual)

I brought this unit for dance and game music production. it works very well in these genres, but is very good at doing trance, breakbeat, dub, drum and bass and rap and hip hop applications.
i have found the internal effects to be very good, except from the vocal remover, which does not work. the exciter is good, but only good while hooked up to the master channel, in the effects rack before amping.
Ive also found the headphone port fuzzy and the assignable outs give off some noise, but i cant complain because this sampler is over 10 years old.

because of how slow this unit is, the frequencies of system problems and the strengh of the units knobs (i broke one, which happened when i hung a cable off the front, which shows how strongly made this unit is), i would not take this unit on stage. i think this unit is good for studio based use, but not stage use.
i give this a five because of how slow this unit is and the durability of the panel switches.

Never had to deal with Yamaha with this unit. but have delt with them in the past and they are very helpful.

I think this sampler was worth what i paid (??90 (I would have paid more)). I have brought other samplers before in forms off keyboards, software and an akai. this sampler does not beat the akai, but it is cool in it own little way. I love the fact that it is lighter than the akai and the effects are better, but i do hate the pannel knobs with a passion. if the A3000 broke i would have to replace it, but with maybe an A4000 or A5000, because they have a bigger screen. this sampler has done me well since i have had it and it has helped me create more complicated music with more indepth samples (using multipul samplers at the same time). this sampler suits my keyboard better and sits in the rack next to my other grey equipment (the akai s4000 sticks out to much(white sampler))i wish the digital board was connected and i wish this sampler was faster.

You should read the manual once, after that and a little practice the interface becomes quite intuitive. The paramter matrix design is adequate, as is the complementary "command" button which allows you to access context-sensitive set of functions.

I bought it pretty soon after it came out (hence the price). It appears to have aged well feauture wise. I forget what the polyphony is but I have yet to run out. The effects are OK, good in some cases and unnucessary in others, but that applies to any effect module out there, so I can't blame Yamaha. Expansion capabilities are good, with extra outputs and digital i/o. Mine is expanded and has extra memory, 66 megs total, which I also find sufficient even though I do work with large samples. The filters are extremely good, and with some settings sound almost analogue.

The disk i/o is notoriously slow, and I take off a point for that.

I did an A/B test many times, with the actual sound and its sampled version. In my opinion, the A3000 sounds very transparent and more so than my K2000. Modulation options allow you to route anything MIDI (such as aftertouch etc) to many paramters of the sound, which makes the playing all the more expressive.

I have a built-in SCSI drive, which once in a while get one of the volumes corrupted. The frequence of such event went down after I upgraded from Windows 95 to 98 on my host PC, with which I do most of the sampling and sample downloads, which makes me think the fault is on the Windows site. Since I back up my data on an external Syjet cartridge (which seems to work very well), this hasn't been much of a problem.

Yamaha as been very good to me in the past, no need for support with this unit.

For the prices they can be had for now, it's a no-brainer -- yes, I would replace it in a heartbeat. I tried software sampers but nothing comes close. I recommens using a SCSI card to exchange samples with your PC, as this allows you to do some very precise sample editing and sound design on a big screen, then dump the sound into the A3000 and add finishing touches.

This was my first sampler, and after reading the manual and playing around for a few hours, i was very familier with the operation. the routing is really easy and powerful, you can send a signal in, through the fx processors and back out again without using the sampler if you want to!

loop/breakbeat sampler is excellent, and the time stretch engine is very accurate and sounds smooth. the "panel play" button which makes the sampler behave like a midi controller is really clever, and means i didn't need a seperate control surface for my onboard synths

i've used this for rock/dance/experimental and in all cases it's worked very well the sound is silky at the high and punchy at the low ends, and the D/A converters produce little or no colouring of the sound.

i've never had a problem with the unit, it's always booted, saved, ran as it has the first time i pressed the power button, and from a Yamaha, i wouldn't expect any less

upgraded the unit to 128Megs of Ram, to use an extended loop in stereo, the instructions were very clear and i was up and running again in no time

this sampler is a Yamaha through and through. quality, sound, reliability and VFM. I would definately recommend a zip/jazz/hard disc, though, as there's nothing more annoying then running out of space on a floppy disc halfway through a save!!
overall this is a better quality sampler then the early Akai or EMU models for the price, and with a lot of possible upgrades (including the software archetecture!!) is definately a good future-proof investment for the home or studio user

Very easy to use. Menus are way more intuitive than those Akai nightmares and controls and editing are more "focused" than EmUs. Recording is simplicity itself and things seemed to be sensibly optimised so you don't have to specify everything for every process but you can tinker if need be...

The features on this sampler are excellent. The Yamaha FX (up to 3 patches can be chained together or kept separate)are really punchy and ...er.. effective. The filter options are pretty good - there's 3 Low Pass type, 3 High pass, band pass, eliminators, 2 peaks and some dual combo filters. A firly solid LFo which is eminently useable but doesn't totally rock my world. Nice rotary controllers so you can dial things in and with practice control performance parameters in realtime. Everything you can think of can be controlled by MIDI which is cool and the Program / sample / sample group structure is intuitive and works well (different from horrid Akais). I have the upgraded expansion board and maximum memory so that's all very good and far more (I/Os) than I need. I wish you could plug in an ASCII keyboard but know I'm being picky!

The ADCs and DACs are very good... really crisp yet creamy on mid-ranges... Filters are pretty good but don't stand up to E-Mu competition. Stereo imaging is excellent and as I said the effects are really useful - Reverb is just OK but more than useable especially in a live format. In all ways better than akia monsters.

Yes - not even a sniff of a problem - all worked without a problem - hasn't got confused despite my best efforts.

haven't had to...

As you may have guessed I really like this sampler. I have used Akais plenty over the years and found them absolutley infuriating - and difficult. It sounds great - it has been well designed and put together in a sensible way. It's intuitive and reliable. I really like EMus but find them a lttle over complicated sometimes. I think E-Mus are better but Yamahas are highly underrated. They are cheap as chips at the moment and I urge people to pick up a great machine!!!

Using anything but V2 OS is no-no. At first it pissed me off, but then it slowly began making sense. Just needed to find out that you can select your samples via the keyboard, which is very nice for fast editing. I was attracted to the tinny led so that the fingers and ears do all the work instead of the eyes. Lots of automapping is nice. Pretty fast to work with, but not super fast. Like this better than Kontakt or all the other software-samplers.

Effects are good. Resampling through them is real fun. Slow disk speeds, but ok. Loading seems pretty fast. Really nice EQ for each sample. The mono to stereo thingy is really nice for example: had a guitar riff in mono, sequenced it and then duplicated the sample and added the stereo thingy and put in a sequence later on in the track - very nice effect. Filters are really nice, use them on every sample. LFO > pitch > filterMOD > amp. Another LFO for example wet/dry control of an effect. Could use 2 more LFO's though. Overall EQ for final output. Sampling trough effects is good, the effects chosen for recording are not the same as playback, which could be dreaded. Pretty capable as a synth also, the lfo > pitch mod and filtermod can produce decent results. LFO-panning is not an option, but there's an effect called autopan which does the same, but then you use a precious effect block.

Sound is good. Clean but not super defined, a bit analog/distant(only a little) sounding which I really like - not in-your-face-treble-trash. More lowend than Akai. The optional outputs are lower than the main outputs, which is lame. It's a matter of taste.

My first crash so far, was when saving a program while playing back a sequence, which is a cool feature but can be spared if it results in crashing. So far so good. Gigging with it is an option, but the knobs and digital outputs on the back make it not-so-handy as opposed to a closed rackcase, which would be fine.

dunno

I like this sampler. Before this I used to have a kurzweil K2000r without the sampling option, so I sold it and got this one, which I have yet to regret. This is really a sampler with lots of control over the samples. The K2000r was and is great for LFO-infernos but it wasn't me (probably because of the missing sample option) since I just wanted to do sampling and a bit of mangling. Velocity controls sample startpoint is also nice(it's really a sampler).
It helps me make music because of its (good) limitations and LFO shortcomings; I won't get caught playing with unlimited amounts of insane modulation matrixes or whatever - just sample, trim/pan/(de)tune, EQ, Filter, Effect.
If lost/stolen/thrashed I would get an Akai S3000xl and curse at it: "Why can't it do this? Why can't it do this and that."
It's nice to look at which is for me a deciding factor, since I'm going to look at it so much. The akai's are prettier and faster and tighter(midi wise) but more bang for the buck with this one. Won't regret buying an Akai but you'll be missing out on some cool features. Don't know about the others, since I have to find the casing attractive before I wan't to fiddle with them. Wouldn't mind going on a date with the Akai S3000XL, now that's good looking, screw what's on the inside I just want to turn those knobs. The s6000 is also pretty but maybe too big. I feel like I'm cheating now, gotta boot the blue beast before she finds out.

I just got this and booted it for the first time today. The system looks a lot like on Yamaha CS6r so I'm not totally new to it, but after working with a Kurzweil K2000r for 4 years now, this new machine seemed quite un-user friendly (at first at least). I got it with 64mb, 10 outs (ahh it's cool to have the digital I/O in both opt and coax), 100mb zip and a cd-rom drive for 450E (440USD?) only, me = lucky bastard.

The 64 poly sounds pretty promising and I believe it's enough for my use, I'm gonna use it as a drum machine after sampling several kits of drums, percussions and loops. As far as the effects are by Yamaha and if they are the same series of effects as on the CS1x/CS6r machines, I'm not going to use the reverbs at all. Well, I can't say much on it yet for I have no further knowledge on it yet =I

Hmm no idea but I believe it's a nice beast for electronic dance music =)

Hmm dunno if I could take it on a gig, I gotta try it out a lot at first.. and I'm also afraid the knobs would get f*cked up while carrying it around from town to town.

No idea.

I believe we're going to be good friends once we get to know each other =) And for the price I got it, it's a fantastic machine!

Very easy to use once you get your head round it, more logical than the Akai's IMO, although I have never used a EMU so I cant compare. Dont be put off by the little screen either, everything you need to see is up there no probs.

Good filters (16 in all), just a shame cant link two in series / parralel. Envelopes for pitch, filter & amp are funtional, but Lfo is a bit crap (wont go fast enough). Six matrix routings availiable per sample for midi controllers which come in handy.

Like I said filters sound good, better than Akai (but I havent heard EMU filters), the onboard FX are absolute rubbish so dont expect anything from them, I supose they are usable but I would try and avoid them. The overall sound quaily from the outputs of this sampler is ok, but a bit duller than an Akai (I did a test using the same sample dumped over SCUSSI to both units). The signal to noise is not that great either and on the extra outputs it gets worse, very poor IMO, lots of gain needed on the desk.

all the front dials go after a bit there a bit crap! Go the opposite way. Everything else seems ok.

ok

Well it's took me a weekend to work out this thing. Ive worked with akais in the past, one of which was a 900 so im used to the small screen thing. It's no slower than useing an akai once you know where everything is. If you've got a PC (i'm sure you have) then get a SCSI card and do your wave editing outside the sampler. I know it has a bit of a reputation for being hard to use but I think you have balance that out with what you are getting for the money.

What doesnt this thing have? Only two things let it down the reverbs are tinny metaly yamaha things and as everyone knows the knobs are not exactly accrurate, I tryed cleaning with RS contact cleaner which made them fine for about half an hour but i'm not opening the front end up every time i want to use the thing.
Mine came with the output board 10 outs is nice!

Well this is the whole point of the thing isnt it? It's fab! Filters are great, way way better than any akai ive heard, although the filter envelopes could be a little more 'expressive' and it would be nice if the lfo speeds where a little more controlable. A mate of mine pointed out the simlaritys with his cs1x, he's right this is as much a synth as a sampler.

I've only had it a few days so I dont know, heard some horror stories though but thats the same with everything.

Well i've heard their really bad and I had trouble downloading the v2 manual from the website.

i only paid #350 (about $500 to you slackasses over the water) for mine with the output board 66meg and a 250 zip, I can think of any thing you'll get for that kind of money that'll come close, maybe a cheap esi withe calamri/turbo board. Pick one up before people realise that plugin samplers are not as good as the real thing and start wanting stuff like this again. I can already say its the best sampler I've owned.