Yamaha A3000 Sampler

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.

Once you get your head round the little matrix its a piece of piss to use. I mainly sample stuff straight into the computer and mess it up using plug-ins, then laod the samples in as wav files. The floppy drive could be a bit faster.

For me the thing that makes this sampler much better than my old esi32 is that you can import wav files....... For me this saves the hassles of resampling everything. The effects are pretty good as well, especially the reverbs.

Sounds slick as you like!!!

I've only had mine for a few months, but before I bought it I used a friends on and off for a year and we never had any problems!

If I lost this magical beast I would most certainly sniff out another one!!! I love its simplicity, its sounds, and its effects. Its the best sampler I have ever used! THE A3000 RULES!!!!!

I just got this thing last week. I tried to sample a sound right away and it worked just the way I thought. I have the version 2 and with 64 MB. It's realy difficult to have 2 manuals to work with. When you sit down with the manual and try to do some stuff you can get confused because the first manual doesn't correspond with the version 2 manual. I think this will not be a major problem, but it takes longer to figure things out. The LCD, though small, is very well lit and looks really cool.

The features have been reviewed many times. Everybody knows the SCSI is slow and that the effects are pretty good. And that the RAM must be carefully tested etc.
I must buy a SCSI drive for it yet. I dunno exactly what to buy, but I think I will buy a SCSI external drive.. I'm not sure yet.
I use it in combination with cubase, but I still have to figure out how to set the midi-controllers and stuff. But I don't think that will be much of a problem.

It sounds really good! You hear what you sample. I cannot hear the difference and I think you cannot too! I don't have the expansionboard (yet). But I can tell you that it doesn't produce any form of noise whatsoever

just got it a week ago.. If it had broken down allready it would have been crap. hahaha

see the reliability

I like it! I paid litle and got much...

I have to put some time in to it, but it seems this thing has some really good features. If you can get it for a good price. GO FOR IT!

This thing is a piece of chocolate cheesecake with a side of strawberry sauce! Oh, wait, its a sampler! Either way, it did the same thing, in that it made me happy with how simple I figured out its use. I had never owned or even used a sampler before, and now I'm samplin' in style, and eatin' some cheescake.

As far as samplers go, you will be hard pressed to find one that comes from the factory with as much stuff on board. The effects give me nightmares (thats good!), and the brown tone is easily attainable.

This is NOT your mom's sampler. Her's smells funnier... but honestly, this is the closest you can get to a synth with a sampler, without adding a damned patchbay to the poor thing.

My only frustration in this area is that without an external storage device, like a SCSI Zip or HD you are in for some seriously long load times. Use this time to go to the bathroom, or to look at porn on the net.

I heard that there is a company that makes these, and that the samplers did not appear here on earth from distant worlds. Seriously, I do not like dealing with the Yamaha Tech people... I have the Version 1 Yamaha MD 4 track, and when my drive went out of wack, and no one could tell me what to do (they named the problem after me!) I gave up on Yamaha tech support... not on their equipment, though.

This thing rules. It layed the ground for the 4000 and 5000 which I heard rule too. The only thing that could make it much better is if it could give you a freggin back massage.