Yamaha A3000 Sampler

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.

This machine IS easy to use! The manual gives a very good description of the overall layout. I've had it for just a week and I've already completed three tracks, and I'm not talking about simplistic stuff. The knobs are what make this machine so easy to use. As far as I'm concerned, having a software editor wouldn't make operation much faster. I find the front panel so intuitive that using a mouse would actually slow me down!
Sometimes, if you turn a knob too fast back and forth, it gets confused and changes the parameter in the wrong direction! This is initially very annoying but you soon learn how to control it. But it's nowhere near as bad as some people make out.
Then there's the infamous SCSI issue. I have mine connected to a Zip100 drive and yes, it can be slow if you use big samples. I tend to work with lots of smaller samples and it's totally acceptable for me.

Polyphony is 64 voices, which I find to be more than enough for even complex tracks, remember you can resample very easily. The onboard FX are mostly very good, as good as any mid-price stand alone multi-FX unit. Most really need to be worked on before they sound good though. Again, with resampling you can really make the most of these.
I have the output expansion board but I haven't made use of it yet.
Er, forget the sequencer. If you're serious (or even sane!) you'll use a software sequencer like Cubase or Logic.

The sound quality is utterly great. In fact I often find it TOO good! I regularly use the lower bandwidth sample rates to make things a bit dirtier. In fact, sampling at 5khz through the Exciter and 3-band EQ, you can get a very respectable high quality sound!
The filters are fantastic. There are 16 types (I think) from basic low and high pass to dual filters. They can be utterly evil or warm, whatever you want.
I would say it can do any kind of sample duty you would want it too, but for big samples the SCSI might put you off.
If you like Warp records and similar stuff, you'll really love this machine.

No problems so far. Only had it for a week.

Never dealt with them. They have a bit of a bad rep though.

I would buy one again without doubt. I use it with an AN1x and it's all I need! The only "bad" things are - the knob response, the slow SCSI.
I think if you use a lot of big, realistic piano and string multisamples then this isn't the sampler for you. It can do these things as well as any other sampler, but the slow loading/saving would become very frustrating. However, if like me you use a sampler to make totally original, unheard-of sounds and you like to be creative and inventive, you will totally love this instrument.

I got this thing very soon after it came out (about 2 or 3 months) so I had to buy the ROM chip ($150!!!!) to upgrade to V2 software. not good on yamahas part. but really, I don't know how anyone says this thing is hard to use!!! I think it's very logically laid out, it's just different from other samplers out there. I've only glanced at the manual a couple times in almost 4 years!!

64 notes poly, but gets cut in half with stereo samples. the FX are acually pretty decent but what's great about them is the routing. there's 3 independent blocks and you can connect them together in every possible manner. very nice. comes standard with 4 outs but you can and 6 more plus optical and RCA (both stereo S/PDIF) on one card that costs around $150 or so I think (I can't really remmember). every one complains about the level of the aux outs, but really it's not that much of a problem if your mixer has quiet mic preamps. SCSI is slow but managable. it's a world faster than the akai s950 though, and we lived with that for 5 years didn't we?

well it is a yamaha, so it does sound a little thin. but that can be fixed with tube or analog FX/dynamics processing. it does have a fair amount of crispness and punch to it though. the filters are pretty aggressive and not all to digital sounding and are good for sweeps as well as general EQing. which brings me to one of my fav features, the single band of ONLINE (or realtime) parametric EQ! not offline like every other sampler on the market. you simply have no idea how usful this really is untill you put it into regular use. and I haven't even gone into the envelopes. there's 3 ADSR (hardwired to amp, filter and pitch) with time AND level for attack, delay, sustain and release.

well, the knobs did get a bit loose and the audition button broke, but I've been rather rough on it. there's also some minor timing problems but only when you're pushing it as far as it will go. all in all it's been fairly realiable.

about as helpful as my cat. don't even try.

if it were lost or stolen, I'd get an A5000 or an E-mu E6400. at the time this was pretty hi end but technology has moved on. for the price this is goin' for now though (around $600-$900) I would definatly recomend it.

Very hard to use i had for three months i still can control,it would be easyier to use if manual 1 & 2 was a single book, editing patches is very hard

polyphony 64 note
yes expansion capabilitiesit & have an on-board sequencer is easy to use

Expresiveness/Soundssome
instruments very realisti

Reliability

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Customer Support

Overall Rating

The A3000 is so easy to use I almost couldn't believe it... Once you spend the 5 minutes necessary to read the tutorial section of the manual (which, btw, is quite good, although it is organized more as a reference than as a "manual" which can lead to problems) to figure out how things are laid out, you will be making sounds happen.

The Midi capabilities of this are pretty much amazing. 8 external controllers per sample, 4 per program (or is it 8?) - ridiculous. The polyphony is way more than necessary, the effects are actually not that bad (for effects that sound like digital effects)... Plus the expansion board stuff.
Nota bene: disk transfer rates and midi dump rates pretty much blow for this thing. You've either got to get your whole sample set in early on or spend time waiting around while you load it up.

The A3000 sounds excellent, but a little bit dry. It is possible to beef up the sounds, but I find it's quite difficult to get them as full sounding as I want. Not too much of an issue though, if you have some nice offboard analog effects.

Hasn't crashed on me yet...

For the money, I think it was the best choice. I was also considering an akai s3000xl for $750, and I think this one is more user friendly, more expandable, and a lot cheaper... Haven't had a chance to compare sounds though; maybe the akai is thicker.

pretty easy to use (V2)buttt,
lcd screen is too small when you`re working with loads of samples!
using a cool editor like b-zone for PC helps a bit but doesn`t fix the glitch :(

64 P which is fine (for me)
effects are ok but not incredible as some people say
give me some real good reverbs insted of all these `techno-toys`
although some are usefull, most of them just sound crappy and remind me of the mc 303 groovebox from Roland
the-sucker-victory-machine :)
so I ended up not using the effects a lot
the effects are definitly not a reason to buy this sampler!!

good thing is the fact you get 3 blocks and they`re standard
and pretty flexible

`the A3000 comes standard with a scsi interface`
they made a mistake, scsi = slowsci
horrible slow

sound quality is very good
no complaints about that but even here the a3k has a sucky side,
yes I am talking about assignable extra outs,
the signal of these is much lower, less expressive as the main outs
so you`ll need to do a lot of extra editing to level all your outs..
bad bad baby!

reliabilty is the reason why I sold it in the first place!
jesus, just take a look at www.a3kcentral.com and
you`ll find a lot of people with HD crashes etc.
I will not dive into this now but my HD has crashed (losing all my partition, and samples!) 3x times since I got it (1 year ago)
this is just not acceptable if you store a lot of samples and use it as your main instrumento
maybe a scsi zip is a better solution, but even with these I saw people having problems

never dealt with them

sold the A3k recently and went for an Emu
costs bit more but you can find some pretty good secondhand deals on the net
it`s just better, much faster, more reliable and flexible

if this is an extra add of flavour for you
the a3k is ok but
using this sampler as a main instrument though,
is not a smart idea..

Using V2 software, when I received the machine I was utterly confused - tinny screen seemingly illogical menues etc, spent two hours looking in the (pretty good) manual but I hate manuals so I gave up entirely, looked at it again, realised it wasn't an EMU/ Akai sampler and suddenly everything clicked. Once you figure out its logic (which if you approach it with an open mind is pretty obvious) this thing is FAR essier to use than the Akai or EMU samplers. In fact, the manual is almost unnecissary, if you don't know howto do something -guess, you're probably right. Only complain is that the 5 (very useful)Jog dials are the clicky optical sort which means the speed at which you turn them doesn't exactly corralate to how fast data scrolls (if I'm controlling any variable for recording I use my Fatboy) and those little button are just way too little.

Polyphony? Voices? not sure - way more than I midi channels / ram.
SCSI implementation really isn't that bad!! (reletively) lots of problems but then alot less problems than with any other SCSI using instrument I've tried. Only comes with 2 pairs of outputs (+headphone) but an expansion board giving another (i think) 4 plus digital outs is availible. Can take up to 128mb of ram (I only have 34 but will upgrade soon - standard 72 pin is used so this can be pretty cheap). You will need to buy a SCSI hard drive and CD-ROM to make it usefull - floppy is slooooooow. Note - mount the Hard Drive EXTERNALY (if internal it not only makes alot on noise through the casing but it seems power noises are passed to the outputs!!) Another good feature worth mentioning is it can import Wav files through the floppy drive.

Samples sound perfect, maybe too perfect - I often reduce the sample rate or use the effects to mess them up a little, otherwise they are just too clear!! Some of the onboard effects are pretty good - others are completely useless but there are lots off them and while only 3 can be used at once they can be strung together in any which way. This is also (unless you mount the hard drive internally) an extreemly quite machine - puts out less noise than anything else in my studio.

Never have had the slightest problem.

never needed them.

I got this for $600 in mint condition and then spent another hundred on 32 megs of ram (only came with 2mb ram), 2 gig hard drive and antique CD rom drive. For $700 this machine is rediculously good - it is way better than the Akai S3000s and older EMU syths, the 4000 is not sigificantly better so the only samplers you are going to find better that I know of are the S5/6000, and the new EMU samplers - and now you're talking 2~3 times the price

I had version 1.something
Okay to use (considering the small display), but when you have more than 20 samples it becomes really difficult to have a good overview of your song.

SCSI SUCKS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I put in a 4 gig hard disk and had to wait 30 sec before I could acces it!!! HOW CAN YOU WORK WITH THAT?????????
importing a sample from my computer also takes 3 min/mb
The scsi is a SCSI-I interface connected through the SERIAL PORT of the A3000 mainboard!!!!
It is the most STUPID, CHEAP implementation I've ever seen

Now this isssssssssss something to buy the sampler for. The sound effects are REALLY amazing

It's pretty reliable. I had some crashes/bugs, but I could get an update for most

calling calling again again.... NO ONE at Yamaha knowing ANYTHING about the hardware VERY BAD

I had mine for a year and am glad I sold it. 128 mb is useless with a slow processor. It is really a great sampler to have on the side, but if you really use it a lot and want to use its SCSI, buy something else!!!