Yamaha A4000 Sampler

A number of people gripe that this sampler is difficult to use. I found it a challenge at first because I had never used a sampler before and this is a pro unit. However, after going through the manual I discovered that it is a well designed and powerful musical instrument.

Getting samples into the until can be a pain. I tend to create a lot of sounds on the PC and then use a freeware app to send them over a SCSI connection to the A4000. I was using a zip for storage but found that it was causing line noise so I switched to an internal HDD which is faster.

The A4000 comes with 64 notes of polyphony, more than enough for most users. It can be expanded with the optional AIEB1 card which comes with optical outs. Its MIDI capabilities are very complete and even allow control over fx, filters, etc. The onboard sequencer is simple and mostly for entering simple patterns.

The area where this sampler really shines is the fx banks. The A series comes loaded with many beautiful sounding fx that can be routed in series or parallel to create very professional sounding tracks.

I use this sampler with an electronic drum kit. I find it very easy to trigger and control samples as well as fx and lfo, etc. It is a very expressive instrument.

When I first got it I found the loading times to be a bit slow. However, with the new 1.5 OS it is much faster and easier to use. Though I have not yet done so I do plan on using this live. It is stable and reliable for live use.

In this age of software samplers, if I lost my Yammy I would probably replace it if I found a used one for a good price. Although I use computers to create and edit sounds I like the A4000 for its fast, simple, reliable operation and most of all the wonderful sounding effects.

On the day I received this sampler I was tempted to send it right back. It just did not work the way I did. At almost every turn I was cursing and flipping through the manual. Now, after working with it for a couple of weeks, I can say that, if you are willing to unlearn old habits, Yamaha's OS is, in many ways, an improvement. It's miles ahead of the Roland architecture. It is a little more musical than the Akai method. It doesn't quite have the flexibility of a Kurzweil, but this is a sampler that sells for around $700. I have owned and worked extensively with Ensoniq, Roland, Akai and Kurzweil samplers for the last 15 years. Yamaha has completely rethought the traditional sampler OS. At the very least, it's nice to see a company willing to search for a better road.

64 voices is plenty of polyphony for my applications. (This sampler supplies dedicated drum kits in my studio.) The built-in effects are fun. If I was a techno or r&b producer, I could find plenty of uses for these effects. The reverbs and delays are too weak to use when you have access to good quality, dedicated units. I expanded my A4000 to 100 Meg of RAM, a built in Zip disk and an 8 Gig IDE drive. Everything works great. Whatever god-awful SCSI controller Yamaha used on this unit should be scrapped. However, the IDE load times are only a fraction of the SCSI times. (Go figure.) If I had to use the SCSI bus for loading work, I would have to return this unit. Single, large, contiguous files seem to be alright, but large numbers of small, scattered files (i.e. drum sounds) take forever to load over the SCSI bus. The on-board sequencer was only included for playing demos in music stores.

The sound is excellent. The sample quality rivals my Kurzweil. (And that says a lot!) It has a low-mid, almost analog fullness that I prefer to my Akai for drums.

Well, I've only had it for a couple of weeks, and it does not travel with me. However, the build quality seems excellent. I've had to replace the power supply on two Akai samplers. The A4000 seems to be somewhere between the Akai and the Kurzweil in terms of the neatness and logic of the internal layout and sturdy construction. It does run 24-7 in the studio and (thanks to an internal fan) is one of the coolest running units in my synth rack.

I dealt with Yamaha's service department on several occasions in the 1980's. I ordered parts for a KX88, TX816 etc.. They were always very helpful. I don't know that they have maintained this level of service. However, the Motif site and user forum are very helpful so I'm sure that they are capable of giving good service. Of course, no service department is ever better than the weakest link. All it takes is one moron to mis-handle a single customer . . .

For the price I paid, I really can't think of another sampler that would compete. I'm happy. BTW - Four outputs should be the minimum standard for all samplers. This allows me to have a stereo spread for toms and cymbals, and one individual out each for kick and snare.

I have been hearing a lot of complaints from people having a hard time figuring this box out. Maybe I am just a backwards kind of guy, but I thought after about a day with it, it seemed like the easiest sampler I have ever used. The knobs can be twisted and pushed, so navigation of menus is really easy once you get the hang of it. Contrary to popular belief, the manual is really very well laid out, and you shouldn't have much of a problem finding what you need if you have even one ounce of flexible logic in your skull.

The polyphony is just fine for my purposes (techno). The effects are some of the best I have ever heard, and it covers the full range from standard 'verbs and delays to more exotic combinations. They are arranged in blocks which can interact in many interesting ways, opening up some cool fx routing options. It comes with 4 standard outs, to which you can add 6 more. You can also add an ide or scsi internal hard drive up to 8 gig in size. The memory goes up to 128 mb in simm pairs. Make sure you get the 16 chip kind. I have had no problem mapping my rm1x knobs to control all the functions in the a4000. The midi function editor is top-notch. There is an on-board sequencer, which is just a plain vanilla scratch pad. Pretty easy to use.

Everything about this sampler makes me very happy. The sounds you can get out of this thing will blow all you techno-heads' socks off(it DOES color your sound, making it a bit warmer: Contrast this with emu samplers which sound colder imo). The outputs aren't noisy, although the fan can definitely be heard. This isn't a problem for me as I don't do much work involving a microphone.

I have gigged with it many times, and had no problems whatsoever. Everyone has a problem with this sampler being so bulky, but honestly that is one of the best features. This sampler has been through a LOT, and not fucked up once.

Never had to deal with them (a good thing).

I would buy it again in a heart-beat. This is simply the best rack sampler I have ever had the pleasure of using (no, I don't work for Yamaha). I am using it with a pc (running reason and some mastering software), an mx1804x mixer, an rm1x sequencer, an ultrafexx pro maximizer, and a midiman 8 controller keyboard. When I compared this to other samplers out there, I figured that the s5000 was its main competition. Don't get me wrong, AKAI KICKS ASS!!!! But, for the money, I decided that the a4k was a better value.

Well..it's not so easy to understand how it should be..
Akai does these things 1000 times better.

Features are good. in this range of money, no other sampler
gives as much as the yammies do.
Expanded outputs are easy to install.
Effects are good.
Sound is good too.

I use it in the Dance/Club industry.
THe sound is as far as i know the only thing which i like about it.

B A D.
I had it for one month...and the ROM was empty.
This happended by some SCSI error Yammy said.
THis makes me nervous...i need a sampler which is reliable.
Yammy is not.

Yammy support is bad.
one word...;-)

I have it here...pumped up with 80mb ram, expension board..
But i am gonna sell it, and buy a Akai Z4. Again...Period ;-)

presets are useless.
editing is tiresome.
the manual is difficult to understand.
You never know which knob to turn; sometimes the first, sometimes the second, user interface absolutely Yamaha: like never tested on a real person;)

polyphony: ok
effects good but unclear how to use
expansion is oldfahioned: floppy disk standard: if you built in a zip drive you miss the floppy, no smartmedia orso

sounds on the CD's are ok, but sooooooooo slooooooooow to load even with a built in scsi harddisk that I never tried more than a couple.

owned it a year, used it a few evenings, than got to tired with the waiting, so I don't know really.

downloaded a new OS version via internet hoping it would speed things up but alas: no difference whatsoever.
Never needed support though

I sold it after having owned it for less then a year, used it only a couple of evenings, because after some trials I found this the most unusefull midi gear I ever had, wishing I never bought it in the first place. sold it for far less than half the price paid, just glad to get rid of it.

Decided never to buy anything Yamaha ever again.
I bought a Roland XV 5080 instead an instantly knew that this was the perfect tool for almost everything I want; plays samples as well, very fast loading, speedy, user friendly etc.

playing now for approx 20 years on all sort of gear: Kurzweil, Roland, even own a yamaha sequencer Qy700 (like this quit well) and one of the first digital mixers from yamaha: DPM 11 ( so much noise in the output that it is rather useless....) Roland JP-8080, Roland 1680 Harddiskrecorder ( full blown version w 2 fx), Roland PMA 5, Alessis drum unit, smte box by steinberg.

he only thing about this A4000 i liked was the quality of the sound, the rest I hated:
-noisy fan in the power supply
-verrrrry BIG unit, Heavy as well difficult to reach the backside to connect cables.
-Incredibly SLOW in everything as if they used the motherboard of a IBM 286 computer from 15 years back
-incomprehensible user interface: which knob to turn? you never know.
- tried to build in an IDE Harddisk: never worked.
- did actually build in a scsi Harddisk: worked but nearly as slow as a 1 speed CD rom drive!!!
- connected a 24 speed scsi CD-rom drive: SLOOOOOOW loading.
- Memory can be upgraded to 128 MB: but only with oldfashioned slow and expensive SIMMS instead of the newer and much speedier and above all very cheap Dimms

As you can see: I would never buy this again, moreso: even if I got one for free, would not use it.

Weird manual! Better to just start messing around. You'll learn ot as you go along even though it might seem hard at first.

Nice list of features. The best are, in my opinion, the effects, the Loop Remix funtion and the Loop divide function.

Includes 10 very good sounding sample cd's (1xaudio/9XCD-Rom)

I've had mine for about 8 months now, and i've had it returned for repair twice so far!

Even thogh I don't think that much of it's reliability, it's a fine machine that sounds really good.

Yamaha uses a very peculiar hierarchy for arranging samples and programs: A single program can be multitimbral, yet the same program can be slotted into a multi-program setup. A sample itself contains filter/eg/lfo information, and that sample can be assigned to a sample group which may also contain filter/eg/lfo info, which can be assigned to a program, which ALSO has filter/eg/lfo information. This is at once both very flexible and very irritating. There are fifteen ways to do the same thing. Some people might like this, some may not. One fine point is the ability to directly import wav/aiff files, meaning I can do edits on my PC, drop them to a floppy, and pull them into the sampler, all without SCSI.

The A4K is loaded, for sure. The effects, the filters, the editing-facilities... For its price, you sure get a lot. It doesn't do any particular thing well, in my opinion, but it's truly greater than the sum of its parts. Yeah, the distortion effect is kinda lame, and the low pass filter sounds a bit digital, but pair them together and you can get some really wanky, wailing sounds to resample and use again.

Haven't touched a sample cd yet. The sound quality is impeccable for straight reproduction of a sample. As noted before, the filters sound a bit digital, particularly as you crank up the resonance/Q. Then again, few samplers don't sound digital, save the old Roland S-series. Not exactly the best sampler to try to recreate heavy filtery Daft Punk-style house riffs; probably better suited for stuff like d&b, techno, and trance.

So far, so good. It's only been a few days but it doesn't appear to have any hiccups, short of painfully slow disk transfer times.

This is my first sampler, so I haven't much to compare it to in practice. I have really taken to it, not so much the A4000 necessarily but with samplers in general. I like the weirdness you can get taking random little snippets of songs and filtering them and looping it all together in some strange arrangement. All told, the learning curve was mellow enough and I've yet to find any real limitation to the A4000. That's about as much as I could ask for in a new piece of gear, and I heartily recommend others trying one out.

At first the unit may seem very very confusing and complex...mainly due to the layout of the manual. The manual isn't all that bad and covers a lot of ground but it's definitely not easy to just open it up and find what you're looking for. Newbies may have a hair pulling time figuring things out but with a little patience you'll soon come to learn how pathetically EASY and I mean EASY this sampler can be to use. Good thing I've been doing this for years and am also a computer tech. Was working with it the first day.

I think most of you already know the specs...if not go to Yamaha's web site (the UK one os better) www.yamaha.co.uk I will say that this this is also the most full featured sampler that I've come across especially in this price range. I mean you can add an internal IDE or SCSI hard drive, external scsi drives, 128 meg memory max, expansion board option, etc. Definitely get the most for your money.

This unit is soooo clean I couldn't believe my ears. I haven't checked the specs but I can tell the noise floor is reeeally low. Not a spec of hiss. The effect section just blew my mind. It has so many effects and the nice thing is that it also has unusual non typical effects as well. Sometimes just reverb and delay get reeeal boring and with these effects you can come up with all new sounds. Routing the effects is VERY easy and really flexible. The CD's it comes with offer a good amount of programs and samples but aren't super thrilling.

Built really solid. Haven't had it long enough to tell.

One thing to say... if you're planning on buying a sampler buy this one! Yes SCSI loading is slow, but I have an internal IDE hard drive and despite what some other people have said the internal IDE loads pretty fast for me. It's just the SCSI CD ROM loading that is slow for me (and floppy ofcourse). With all the features it seemed to me to be the only way to go and I'm glad I went with it. But remember...patience with it and you'll see how easy it really is to use.

The A4000 is a bit unconventional and for certain tasks can be cumbersom to use. This is particularly true with the way samples are structured as independent samples rather than a part of a program. This can make editing a selection of samples a bit more arduos than necessary. Also the A4000 in multimode is not as easy to configure as the EMU's E4 series or the Korg Triton. Overall the A4000 is not to bad

The A4000 has very good filters, a comprehensive CD collection, cool processing tools and interesting effects. However, no matter how good these features they are undermined by one big flaw: Slow I mean excruciatingly slow SCSI and IDE transfer. A 4MB file took me over 2 minutes to load and It took me better than 6 minutes to save a 16MB (native A series)file using either IDE or SCSI with the A4000.

To put this in perspective my EMU e6400 can transfer a 16mb file in less than 40 seconds. My e6400ULTRA takes about 35 seconds. This huge difference in data transfer rates is greater than the difference between using a 56kbs modem and one thats 14.4kbs.


Also the A4000's DSP power seemed a bit taxed as it was slow to perform several DSP tasks.

The extensive effects pallette (particularly useful for urban/dance music), filtering capabilities and useful processing tools such as loop divide offers a outstanding platform of expressive and creative sound sculpting capabilities. As with any sampler the sound comming out is only going to be as good as the sounds that have gone in.

Yamaha should do a better job documenting which hard drives work with the A4000 because the first two hard drives I tried did not work.

Excruciating slow SCSI and IDE transfer rates severely limit the usefulness of this sampler. Perhaps I've ben spoiled by the Emu's but having to wait 400%+ longer for a same size file to load on the A4000 than it takes to load on the EMU e6400 is a bit like surfing the net at 14.4kbs after using a 56kbs modem.

Since the A4000 like many dedicated samplers has no onboard sounds, it's usefulness is based in part on how quickly it can load and save sound files. The A4000's extremely slow SCSI and IDE transfer rates makes the loading and saving of sound files a far too time consuming and arduous task for it to be useful to me. It's a shame because the Yamaha A series do offer a great feature set at a relatively low price.

The A4000 is not too dificult to use but as is typical with much Yamaha gear, the OS can get a bit convoluted particularly in multi-mode and often times simple tasks take longer than necessary. It's too bad Yamaha didn't use a more traditional approach in attaching samples to presets than to banks.

The A4000 comes with a VERY generous helping of CDROMS: 9 in all. Overall the sound quality is quite good and all the sound bases are covered. You can manipulate the sounds using the A4000's great sounding filters and with a little editing many of the included sounds can really come to life

The only downside is that many of the sounds tend to be memory hogs so you'll definetely want to extend the units memory above the standard 4 megs

Reliability should be above average

Yamaha could certainly do a better job documenting which hard-drives work with the A4000 as the first 2 hardrives I tried would not work

If you don't mind waiting over 6 minutes for a 16MB sample to load than you have more patience than me. As I stated above my 3 year old e6400 can load a 16MB sample in under 45 seconds.

The Yamaha A4000 offers a great feature set at a relatively low price. That is one reason why this review is so difficult. On one hand you have a powerful work-horse sampler with enough polyphony, memory(when expanded) and sound shaping tools to keep even the most devoted tweak head happy. Unfortunately, Why Yamaha has decided to implement these features on a mother-board utterly incapable of reasonable SCSI and IDE transfer speeds is beyond me. And since A4000 has no internal sounds the ability to import and export samples quickly is crucial. In this regard loading and saving samples with the A4000 is a frustrating and tedious task that imo would be like surfing the net with 14.4 kbs modem.