Yamaha SU-10

I was looping and scratching and filtering within minutes of me opening the box !! I own an Akai S6000, so serious sampling duties are more than taken care of in that respect, but the SU10 is a great little sketchpad. I use mine when away from my studio, but sometimes find myself limited by what samples I have stored in the non destructive memory. I tend to carry a few sample CD's so I can upload new samples either via my CD walkman or my laptop. It also sits in the specially designed tray on my CS1x ;o)

Let's be honest here. This thing is the size of a VHS cassette. It has a ribbon controller, a Low, band and High pass filter with adjustable resonance. It has non destructive memory. It can process external audio thru the filter and scratch facilities in real time. It has a built in sequencer, albeit rudimentary. It runs on 6 "AA" batteries. This is a veritable gem. Anyone who expects anything more of it needs their heads looking at ! It would've been nice to have something like Smart Media storage, but this machine was launched in 96, when that stuff was still VERY pricey.

Like I said before, this is a VHS sized sampler. Don't expect Akai or E-MU quality. But it's inherent Lo-Fi spec gives it character. This unit can satisfy many artists in many genres. People say the filter is poor, and can get a bit "poppy", but this is more to do with clipping than the filter. And it adds to the character !

It's got non volatile memory. Apart from the batteries running out, there's not a shed load that could go wrong here. I bought my unit used, and the ribbon controller (the first thing you might expect to go wrong) plays like new.

As far as the SU10 is concerned, I've never had to contact Yamaha. Whenever I have had the occasion to contact them about another piece of their kit, they have been one of the most helpful and pleasant companies to deal with.

Priceless. A blue diamond. Great fun, especially when your muse escapes you. Get looping. I waited many years to get one, now I wish I'd got one sooner. It's great for ideas, and I just need to get my Roland PMA5 so I can really make some good tunes on the move ;o) I just wish I had the original samples and songs that were stored in the memory when shipped. Being used, these had gone when I bought it. If you have them, mail me !

Extremely easy to use, no manual needed!

Absolute crap sequencer ("I pity the fool who uses it!"), you'll have to slave this unit (I use the Ensoniq ASR-X to write proper sequences.)
The inputs and outputs are noisy, and they use 1/8" jacks, which is inconvenient.
Polyphony is low, as are sampling capabilities.
Editing loops with the scratch pad is a good idea.

The best thing you can do with it is use the ribbon controller to modulate MIDI parameters on other units (again, I use it to control effects on my ASR-X.)

The filter is fun to use. Very strong and noisy resonance. You can change filter parameters while playing if the SU-10 is slaved.

The scratch feature is a bit sketchy; I doubt I'll be using it.

Low sampling rates can always come in handy for more crust.
I recommend the SU-10 for people who make deliberately noisy music.
The filter is very satisfying, it responds pretty well to the ribbon controller. Little filtering accidents happen, but they're often for the best (i.e. more noise!)
I think I'll use this thing with a distortion pedal, it should be fun.

I'll definitely gig with it; I can't see how this sampler could ever crash.
Brownie points for AA battery support!

I would say it's easy to use, but that might be because their aren't too many options/features. I glossed over the manual, and had no trouble using this, my first sampler.

4 note polyphony, but that diminishes with higher sampling rates. in fact, everything diminishes with higher sampling rate. it's not _that_ big of a deal, though, as the lowest and second lowest sampling rates are high enough depending on the sound you're looking for. i, personally, like the filter, i just think it stinks that anytime you want to use ANY of the features (filter, scratch, edit start/loop/end points), it stops playing whatever samples you have going, so it's definitely not a hands on performance machine. i, personally, haven't used midi much, but what i did do was pretty neat. if nothing else, it's neat to hold this 1lb piece of equipment on your lap while playing your 10lb synth sitting on the rack a few feet away. the sequencer is junk. all it does is record pad hits, and can not be edited/overdubbed in any way. one great thing i will say, though, is that it can run on 6 AA batteries. perfect for the ride on the bus, waiting in line _anywhere_, or lounging around the house outside of the "studio". it's a great percussive notepad.

can't really discuss sounds, as it is a sampler. ooh, here's one thing that stinks: you have 12 pads, times four banks of 12 pads each, thats 48 total samples, right? technically, yes, however, i usually max out the memory before getting to the second bank.

i use this unit as a drum machine, for the most part. load up one whole bank with short drum samples and hammer away on those pads. i suppose i would take it to a gig without a backup. i haven't had it for much more than two months, so i guess i can't say much about reliability.

never had to contact them.

overall, for the $77 i paid for it... i love it! sure, it has some definite problems with live performance, but for using in the home studio where you will be using a mixer/recorder/sampler setup, it works just fine. it has a crappy sequencer, and editing filter parameters while playing is not possible, but most people use software or stand-alone sequencers and effects units, so it's not a big deal. this will not be my only sampler, of course, but it is a great piece of equipment if you can get it for under $100 US.

so easy to use, even an anxious gear retard like me that hates reading manuals makes productive use of it.

the filters are so cool! the ribbon controller is even cooler, haven't tried assigning it to an external controller, but the point of it is that you can do scratchy real-time filtering stuff right on the sampler. the screen is very clear and simple. experienced gear peeps will have no problem with it at all.

the manual is fine, haven't read it in a while. yamaha writes good manuals in my opinion.

i think the playback polyphony is 4 samples. you get 12 non-velocity-sensitive keypads, 4 sample banks of 12 samples each, which allow you to store a max of 48 samples, and you can compose 4 songs. when you record, the so-called "sequencer" is not your average drum machine sequencer. you have to either adjust your samples to the exact tempo by sepcifying the start or end points, AND/OR you have to have dead-on rhythm and trigger the samples at the exact right time. if you MIDI sync it to a sequencer, the samples would have to be recorded at the same tempo as the song. i'm a newbie at MIDI, so can't tell you a whole lot, but i currently have it plugged into a QY sequencer, and by trial and error i've done a couple of weird things with them (i forgot what). i just found out the other day that you can change the external filter type while the external source is playing, which is different for recorded samples, which stops playing when you engage the filter type menu. if i remember correctly all the inputs and outputs are 1/8" jacks, for your information. i do not know if the MIDI out can be used as a MIDI thru.

the lowest sampling quality works fine with me. the higher sampling quality, the less sampling time. again, the filters are very sweet.

i think it's very dependable. it's the size of a VHS tape, but considerably heavier. no complaints so far. pretty durable-looking plastic case. ribbon controller looks pretty durable too.

i bought it on ebay, and when i received it it looked pretty brand new. i'd be mighty sad if it was lost or stolen, because i probably don't have the logical capacity to operate more difficult sampling equipment. and i'm more acoustic than electronic, so this little sampler is sufficient for me. i'd say it's a good piece of gear to have for any musician because it's so damn easy to use. you can record samples really fast so it's good when you're inspired. runs on batteries, so you can take it anywhere, although some have pointed out that this things eats batteries quickly (as most of these units do).

This thing is dead simple....even a DJ could get the hang of it pretty quickly.

The manual is patronizingly detailed and clear.

I guess you get what you pay for, but as some one else posted, how hard would it be to add a bit more ram and some basic quantization [I use MIDI, but still...]. Basicaly 2 sounds at once at in full quality mode [no fx].

External Filter is sweet. Im thinking of grabbing another one to use in an effects loop. It has LP, HP, and BP modes, however rezonance is a bit limited as there are only three settings: flat, weak, and strong. The SU-10s filter can not be controlled by midi , and can ONLY be controlled by a "scratchpad", which you slide your finger along to manipulate cutoff [or this crazy scratch effect which gives you cool digital oddness].
You can assign the scratchpad a MIDI CC# and use it as a controller.

The other

In my opinion the worst thing about this unit is that its kinda noizy, and only has cheesy-arse headphone jack in/outputs.
I basicly use it as a drum machine, in full quality mode. I add noiz reduction and lite reverb, and it sounds very nice.

*The pads are not velocity sensitive, but if you use an external sequencer, you can program velocity easily.*

Never had a problem with it, suck up batteries kinda fast, so I'd reccommend getting an AC adapter.

Never had a problem.

If it were lost or stolen I'd likely replace it. Its cheap and simple.
Email me if you have any questions.

thiz sampler iz easy as SHIT. aint nothing to learn, just plug it in and start shredding ghetto style

all tha featurez are dope as sin. thatz it

effects are tha shit.. this machine workz well for distored hip hop

super dependable, everyone should own one.

never had a problem.

best gear ever

I was lost at first. But now I am found. Ok, that was dumb. Its pretty self explanatory if your into the techy music stuff. If your just a guitarist, it may be strange at first. I am a guitarist too so dont hate me for that one. I just messed with techy stuff at the side since I was a kid. At times, this unit is not for the impatient. Loading samples can take forever. The edit feature is real presice. The downside is that it can take forever to delete 2 seconds which you select the starting or ending point. But you gotta do what you gotta do right?

It has some cool features but its not like the hottest shit out there. For me, I am happy with it cuz I am like a folky indie styled musician and use wierd drum loops and sound effects to back me up on guitar along with my qy10 or qy22. The built in effects are cool if youre a dj. I am not, so I appreciate em but dont use em really. The cool thing is you can control it through midi and load/dump things. So, despite the fact that there is low memory in it, you can save it into pc or whatever and make more space. There is an odd sequencer that works in real time. What I do is make a short pattern in any tempo i want, then loop it. That works out. You can pretty much make anything if you do it that way. So, the sequencer really isnt too flexibe...but can be if you are slick enough to pull it off. I just got it a day ago so I about 80% of it. Maybe there is another way to quantize and shit. But for now, an 8. The scratcher is tight. I love that thing. Dont abuse it though or else it will sound soo fake.

Its a sampler and can reach up to 44 mhz or whatever the initials are. So, it sounds as good as your sample or sample rate. Works for djs mostly I would guess. But good for artists that dwell in wierder music like Bjork and Sparkle Horse and me-hehe. Onboard effects are cool but I dont piss in my pants cuz of em. The scratcher ribbon thing is cool. THAT makes me piss in my pants. No velocity and after touch. That wouldve been cool...but it is really necessary. You could always use volume on a mixer to mimic that. So, in my opinion, it gets a 10.

Built like Boss jeans. HEHE-kidding. Built like Boss pedals....Yamaha's are pretty impressive. Never wouldve thought. I always thought Yamaha sucked cuz I had a shit yamaha keyboard as a kid. Boy was I wrong. I would gig without back up since my gigs are a joke anyways..I can take chances. But seriously, this is pretty reliable. You can use batteries too!

They are a great help. Yamaha has the best service of all music products. No bs there!

If it were lost or stolen, I would cry for a few months. Maybe drop out of school and be on the rebound. Hehe. I got it used for 110. So I got a good deal. How could I not give it a 10. Now, if I paid 399, I would give it like a 7 maybe. Get this used. Getting it new is such a rip. One thing I wonder about is...people in this review thing complain that it has 1/8 inputs. WHERE!?!?! I got 1/4 inputs on mine. Is something wrong here. I dont need any strange adapters? I wish I got the sample discs...but i got it used without em. But I can make my own. That way, I dont have to worry about bs royalties. The Verve got screwed by Rolling Stones. Thats a crying shame! I didnt get a manual either. Yet, I got it all down for the most part. So, its a easy toy to learn. GET ONE TODAY! Used of course.

At first - like a lot of electronic gear - the interface can be a bit frustrating, on the su-10, it gets simple, quick. You can quickly sample and filer stuff easily, the external filer feature is nice, just plug in your source and filter!, the filters are pretty nice!!!, my friend does hard house tracks, and when I ran one of his loops through the filter he was ready to pull his gat on me!!!

OK, the polyphony sucks, how much would it cost Yamaha to put like a MEG of memory in this thing?like 20 bucks! this has like 384K !!!
Did I say the filters are very nice! I don't know about the sequencer, but a Roland DIN sync would be nice to start/stop the sequencer, also a "quantize to 1/16" would be cool, YAMAHA!!!, how much would it cost to include a 1/16 quantize option??? its software!!

The thing sounds like a 12 bit sampler, and its cool, I do not expect 44k sound of it. It works real good for country music... just kiddin..
Effects.... the pitch is cool, the scratch is unique, the filters are kick ass. Oh yeah, no velocity or aftertouch, which is cool, unlike the EMU launchpad, they can't even respond to tech questions via e-mail..

This unit is very reliable so far, a good friend was ready to pull a gat on me cause he liked the filters so much, but the Yamaha hard resin blue plastic case came in handy to knock him on his head. I sure can depend on it, and guess what???
THIS LITTLE F*UCKER RUNS ON 6 AA BATTERIES!!!!

You want a classic??? Pick this bad boy up, for less than 200 bucks, you'll be happy! This is a cool ass sampler!

Yeah..., I called Yamaha in Japan for tech support but they tried to sell me opium, I told them that I had a question regarding the SU-10 sampling unit.....

The tr-909 has a midi sequncer built in. Hook this bad boy to the 909 via midi! Check out some of my tracks on-line in s*it real audio, yeah... real audio fuc*king sucks! it does, and it tries to relay info about your listening habits to homebase... PRIVACY ON THE NET IS #1 !!! My music URL is http://www.bayareabusiness.com/music/

Chack it out!!! and pick up a SU-10 if you find one for less than 200 bucks!!

Later!

The LED display is busy, but can be figured out. One of the major problems with this unit is that it requires 1/8 (headphone) jack inputs. SO if you think you're going to take this out of the box and go with it without some kind of adapters you're mistaken. Almost nothing uses those types of jacks.
It came with two sampling cds which are a pain in the ass to load in (jack problem among other things) and half the preset samples are unusuable. It does save things when you turn it off, but occasionally the pitch is altered when you turn it on. So you have to turn it off and on again until thepitch rights itself.

I give the unit a low rating despite some cool features. The fact is, this thing has practically no memory. It's about the same as a Boss SP202, but the Boss unit is expandable. This is for looping (and short loops at that) only. I had hopes to use it as a trigger for some phrase samples (IT is called a "phrase sampler" on the package), but forget it. I had to dump almost all of the presets just to get in four five second samples. Also the supposed 4-track polyphony/sequencer really means four noises can be played at once. effects count as a noise.
On the plus side is the scratch pad, which varies between cool and cheesy. Its actually a ribbon controller and you can program which sound you want to scratch on. I wouldn't use the scratch pad as a staple but its good for little fills.

For such a dinky unit, the rhythm quality is pretty good. After becoming frustrated with this unit, i bought a Roland SP-808 and I would say the drums are comparable. In the end though, I would say the SU-10's limitations in altering the bpm and memory either make it the MAIN drum machine (ie the one that other players can adjust to because it cannot adjust) or an expensive scratch effect.
The onboard effects are OK, but I rarely use them because of the loss of polyphony.

The fact that it sometimes alters the pitch of stored samples makes me wary of this unit. I gigged with it once and it performed well, but i was nervous as hell. It's LED display is unreadable on-stage

n/a

Here's the deal. I bought an SU-10 liked some of its features, hated others and took it back. One week later I got one free (No, I didn't steal it). I don't mind the free one. I don't use it much except at practice to piss off the otherguys. It's small size is great at home, but sucks on stage because its so small that it cant hold its own place. If you have money to burn for a- sometimes- cool scratch effect to ADD to an existing sampling set up or if you're a beginner trying to rave in your bedroom, I'd recommend it. If this is going to be your main sampler in a professional situation, I'd save the money.

This is my second sampler and i think it may be the best one. I just bought it used the other day. It takes a while to learn but i'm starting to learn it's layout. The LCD is great. (the boss sp202 didn't have one.) This makes it easier. I haven't edited yet but i'm sure it's better than going by ear. The manual is pretty good. It's got stupid info in parts. But it explains alot of stuff that beginners and perhaps the initiated would appreciate. Like how frequency works for example

The polyphony is weak 4. That's 2 samples if your using effects. This machine has a built in sequencer!!! I haven't learned it yet but just that feature alone makes it a contender against the sp202! I'm a midiot! (ha ha stole some kid's word) So i don't know the midi capabilities. I know it has bulk dump whatever the hell that is. Also it has a ribbon controller. It's a touch sensitive thing you can use to alter pitch, and scratching and other stuff in realtime. That's fun on it's own! It's also got a decent memory compared to the 202. Holds 48 samples without one of those Evil smart media hard to find ass cards!

I would recommend this for dj's or techno artists. I don't know who else uses a sampler but still. The onboard effects are cool. The scratch is fun just to mess with. Also you can use the scratch and filters on external sounds which is cool. The ribbon controller kicks! I don't know if mines in the best of shape though seeing as how it's used. It does piece out when i tried to play two samples together. It could be my samples though i'm not sure. It's got 4sampling grades and 4types of loops which is cool

I think i can depend on this machine. Yamaha is pretty reputable...
I think the previous owner took decent care of it.
I've only had it for like 2 days so i'm not to sure. I'm not sweating over it

Couldn't tell you

If it was lost I'd shoot myself. If it got stolen, i'd kill everyone in sight till i found it. I wouldn't buy it again. (after the auction closed, i looked at my mucicans friend catalog and i could have paid like 30 more bucks and got it new! DOH!) I'm pretty straped for cash so it's hard to buy new equipment all the time. I think this is going to be my sampler from now on but i'm not sure. The boss sp 202 is pretty cool also. (see my review) They both have the ups and downs. One thing i don't fucking get! Instead of rca inputs (the red and black cables), it's got those small ass 1/8inch headphone jack type things. I've never seen a cd, tape, or any other kind of player to use these. What the hell? Fortunately, I found a converter for like a dollar which is pretty cool. The manual is decent and for beginners, it explains a lot. Anyway, this sampler is used by many pro bands. (Atari teenage riot, shizuo, and i've heard ec8or {but, i thought ec8or used an amiga?} But, still if it's good enough for them it's good enough for me. Hopefully i'll have good luck with it. I'd recommend it. Also i like the size. Anyone with questions, comments, or tips, email me.

Very easy to use... plug your sound source in and sample away.. only the looping is pretty hard since it doesn't have a waveform display

polyphony is only 4 WITHOUT the special FX. if special FX (like scrathing or filtering with the ribbon controller) polyphony is only 2 !!! it has a very small memory.. although it's flash-RAM which keeps the samples in memory when the unit is switched off... the filter is for all sounds so you can't assign LPF for sound #1 and HPF for sound #2... it has a LPF, BPF and HPF...

scratching is quite authentic sounding on some samples and sucks on some samples... sound are as good as you sample them, so it depends on you :) .. it's a bit noisey ...

I'd take it with me on a gig but I wouldn't keep it as a central part of my kit... it's meant to be used by dj's

never dealt...

It's okey if you use it for throwing in some loops and other samples in your music but not much else of use... I wouldn't buy it again.. in fact I'm getting more and more pissed I didn't save 300$ more so I could've bought Akai S-2000... for beginners it's okey but if you want REAL sampling, consider this no more...