AKAI Samplers Floppy Replacement

[Bud Weiser]

This is the company that I bought the ZuluSCSI from. (I'm sure you're familiar with them)
http://www.chickensys.com/index.html

Yes, I know ´em but ignored for a long time.
I thought they make conversion software only when I decided for CD-xtract and Extreme Sample Converter.

I suspect this is what you need to build a "volume" to be loaded on your legacy AKAI samplers.

Volumes don´t have to be build.
Every time you load more than the content of a single floppy disk into the sampler´s memory and save,- that´s a volume.
I have several "setups" for songs I did in the past and their size are up to 32 megabytes,- depending which AKAI I used.
My S-1000 I normally used for drums has 8meg of sample memory.
That was ideal because that was what the samples of the Clavia DDrum III needed.
The S-1100 has 32megs of RAM ...
So a AKAI volume is different size always and cannot be stored into an empty floppy disk image.
The image of a CD ROM is also different.
But when you got "large" SCSI drives, it´s no biggie and you simply store what you want in one, but slow, go.

I am investigating the free version to see how "user friendly" it might be before I even think about trying to build my own volumes.

What free version ?
You need nothing to store a "volume" to a SCSI drive.

SCSI is slow from today´s point of view, in the past it was the fastest available.
As long as you use your "vintage" hardware sampler, you´ll have to deal w/ that.

Once the stuff is converted into STS format, you cannot use it in a AKAI sampler anymore,- consequently makes no sense copying to SD card.



Bud

[yayajohn]

yes "volumes" just simply "folders" with programs and samples. Different sizes depending on your samplers RAM. For the commercial CD's I purchased I think each "volume" was no more than 8megs with each program numbered. When I upgraded the RAM I can probably have larger volumes on the external drive if I want but if I load another "volume" then I have to manually change the program numbers since they will be numbered the same.
I was referring to "building" volumes on the computer, and storing an image file on the SD flash card, then transferring back to the sampler. Hopefully that is what this software will enable.
When I load the SD flash card in the computer it has 7 image files on it but I can't read what is on each img or edit it in any way.
Possibly convert from STS to AKAI with this software? Who knows. Otherwise just load each CD again. Still faster than a 1X drive.

http://www.chickensys.com/downloads2/translator.html

[valis]

With an older XP era machine (or VM?) there is software that will write those volumes directly, and indirectly (package and “burn” the img).

[at0m]

I've just last week removed my Akai stash from the studio, cleaned it up and took pics to put it all up for sale - which I haven't, yet. This Floppy Replacement thread might make me reconsider to keep some. S3000 and MPC2000XL both with FX and 8IO board, a bare S2000 and a DR4d. All in mint condition.

Might upgrade the S3k or MPC since both of them have a couple neat tricks up their sleeves.

The dozen or so SCSI drives -optical and magnetic, ZIP and JAZZ drives- I could probably try to dump for a couple eurios.

The s2k and dr4d.. Any idea's on if I should upgrade those before selling? Or just let them go as they are.. Could upgrade, then ask for some more, but don't want to be at risk to not even getting the price of the upgrade out of them.

[astroman]

Nice stack...
The 2000XL would have been my choice, if an MPC4000 with all expansions hadn‘t shown up locally.

But you don‘t need a floppy expansion. The 2000XL has an internal IDE port so (almost) any card reader will fit.
No hot swapping usually, but that may be compensated by size of cards.
You may also try a cheap IDE to SATA converter and add a simple SSD.

[valis]

I have used IDE to SDHC and IDE to SATA adapters with a lot of success with a variety of computers and hardware devices.