Anyone using Akai S1000/S3000 samples in their M3?

kid_nepro_2002 · Post by **kid_nepro_2002** » Wed Mar 10, 2010 4:01 pm

If you are, then how do you import them? Any other way besides using an external CD-ROM drive? Seems to me like that's the only way to get them in since computers won't read the Akai format - unless your using a software sampler. If you are using an external USB CD-ROM drive, which model is it? Anyone know any models that are compatible?

Thanks for any info.

Proton

www.kidnepro.com

kid_nepro_2002 · Post by **kid_nepro_2002** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 1:32 pm

Anybody?

martijns · Post by **martijns** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:21 pm

You can convert the sample cd's with cd extract and copy them on an external drive and than import them in the M3. That's the way I do it.

Post by **Sharp** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:49 pm

The only way to do it right is to use a USB CD-ROM drive connected to the M3.

There are no conversion programs that can write M3 PCG files, so if you were to use a conversion program you would have to convert to SF2 format and load that into the M3. The down side to that is that if the same sample is used in more than one program, then the same sample will be loaded to memory more than once resulting in an utter waste of memory.

Where if you use the USB CD Drive you can load the AKAI data directly into the M3 using the Advanced Conversion option folder by folder which will get the M3 to read the filter data and create the Program sounds. It will also take into consideration what you have in memory and not load the same sample data twice.

I don't use AKAI data on my M3 at all, but I have tied it when I first got it. I used a Sony DVD-Writer / COMBO drive and never had any problems.

Regards
Sharp.

kid_nepro_2002 · Post by **kid_nepro_2002** » Sat Mar 13, 2010 10:19 pm

Thanks guys!

The Magic Hoof · Post by **The Magic Hoof** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 1:20 pm

I've got a question about using Akai CD Roms.

When I tried using an Akai sample CD, I extracted everything with CD Xtract but it was quite a mess on my hard drive. There are multisamples and each individual wav file was basically random. I also loaded it into Kontakt but it seems that the samples are kind of random there as well and it's just hard to tell where you're at and what's what.

If I do the above method, would it be better-formatted and less confusing?

Post by **Sharp** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 3:43 pm

What format did you extract them to ? AKAI data is very structured.
Also, why are you extracting them at all if your loading them into Kontakt.

Kontakt reads AKAI format directly far as I'm aware.

Regards
Sharp.

kid_nepro_2002 · Post by **kid_nepro_2002** » Tue Mar 16, 2010 4:29 pm

Sharp wrote: Kontakt reads AKAI format directly far as I'm aware.

That's right. You just have to have Kontakt opened "before" you insert the CD into your computers CD/DVD drive.

mosspa · Post by **mosspa** » Fri Mar 26, 2010 10:26 pm

The Magic Hoof wrote:I've got a question about using Akai CD Roms.

When I tried using an Akai sample CD, I extracted everything with CD Xtract but it was quite a mess on my hard drive. There are multisamples and each individual wav file was basically random. I also loaded it into Kontakt but it seems that the samples are kind of random there as well and it's just hard to tell where you're at and what's what.

If I do the above method, would it be better-formatted and less confusing?

If by the above method you mean using a USB CD/DVD drive the answer is yes. What confuses a lot of people is that SCSI often gets used in discussions or descriptions of AKAI CD ROMS. This is because all of the early samplers and sampling keyboards used SCSI. At the time, it was the only portable 'mass storage'" standard. The fact that you need a SCSI drive to get these samples into an AKAI or Kurzweil is because that is the only interface available on these machines. If the modern instrument you are working with will read AKAI format CD-ROMS (as the M3 will) anything that will play a CD-ROM and can connect via a USB port will work fine.

John

platinumaudiolab · Post by **platinumaudiolab** » Wed Dec 01, 2010 5:08 am

The Magic Hoof wrote:I've got a question about using Akai CD Roms.

When I tried using an Akai sample CD, I extracted everything with CD Xtract but it was quite a mess on my hard drive. There are multisamples and each individual wav file was basically random. I also loaded it into Kontakt but it seems that the samples are kind of random there as well and it's just hard to tell where you're at and what's what.

If I do the above method, would it be better-formatted and less confusing?

When dealing with S1000 / S3000 CD's I recommend converting first to soundfont as mentioned before. Soundfont retains the individual samples wav files in its container format (example: Name_of_file.sf2). That way the patch and the files are contained in a single file, which is easy to manage. Most software samplers recognize .SF2 out of the gate, and the M3 also supports .SF2 files as well. The only downside is you can't easily edit the individual sampled wav files contained in the .SF2 soundfont patches.