I have a few friends who are jungle purists and own Akai rack mount samplers for chopping breaks and other samples.
Does anyone have any experience with using the Pyramid to control these Akai units?
I understand the quality of the Akais came from rinsing the most out if these units with their effects etc but could a Pyarmid be used to play one in a live scenario? Perhaps even add some new functionality that the samplers can’t provide?
Or would the Pyramid remove the character of the akais if it becomes the sequencer?
Very eager to hear from anyone with experience trying to sequence one of these old sampling powerhouses with the Pyramid.
i sequenced my Emax II externally from an MC-50 back in the day so I’m guessing the rackmount Akais were similarly responsive to per-track/channel MIDI. the only thing for jungle i don’t know if they had is the ability to assign note values per sample chop (Emax didn’t chop). i don’t think the Akai rackmounts had internal sequencers but for real jungle bizness with chopped breaks and samples i feel like you need to be able to trigger them on a per note basis.
I have used an Akai S1000 and, I think, an S1100 (which was very similar). This was a long time ago now though.The RAM was very limited on those, or at least those particular units we had. If I remember right ours had 2MB and 4MB respectively. I’m not sure what the max you could upgrade to was but I’m not sure it was even 32MB, I don’t think it would have been any more. It was all about being efficient (and creative) with those machines. We didn’t have any effects boards or anything on those. They had a nice grainy sound. Time stretching added some grit. I think they were probably 16 bit with a choice of sample rate (up to 44kHz, possibly, but I am not sure). I think the S950 may have had less fidelity but was loved for it.
The S1000 and S1100 had a sample (waveform) display that made chopping up samples fairly easy (finding zero crossings). They required a bit of learning before you really found your preferred way to work. It took time to program them compared to modern gear and it made it difficult to be lazy about where you chopped, for instance (no automatic chopping and the like). They were pretty capable though - amazing for the time really.
You could map the samples to individual notes across a keyboard. I only ever used them in a studio setting. We used a pre-DAW, MIDI only version of Cubase 2.0 running on an Atari STe to sequence. I think you would be able to trigger samples live using a MIDI controller.
I ended up getting an Emu ESi 2000 shortly after because at the time the Akais were a bit more in demand than ESis, so they were probably better value (secondhand). Akais had ‘that’ sound though, and if I’d found one at the right price I would have gone Akai for sure. This was probably around the turn of the century. I still have that ESi and a couple of others today.