96 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

V

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I S-950

REVISITED

by Sean Maru

The Akai S-950 is not just an old school

sampler. It is THE old school sampler.

Introduced in 1988, it became the weapon of

choice for a crowd of would-be legends (DJ

Premier, Large Professor, Lord Finesse, Pete

Rock, Prince Paul and others) and played a

big role in many classic albums in the years

that followed.

T

his installment of Vintage

Series will look at the Akai

S-950. I will not spend much

time detailing all of its features.

A PDF of the manual is available

from Akai’s website and it covers

them very well. Instead, I will

revisit the workflow it encourages

and of course, its gloriously

gritty sound. I will do so from the

perspective of someone who has

a lot of experience with hardware

samplers but who has never

had the opportunity to push the

buttons on a 950.

Sizing it up

Upon first glance, the

950 is all business.

It is almost clinical in

appearance. There are no

trendy graphics or other

signs of pandering to a

youthful market. Clearly,

this machine is designed

for professionals. Keep

in mind that in the late

1980s, most hardware samplers were

purchased for and used in professional

studios, mainly as a sound design tool

or for flying in the occasional sound

effect. It is only fitting that the 950 looks

the part of a no-nonsense workhorse.

Something about it makes you feel like

you should be wearing a lab coat or

talking to mission control and I mean

that in a good way. It totally plays into

the “mad scientist” vibe many producers

enjoy. Besides, whatever the unit lacks

in form it makes up for in function.

Layout & Architecture

The first things you notice are the

dedicated controls on the front panel.

Akai wisely gave dedicated knobs

to parameters over which you need

immediate control such as record,

monitor and output levels. It should be

a law that all samplers be set up this

way. The 950 even gives you a handy

contrast knob, which makes a lot more

sense than making you strain to see

the display in order to adjust it.

There are eight page buttons in the

middle of the unit (Play, Record, Edit

Sample, Edit Program, Midi, Utility,

Disk and Master tune). After my initial

explorations, I realized I spent most of

my time in the record, edit sample, edit

program and disk pages. Record has

several pages where you specify the

sample rate, sample duration and root

key of your sample. The Edit Sample

page is where you trim and loop

samples. Edit program is where you

set up keygroups, filter and envelope

settings, etc. You will use the Disk

page for loading, saving and deleting

sounds. To navigate the submenus hit

the page or cursor buttons on the right

97 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

side and use either the 10 digit key pad

or the control knob for entering values.

Between using the short cuts (which

are printed on the front of the unit)

and simply remembering how many

button presses it take to reach a given

parameter, I bet an experienced user

could literally operate one of these

blindfolded.

Like a lot of old school hardware,

the 950 provides a wealth of output

channels. The 950 has 10 unbalanced

outputs, which can be used to route

individual sounds to your mixer/DAW.

How you assign sounds to their outputs

depends upon the role you want the

950 to play in your production. If you

are using it for drums only, then assign

each sound to a separate output. This

will allow you to EQ, effect and route

each sound independently. The clarity

of your mix will improve because the

adjustments you make to one sound

will not adversely affect the other. If you

are trying to make an entire song using

only the 950, then allocate one channel

each for the kick, snare and hats. Then

use the rest of the channels for your

samples. I put similar sounds (e.g.

chops of the same instrument, sounds

in similar EQ range, etc.) on the same

channels. Anytime you assign different

sounds to the same channel you will

have to compromise somewhat but

planning your assignments thoughtfully

will minimize them.

For my experiments, I tried to keep

different drum sounds on separate

channels and patched them to my

analog mixer. From there the signal

was fed into the audio interface on

my DAW. Although I love being able

to save and recall mixers settings in

Logic, I have to say it is a lot more fun

mixing on my Mackie 1642. Physically

turning the knob on an EQ pot to locate

a sounds sweet spot is a feeling that

cannot be replicated using a mouse.

To feed sounds to the 950, I just ran

a cable from the send outputs of my

turntable mixer into the mono input

on the front of the 950. Make sure

you have a stereo to mono cable and/

or adapter or your will have phasing

problems.

The 950 has a refreshingly simple

architecture. The raw sounds you

record are referred to as samples,

which are then mapped into one or

more keygroups that are contained

within a program. Keygroups are

where you set up envelope shaping,

filtering, fine-tuning, vibrato and output

assignment. Sounds can be set up to

cross switch based on their position on

the keyboard or velocity. Velocity cross

switching is very useful, especially for

creating more expressive drum kits.

A kick, snare and hi hat sample can

become a dynamic instrument when

you make variations of each using

filtering (to mute the high end slightly),

decay settings (to simulate a choked

hit) or simply changing the volume

and trigger each by simply hitting the

keys harder or softer. The interactivity

this provides makes sequencing feel

more like making music and less like

programming. Although it takes a few

minutes to set up a keygroup, you can

save it to disk and use it as a template the

next time you build a kit and put the time

saved into the rest of your production.

Sampling

S

ampling on the 950 is very quick

and easy. Hit the record button and

then the page key to step through the

submenus until

you reach the

level set screen.

Make sure you

have a nice and

hot signal (the

signal should fill

up the screen

during peaks but

not “live” there).

Hit a key to start

sampling or play

your source and let the threshold you

set trigger sampling. That’s it. If you

are using the same settings for each

sample then you will spend most of

your time hitting the page key to get to

that last screen. The process is very

hands-on and with a little practice, you

can sample sounds as fast as you can

find them.

Time Management

Although my first real sampler (a 1989

Ensoniq EPS Classic) had similar

memory limitations, the 950 reminded

me how soft I have grown in terms

of resource management. My current

DAW has 2GB of memory and half

a Terabyte of hard drive space, so

I never worry about having enough

time to capture all of the sound I want.

Consequently, I tend to sample long

passages, thinking that I will chop

it up and make sense of it later. The

danger of that approach is your beat

has no focus from the start. If you

have picked up the same bad habit,

the 950 will break it for you. Its meager

sample time demands that you know

what sound you are after. Even then,

you have to be alert when sampling to

ensure you don’t miss

part of it. A few time-

honored tricks can

help though. First, you

can play the record

at 45 rpm and pitch

it down an octave

inside of the sampler.

A benefit of doing this

technique on the 950

is that when it interpolates the sample

to play it at the lower pitch, it imparts

a nice crunch its sound. Although

the 950 can be set to start recording

BEFORE YOU SAMPLE:

•Make sure you are sending a strong signal out of each

component in your signal chain to maximize your signal

to noise ratio.

•Turn down or mute unused mixer channels that may

introduce noise to your signal.

•Use gentle EQ to emphasize the character of the sound

you are sampling before sending the signal to the 950.

How is the Akai S-950 different from the S-900.

•Maximum sampling rate increased from 40kHz to 48kHz

•RAM capacity increased from 750kb to 2.25MB

•Max number of samples/programs increased from 32 to 99

•New functions added (cross-fade looping, pre-trigger

recording and time-stretch)

•Can now take both HD and DD disks

•New options include the ME35T trigger-to-MIDI interface

and the 13-pin Voice output plug

98 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

when it reaches the threshold you set,

it sometimes cuts off the beginning of

samples so I tend to start recording

manually. When using this approach, it

can also be helpful to cue up the first

beat of the sound you want to sample

and scratch it a couple of times before

releasing the vinyl so it will be “up to

speed” as soon as sampling starts.

The 950 employs a couple of functions

that will help you manage your

memory. First, you can choose from

a wide variety of sample rates. It is a

good idea to sample slightly higher

rates for your main samples and

reduce the rate for less important ones

(percussion, sound effects, etc.). You

can also get away with using a lower

rate for samples, like kick drums, that

won’t use the upper part of the audio

spectrum anyway. The 950 will also let

you resample sounds at half bandwidth

after the fact. This not only frees up

memory but also grunge up the sound

a bit more, if that is what you are after.

Trimming & Timing

Once you sample, the next step will

be to trim the sample start and end.

Although the 950’s “Auto” feature can

search for the start point for you, I

found myself dialing the sample start in

manually most of the time. When doing

this, it is helpful to play a key an octave

or two below the root key so you can

hear the attack in slow motion and

locate any dead space or clicks that

need to be deleted. If you are looping a

phrase, the sample end may flam with

the beginning as it loops. To fix this,

you need to bring the sample end down

enough to cut out the first beat of the

unneeded measure. There are a couple

of techniques you can use to avoid

having to listen to the entire sample

repeatedly. First, you can find the start

point, and then hit “Discard before start

and after end” to truncate the sample.

This will reset the starting point to zero.

Then you can temporarily increase the

sample start value so you can audition

the sample end after hearing the last

couple of beats instead of waiting for

entire bars to play out. Don’t forget to

bring the sample start value back down

to zero before discarding the sample

end. An alternative method is to trim

the sample to the point where the extra

beat is just starting to come in and

then reverse the sample to fine tune.

This way you can trigger the sample

repeatedly while bringing the sample

end down as you listen for the point

where the last beat vanishes. Then

reverse the sample again and listen to

the loop going forwards to make sure it

loops correctly.

Chopping on the 950 is done by

copying the sample a few times and

trimming the start and end of each copy

to isolate the sections you want. This is

definitely much slower than chopping

in recycle, Kontakt, etc. However,

faster is not always better. Whereas

the average chopping program will

give you the politically correct eighth

note or sixteenth note chops in an

instant, the 950 requires you to get your

hands dirty. You have to cycle through

the loop a few hundred milliseconds

at a time. The extra time spent often

yields a chop that lives in the gray

area between obvious divisions. In

this regard, you could say that while

programs today are too smart for their

own good, the 950 is blissfully ignorant

of the assumptions that can box your

music in.

One of the more important features that

the 950 introduced to the line was time

stretching. In addition to doing a good

job of helping you get your sample on

beat without changing the pitch, it was

also good for generating effects when

abused. I found that I could get some

interesting artifacts by time shrinking

the sample by 50%, then stretching it

by 200% and then filtering the result.

Artful manipulation of the “D-Time”

parameter also introduced interesting

results. Longer D-Time values gave

samples a tremolo type effect (which

can do interesting things to a flute

sample) and shorter ones made

samples sound more metallic (good

for “robotic” voices and other clang

effects).

I tended to use the time stretch more

for effect than actually getting things on

beat. I honestly had more fun working

completely old school and just using

the fine pitch control to get all of my

instruments to loop correctly. Although

you risk a major tonality train wreck, it

is more fun to massage the pitch of a

sample until it loops just right than it is

to think about percentages. Besides

some times the dissonance you get from

samples that are not perfectly tuned

can be a good thing. Another bonus

is that working this way forces you to

make the sample loop to the rhythm as

YOU hear it and this personal stamp

builds a little bit of your personality into

the track from the start.

Sure the Akai S-950 looks all business but it developers had a sense

of humor. Just execute the “halve bandwidth” function one too many

times and all of the page lights will begin to blink and the 950 will

actually mock you.

99 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

Looping

Samples can be played un-looped,

looped forwards or as alternating

loops. The 950s auto looping features

proved to be useful. I don’t loop many

“real” instruments these days but the

few times I did during my testing, the

auto loop feature proved to be quicker

and more musical than my first couple

of stabs at doing it manually. In addition

to making sampled instruments decay

more naturally, auto looping can help

when building instruments from single

cycle loops. If you are not afraid of a

little math, single cycle looping can

provide another way to design sounds

without using a lot of memory. In short,

you sample, tune, layer and filter single

cycle loops of samples to build more

complex instruments. The samples can

be anything. Although, I usually copy a

sample from the song I am working on

and build a lead instrument from that.

Alternating loops continuously

play the sample forward and then

backwards. If you are having trouble

looping a sample forward, an

alternating loop can sometimes work.

When sampling records, applying a

bidirectional loop to the last eight or

sixteenth note of the bar can hide an

overzealous vocalist who chimes into

early and other flies in the ointment.

Filtering

Not only is the sound of the 950 old

school, but it encourages you to knock

the dust off old techniques. Using the

low pass filter to isolate the bassline is a

bread and butter technique of the early

90s and although is it is not innovative

to do in 2008; it sure is a lot of fun. Just

lower the frequency cutoff for verses

and let the unfiltered sample sing out

during the hooks (along with whatever

supporting samples you added) and

you have a song. You can bring the

unfiltered sample in during the verses

to remind the listener of what’s coming

in the hook. Granted these days this

might sound dated but if your emcee

is doing his job and you have chosen

you sample(s) wisely, no one will care.

In fact, I think this flavor is kind a part

of hip-hop’s collective consciousness

at this point so it is hard to go wrong.

Nevertheless, the 950 does have tools

to help you expand on this formula.

For one thing, you could time correct

different pitches of the filtered sample

and set up a keygroup to allow you to

play the variations in different ways.

In addition, the warp (pitch sweep)

function can also be setup to vary

according to how hard you play. Of

course, combining techniques just

multiplies your options. Suffice it to

say, the 950 still has a lot of creative

potential flowing through its circuits.

Conclusions

I have to admit the Akai S-950 was

every bit as fun as I hoped it would be.

Although I have a sizable collection

of soft synths and samplers, the last

time I literally had Goosebumps was

while using the 950. Maybe I was

feeling déjà vu or nostalgia. Maybe it

was the realization that only 15,000 of

these were produced and there was

a chance that one of my heroes had

made something incredible on this

very machine. The thought is humbling

and inspiring and almost plausible

considering my test unit has lived in

Long Island, NY for much of its life.

Even if you do not romanticize the

golden era as I do, there is still a lot

to like about the 950. First, there is

the sound. Although, yes the sound is

gritty, the most attractive quality to my

ears is its presence. I get a punch from

the 950 that I don’t get from say an Emu

Ultra or even an Ensoniq EPS/ASR

series sampler. This quality along with

its fast midi response makes it highly

effective for drums. Just pair it with

your sequencer of choice and perhaps

a drum pad controller like Maudio’s

Trigger Finger or Akai’s own MPD 24

and you have a makeshift MPC 60.

Next is flexibility, the 950 allows you

to set up key groups that yield highly

playable drum kits. In addition, its 10

outputs allow you to break instruments

out individually to your mixer or DAW

for more control over the sound. There

is also the workflow. Probably the best

thing about the 950 is how quickly you

can capture your ideas on it. Once

you know your way around, you can

sample sounds as fast as you can find

them. Not only does the interface not

slow you down, you occasionally feel

like it is waiting on you to come up

with the next idea. Another thing I like

about this machine is it requires you

to be connected to your music. While

making a track you have to use your

ears and your gut to make a hundred

little decisions. This involvement draws

you into your music in a way that a DAW

does not (at least not as readily). Lastly,

there is stability. It may or may not

surprise you but the 950 did not crash

or flinch even once during the past few

months. I honestly don’t know what I

would have to do to make it crash. The

main down sides to this machine (e.g.

storage hassles, file conversion issues,

etc.) are just byproducts of its age. In

spite of those limitations, I think the

950 has aged pretty well. I doubt my

any of my current soft sampler will boot

let alone inspire me in 2028 but I have

a feeling my 950 will still be screaming

“Enough Already”. Ultimately, I think

my reaction to the 950 has been more

about rediscovering the fun of throwing

many sounds together quickly and

being reminded that a track does not

have to be technically perfect; it only

has to grab you on an emotional level.

100 Producer’s Edge Magazine Fall Winter

Pros

•Great 12-bit sound •Easy to navigate user interface

•Many sample rates to choose from

•10 outputs allows for flexible routing of sounds to mixer/DAW

•Timestretch feature can be used/misused to great effect

Cons

•Limited memory

•Stores to increasingly hard to find media (floppies and small SCSI

HDs) although third party applications like Awave facilitate transfers to

and from your computer

•Only has one LFO and one (LP) filter which limits synthesis options

•Limited availability of replacement parts and accessories