Tag: utilities

I’ve just found excellent little program for windows and mac
Elektron C6 SysExManager / local copy: mac windows

This software can upload wav and aiff samples to ANY hardware sampler that supports SMDI transfer protocol by MIDI cable! Designed for Elektron.se hardware machines but works with old samplers also!
I tested it with Yamaha A5000 and it works great! It uploads all selected samples one by one!
I’m sure that this utility will work with Akai, EMU or other hardware samplers.

This soft has Turbo Mode which can be set up to 8x.
You must experiment and find maximal value yourself because every sampler has own limit.
My Yamaha accepts maximal available speed Turbo X8 with delay 10ms.

Loading samples this way is still slow, but when you have to transfer short drum samples or just waveforms
this soft is very helpful. Upload 100kb wave to my yamaha sampler takes about 50 seconds.
Keep it mind that midi is prehistoric protocol :)

Update on 19 Dec: I just tested it with akai s3000xl and it works in Turbo x8 mode. It seems that this tool sends data to akai even faster than to yamaha a5000 because there is no significant delay after transfer is complete.

I made few useful scripts for converting wav samples to 10-13bit. Windows only!

You need sox command line converter.
Download sox-14.3.2-win32.zip and unpack to C:
Download archive with *.bat scripts convert10-13bit.zip

You can use scripts in two ways.
First: Open internet explorer, type “shell:sendto” in address bar. Copy scripts to this window. Now you can click on yor wav file(s) right mouse button and simple send to selected script from “send to” menu.
Second: Simple drag and drop wav file(s) to script icon.

Converted samples are located in /converted/ directory where your wavs are located.
You can send to script max about 30 files at once.

Scripts do not add any noise dithering.

10 bits – cuts signal below 60db
11 bits – cuts signal below 66db
12 bits – cuts signal below 72db
13 bits – cuts signal below 78db

Enjoy! :)

Very nice piece of vintage gear :) This is probably the most powerful and advanced hardware sampler. It has so many possible modulations, parameters to choose and it has great midi implementation. 24 bit DA, 20 bit AD, 128voices of polyphony, 6 powerful fx blocks + many different great filters, up to 128 MB of waveform memory (expandable by 72pinn simms). The little brother A4000 has 64voices and 3 fx blocks. You can use IDE or SCSI hard disks and drives. A5000/A4000 can read cd-roms or floppys from akai S-series, yamaha tx16w, E-mu EIIIx and Roland S-760. Imported data includes keymapping and looping only. You can import wavs or aiffs from fat32 (Windows) drives also. Unfortunately there is no software that converts different format programs to yamaha. But! you can use AWave or Chickensys Translator for reading or just load akai disks.

Very nice feature is that you can use a4000 as realtime FX processor, 3fx or 6fx (a5000) at once!
FX list is huge, very good and unique effects. You can route FXs to any output. For example You can send one FX to main out, second to digital out, and third to sub out :)

more info at savedbytechnology.com sonicstate.com homepage.mac.com soundonsound.com

Manuals, Docs:
01-quick_start.pdf
02-basics.pdf
03-easyedit.pdf
04-factory.pdf
05-import.pdf
06-remix.pdf
07-effects.pdf
08-beatchange.pdf
09-loopdiv.pdf
10-looping.pdf
11-resample.pdf
A3k_faq_2000-05-31.pdf (for A3000 but it may be helpful)
A4-5000manual.pdf
A5000 Guide to Accompanying Disks.pdf
AxK_poweruser.pdf
AxK_usersguide.pdf
a5kdrives.pdf
mastering_the_music_website_lifecycle.doc (found @ a4000 yahoo group)
yamaha_sampler_handbook.pdf

Latest A4000/A5000 OS 1.5:
a4k150up.hqx (for Mac)
a5k150up.hqx (for Mac)
a4k150up.zip
a5k150up.zip
A4K-5K-update.zip (update by midi files)
jomox sysex dumper – use it for midi os update | local copy: mac pc info
os_1.5_upgrade_proc.txt

Tools, Editors:
A4000-5000DemoDisk_1To4.zip
A5kExploreSetup.zip
A5kRemoteSetup.zip
Audition.zip
AxK2WAV.zip
DISKY_CDBONK.zip
HappyAxK_113.zip
NiceWave2-00.exe (soft for akai for scsi sample transfer, but useful for yamaha too)
C6 SMID sample dump utility free tool for uploading samples via midi (mac and windows) / local copy: mac windows
SMDIXferGUI004b.zip
SysExDumper_3.0.1.dmg (for Mac)
YamahaVoiceEditorA5K_MacOS9.sit (for Mac)
Yammy-A5000-1.zip
akbrowser.dmg (for Mac)
bZone1.00.exe
disky1_0_2.zip
disky1_0_3.zip
smdihvm.zip
smdixfer.zip
toolsCD.part1.rar
toolsCD.part2.rar
toolsCD.part3.rar
toolsCD.part4.rar
toolsCD.part5.rar
toolsCD.part6.rar
toolsCD.part7.rar
twe231w.zip

———————-
28.10.20015 update:
I found some stupid limitations. For example. You can’t set panning by key.
Even Akai s1000 had this feature. There is control key to pan function, but it pans whole channel not individual notes.
Second limitation is filesystem blocks. Even if you have 8gigabytes hard drive you can have only 8 partition max.
Every partition has limit of volumes and files. You can’t use whole space for many samples, you will fill all available blocks very fast.
So you can’t use 8gigs of space. You can’t transfer all content from factory cd-roms to internal harddrive.

The best solution is to have scsi CF reader and few 1-2gb cards for all factory samples.
Loading samples from cd-rom is very slow so its much better to load it from harddrive or cf card.
IDE CF readers do not work in most cases because Yamaha is very picky about cf-cards connected to IDE port :)
But i found that industrial Wd Silicon Drive II 2GB works.

Very useful “must have” tools for akai S1k/S3k samplers:

Omni Flop – reads and saves akai floppys and images (Win XP)
Wav2Akai – converts wavs to akai s1000 *.p programs (Win 98, XP)
EMXP – soft for Emu and Akai for reading and saving akai programs or wavs to floppy (Win XP)
Akai Util – reads akai disks and images (Win XP) project homepage
Akai Disk – reads and saves akai floppy programs (Win 98)
Akai Sex – converts floppy disks, programs between s900 s950 s1000 s3000 formats (for Atari ST / TT/ Falcon only!)
AWave – shareware sample converter, program editor, reads and saves in akai s1000 or s3000 formats. Reads akai floppy images from Omni Flop. Also it can read edit and save akai s5000 *.akp format (Win XP)
Chicken Sys Translator – commercial powerful sample converter. Read, save, format akai jaz disks, zip disks, hard drives, cd-roms. Convert many free available soundfonts to akai and save it directly to akai disk! Must have!
C6 SMID sample dump utility free tool for uploading samples via midi (mac and windows) / local copy: mac windows