street priceAfter three years as an industry standard, the time came for the Akai S900 to make way for its successor. The S950 was introduced as an enhanced version of the S900, which had left a lasting impression on the music industry with many still rating its sonic quality as the best available from a 12-bit sampler. The S950 built upon this foundation with several key improvements including time stretching facilities, expandable memory, and hard disk interface capabilities.
From a visual standpoint, little changed from the S900 to the S950. The newer model featured blue and grey keypad buttons and restyled rotary knobs (the same as on the S1000), and the 3.5" disk drive underwent some subtle changes in external appearance. The feel of the keypad was lighter, and the backlit screen appeared brighter than its predecessor's.
The first major improvement was expandable memory. While the S900 had a fixed 750KB of memory, the S950 started with a standard 512 Kwords (750 Kbytes) but could be expanded up to 2.25 Mbytes by installing one or two EXM006 expansion boards, each consisting of 6 RAM chips. With this expansion in mind, the maximum number of samples in memory was increased from 32 to 99, and the keygroups from 64 to 198.
The new disk drive could read from and write to either double or quad density (HD) disks and operated more quietly than the S900's. Despite being a 12-bit machine, the S950 could also read 16-bit S1000 disks, ignoring the last 4 bits of information. S1000 samples reportedly sounded almost as good on the S950 as they did on their parent machine.
The sampling rate was increased to a maximum of 48kHz (in keeping with the R-DAT rate), providing a bandwidth of 19.2kHz. This indicated an improvement in the design of the input filters, which usually ensure that audio input above half the sampling rate is sharply rolled off to avoid aliasing.
The optional Atari hard disk/CD/DAT interface board (IB105) permitted sampling from CD-ROM and R-DAT directly. As the board had both fiber optic and phono (S/PDIF) inputs, both were offered as options under the recording function. The sampling rates needed to be set at either 32, 44.1, or 48kHz, depending on the source.
The S950 allowed users to continue playback while loading new programs/samples, as long as the required samples for the program playing remained in memory. This feature was especially useful when memory expansion boards were fitted.
Perhaps the most significant new feature was time stretching, which allowed the length of a sample to be changed without altering its pitch. The original sample length was taken to be 100% and could be altered proportionately — 50% would halve the length while 300% would triple it. The S950's time stretching used digital harmonizing with only two alterable parameters: D-time (the delay factor) and mono/poly (affecting the character of the stretched sample).
From the perspective of sound quality, time-stretched samples were practically identical to the originals, especially when only small percentage changes were used. This capability was unique at the S950's price point at the time.
S900 owners were pleased to learn that the S950 would accept S900 disks, with loading a full S900 disk taking about 40 seconds. Additionally, whereas S900 software updates had to be booted off disk, both of the S950's upgrades were included in ROM and existed in memory as soon as the sampler was turned on.
Despite the expandable memory available on the S950, the velocity crossfading feature from the S900 was not implemented. This was a puzzling omission, as the feature had been particularly useful when recreating sounds that varied timbrally with playing velocity.
While Roland's competing S550 offered 16 voices dynamically allocated to eight polyphonic audio outputs, the S950 retained the eight voices and monophonic audio outputs of the S900. The S950 did have left and right audio outputs, but these could not be treated as extra individual outputs —i nstead, voices 1-4 were allocated to the left output and 5-8 to the right output.
Another casualty of the upgrade was compatibility with the ASK90 audio-to-drum-trigger interface, which had fit into the rear panel of the S900. This was incompatible with the S950; instead, users had to purchase Akai's new ME35T trigger-to-MIDI interface. The incompatibility was likely due to the rear mounting for the ASK90 being repurposed for the hard disk interface.
The S950's manual was essentially a rewrite of the original S900 manual, which had never been a definitive work and hadn't improved with its adaptation for the S950.
For first-time buyers, the S950 represented an attractive proposition: a clean-sounding 12-bit machine with provision for memory expansion up to 2.25MB, an interface for hard-disk storage of samples, and the ability to draw on the S900's comprehensive sample library (with S900 samples actually sounding better on the 950) as well as the growing library of samples available for the S1000.
Existing S900 owners might have lamented the passing of velocity-switching on the new sampler and resented having to trade in their ASK90 for an ME35T. However, the S950 represented the cheapest way of getting into time-stretching and all the musical possibilities this feature opened up.
While the S950 may not have represented as significant an advance on the S900 as some might have wished, it certainly offered an attractive proposition to anyone serious about sampling.
Country of origin / production: Japan
Recommend product to a friend| Usage area | |
|---|---|
| Sampler | |
| Usage Design/ Form Factor | |
| Rackmount, 3U | |
| Archetype | |
| Digital (D) | |
| Polyphony | |
| Voices | 8 |
| Tone Generator / Sound Synthesis | |
| Synthesis Method | Digital Subtractive |
| Sampler | |
| Sampler Format | Linear |
| Sample Format | Custom |
| Sample Memory | 2.250 Mb |
| Resolution | 12 bit/ 30 kHz |
| MIDI in/ out | |
| IN | |
| OUT | |
| THRU | |
| Display | |
| Display type | LCD |
| Color resolution | Monochrome |
| Audio out | |
| Stereo | |
| Dedicated output per voice | |
| All voices mixed in one output | |
| Analogue: 1/4" (6.35mm) | 11 |
| Audio in | |
| Analog 1/4" | 8 |
| Power | |
| Power Supply | Built-in, internal |
| Case/ body | |
| Metal | |
| Color | |
| Grey | |
| Production start | 1988 |
| Production ended | |
Akai S900 Sampler: A Vintage ClassicIntroduction The Akai S900 was an impressive eight-voice Multiple Point Sampler that stood out in the market for its quality and affordability when it was introduced in 1986. At the time of its release, it offered...
