Junkie is awesome. His electricity bill must be savage!

He does point out the plus sides of literally every sampler but he tends not to state the down sides because the negatives don't matter to him (as he'll just use something else).

A lot of the Japanese samplers actually had a critical fault for faster tempo music where the envelopes sometimes would not open fast enough, this would clip the transient of a drum sound.

Disease Factory has written on this concerning the S760 I think, where he deems it unesable.

Akai also had this issue but patched it out in an OS update. Roland never fixed it on the S series.

I can actually tell you exactly what the problem is. I don't think anyone has ecer properly explained it before?

The problem is these rack samplers are coded in assembly languages, (the envelopes obviously are digital) 0 is off and 1 is activate (its more complicated than tgat but you get the jhist). By default almost everything in the OS was set to off by default to save processing power meaning the sampler had to turn many parameters to on in a nanosecond and sometimes the processing power just was not enough to do every task all at the same time immediately especially repeatly as there would be a cycle time for completing the last list of tasks, so you'd get drop outs on tasks at faster volumes.

I've not seen the code but I believe Akai patched this fault out by having the envelopes attack default at open but also by putting the envelope as a higher priority task in the cycle of tasks to perform (I also believe there will of been an overide if it was set to set partly closed probably by pushing the priority up even further) and also notice they upped the RAM on all the revisions of their units late 80's to early 90's, all of this combined meant it never happened on the S950 with the latest OS. It actually was a problem on the 900 but the OS update patched it out, although if you are a n absolute menace you can slightly glitch out the 900 (almost impossible on the 950) by filling the ram and doing a load of other stuff, it's a chore though and you'd have be to be deliberately trying to blow it up, but it is possible (your bpm would also have to be like 800 with relentless 16th note hi hats).

I also believe the reason the Japanese brands suffered from this fault was because they were stealing each others tech and reverse engineering it, workers will of migrated between companies and shared ideas or even been double agents (as crazy as that may sound, it definitely went on).

If you ever have an very old American sampler that does this, it's not the same fault, you'll find that sampler is just glitchy in many other ways also (early Ensoniq). AS T
the SP-1200 can do House, Jungle, even Srum and Bass. I believe the American companies never had this issue and they probably also shared code, I'm sure the different continents stole ideas from each other too and so on.

These are the things people always fail to mention when recommending samplers.

Music is getting faster.

Check out what conclusions Disease Factory came to.

Also Auzzie legend "Samplers", who has an epic S950 videos, also has an S760 (I think?) Jungle video and although he denies having any issues I can hear the transients are not punching hard on the drums like an Akai it is almost like the very start of the transients are opening on que (I'm pretty sure actually is what is happening) which softens the attack. It's easy to mistake this for "the sound of the sampler", but it's definitely a fault.

I think I get what you mean.. Like never start on 0 (like you can on akai) roll it back a few digits cutting.

I think when continue working a level higher it needs to compute that "space" as it were. I always roll a start to get the peak... Not by viewing.. But listening.. If you viewed it it would probably look like you're halfway through a sample. On drums as an example.. Depends on the sound.

I think the start point kind of needs to correlate with the cycle speed. Like to get a good loop. You need the loop set to the same speed (oscillation) as the waveform. I think the same principle for the start time.

So you have to manually set parameters on all samples (what if it's an imported pre chopped sample, how inconvenient), and then disable some other random parameters (all with an insane mouse set up right..) and also you have to make sure you have the horrifically retro named "Turbo" upgrade...

Ok mate...

Oh and you need a mouse, and a monitor and a few adapters and stuff, ofcourse.

Any other obscure rituals you have to perform to get it to work mate? Maybe a rain dance?

I think I'll stick to Akai thanks.

Learn to use one. I'll guarantee you'll think differently. I can use both.. Ones a lot easier than the other..

If you're not sampling and using libraries you might aswell just get a rompler.

Benefits of an akai is you can layer over 4 in one patch. Layer as many as you want.. Fudging keygroups, But it's not easy.

I could get loops on a rollie more accurate than most "auto get loop" software I've tried.. More accurate than on akai. And not taking much longer. Breaks or sounds.. Or ahhhs. Every type.
Move the lock around you can find the goldilocks point

Still why I frequently use this 30yo piece of shit... Because it does its job and does it better.

Akai is 510mb storage I think. That needs to be parted to 60mb (XL vers.) or I think 40 normal. It'll only pool it's volume.

Rolands can use 600mb storage. And shared pool drive across volumes. Like 4000 sounds can make 8000 patches/programs separated across various volumes type of thing (although you'll probably run out of directories on 8000 ) you'll definitely run out of directories before you run out of space.. Unless EVERY sample is 6-7+s seconds long then you would run out of space before directory.. Some differences

I actually didn't mean libraries, I was referring to samples that you've yourself pre sliced. Recycle or whatever. That Auzzie legend "Samplers" guy has a video on S950 import and export to and from external chopping software. It's a thing people do. Although in the ASR-10 I like chopping by ear because it works well and is more pleasurable to chop like that with the really high quality fader.

It would honestly just be quicker and easier to resample it than import it or whatever

I hear you.

I also actually do that though.

I've just started sampling again, I used to be very into it way back I the day.

I started doing it before I saw others akso doing it online.

Let me explain my reasoning for it.

I'm sampling breaks from vinyl (1210 mk2+ Rega Pre).

I want my signal path to go record player > S950 input > S950 output > best audio interface I can afford to DAW.

But... I also want to chop my samples in recycle or something similar.

So I came to the conclusion everyone else does it seems.

I decided to intercept the data from the S950 after sampling in then transfer that via sd to the PC.

Thus way I'm not affecting the signal path. If I sampled again back to the computer id be adding to many conversions and I don't trust audio interfaces that much.

I'm only happy with one conversion to the audio interface. I'm not going to go back and forth between samplers and the interface. I belive this has the potential to degrade the sample quality in a negative way.

So I save the break to an SD via zulu, lotharek or whatever depending what sampler I'm using and I open that data in the PC edit it (chop thd break) then send it back to the sampler via data on the SD card, I do not resemble as then I'd get double input and 2 unessecary ad da conversions via the interface.

If that makes sense?

That's why I do it. So I'm also assuming that's why everyone else doing it does it too. Because ofcourse you could judt sample back to the computer and then sample back to the sampler again, dam you could line up 50 devices and sample through all of the totally destroying your sample beyond recognition ofcourse.

Also regarding this, there are certain tools for doing this with an Akai (even specifically the S950), Akai Util and so on. Akai formats are so synonymous that Renoise, Wave and other affordable software heavily support the formats.

I'm actually not aware of being able to do this with such ease on a Roland, or Korg or Yamaha or whatever.

This is another reason I like Akai, there's even an app to use the data port on all S950 as a SCSI and it transfer samples at least 20x faster than midi dump. You just don't get this for other brands legacy devices.

I do like the sound of the early Akais, but these quality of life hacks are a major win and tbh a lot of this is extremely difficult to impossible with other samplers.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FRzrxn...k1MCByZW5vaXNl

If you mean you could chop on the S760 then resemble the chops, well yeah but I'd rather use a better sampler chopping software.

Recycle 2.0 (I think?) on an ancient PC, or lappy with SCSI is also good but I dont currently hage thus set up and it's an extra big ass PC for no real reason. My power plug x8 extension is already full and requires swaps. This is already a fire hazard, last thing I need is more PC's and monitor thst require more plugs and stuff. As I'll fall asleep and it'll all catch fire and end me sooner or later if I go that path in my bedroom. Multiple rack samplers, a mixer, monitors and about 10 other peices of gear is already ridiculous. My electricity bill is already quite high. Just a guitar amp costs about £70 a month electricity if I play every night.

Easiest way I find on a roland
Sample break. Copy to other slot. Truncate part (cut up the copy) . Repeat process. Cut as many parts/pieces/sections as you want.
Probs cut 20 pieces and have them across the keys in less than a half hour.

That's thing, half an hour vs 2 seconds in Recycle. Even after auditioning each chop and adjusting some chops. Honestly after a week Recycling no 2 bar break is taking any longer that 3 minutes before done. Honestly most will take you 1 minute.

And there's even better stuff than Recycle out now. REAPER especially with certain add ons is absolutely ridiculous. You can set it to auto find zero points, all kinds of madness.

Once you get quick with Akai Util commands that can take only a minute.

The whole process can legitimately be done without rushing in 5 mins and the samples are back in the sampler, you can even if you do it in Renoise edit key groups and stuff. Obviously you can make program and stuff various ways. It's fast and actively being developed in various apps currently to make the processes even more streamlined. The focus for this is it seems on Akai samplers.

Way I do it with my Roland S750 and Roland S760, is sample the break and save to SD card (SCSI2SD) and pop that into my Mac. Open Translator and save the break to WAV format. Open the WAV in Recycle (now free and works on Silicon Mac), chop and save as REX2 file. Open the REX2 in Translator, and copy that back to the SD card (automatically converting to Roland format, with ready made Roland samples, partials, and patch), pop SD back into the Roland. Takes me about 5 mins start to finish.

(Before this method I used to use a PowerBook G4, OS9, Recycle with its S760 profile)

That's dope!

Yeah it does literally take 5 minutes I agree on the time.

Is that paid Translator or Free?

Regarding time warping as you mentioned REX (even though I don't think you meant time stretching per say?). I feel that's something that leads a lot of the youth astray, especially Ableton which has a huge emphasis on it. I hear new jungle songs where they've time stretched instead of pitching or mixed the two and it doesn't sound as good to me, I guess I akso prefer nuanced interpolation aswell though.

5 minute chops though, which is the norm using SD once you get quick - ok this makes me want to consider a Roland now.

Took a bit of head scratching to come up with this, but it’s basically similar to your method, getting the sample into a PC in a lossless way for editing and chops, and then back to the sampler with no loss to sound.

I’m using paid Translator, but I’m not sure if this simple conversion can be done in the free version. Yes Translator can be a touch buggy at times, crash, but for this simple conversion it works fine for me.

The REX2 file I save as is like a “container” for the samples, mapped and in a patch. Translator then converts that to Roland format. My method would also work with any other hardware sampler format that Translator converts to, Emu E4, Akai S3000, although I don’t think the newer version does Akai S950…. Been promised for years….


They were used by some big names in the mid 90’s. Everyone says Photek was Emu, well yes when he got the advance from Virgin, but Photek 1-3 and earlier was Roland W30. Photek 4 onwards until Virgin label was Roland S750.

Source Direct were also Roland S750 (plus JV1080) for everything up to and including Snake Style/ Exit 9.
Secret Liaison is S750 on the Amen


(The Crane is Akai S3000 on the Amen, S750 for the rest)

T-Power/ Atomic Dog (Marc Royal) another Roland user, but S760.
Check the S760 Amen work here, even Roland time stretch on the snare:


Yes there is a “bug” where certain percussive sounds will be off time, send S760/S750 one track of 16ths, and over a minute you’ll hear a few off time. But send it a few more MIDI tracks and that off timing disappears. I feel it’s a MIDI timing bug, that for some reason only shows on single tracks, but goes when using it in real world musical examples)

You forgot all the early Dom and Roland stuff. Where do you think the "Roland" came from??

Roni Size too, S760 used loads in Bristol drum and bass scene

Yeah it seems like regarding the lossless transfer to edit / chop - a lot of us all had the same general idea.

You stating your method regarding this is really useful.

I can relate the scratching ones head over it.

I initially did it in a completely different way to Mr Samplers.

I used the S950 RS232 serial port as kind of a usb to scsi alternative with a £5 cable.

And that also works but in a more rudimentary manner (I wasn't creating programs or editing keygroups or anything).

It was like a faster version of midi sample dump, with just 1 small step extra to real SCSI transmission via Recycle. It was pretty sweet tbh. I'm just spoilt with mote advanced options now.

If anyone's ever in a pinch financially and wants to do it for just a few dollars rather than $50 - $100 with a HXC / Gotek drive, or the big bucks for SCSI & a SD HD emulaion board, the software is called S950rs and the cable on ebay or Amazon is a USB to RC232 (DB25).

It will transfer WAV files on the PC side if i remember (I can't remember if that's both ways though, I can't actually remember if I converted from Akai to WAV at any point, as I dropped this method pretty fast (there's nothing wrong with it though, it does work), but there's tools for Akai to WAV if needed anyway. It must of worked both ways or there was a way to do this as I remember pulling samples from the Akai and sending chops back successfully.

Just a heads up for anyone reading this thread in the future.

I do want other samplers sometimes. I don't want a software sampler. My S950 is from the late 80's and with a simple recap and LCD screen still works like a treat. Software ones and goes, is a depreciating asset and enjoy physical ownership.

A visual monitor does put me off, sorry. I already run two monitors, it just seems a bit mad for a sampler. Yes Roland sound good but so do some Akai to me, and so do various Ensoniq's and so on.

Does this thread, these convos and some
people's passion for Roland S up my interest in a Roland S series - some what yes.

I like talking about and owning samplers. Maybe it'll click and I'll get past the accessories, but it is a barrier and I haven't found a thought process that really justifies it when moving away from Akai I could get an Ensoniq or E-MU rack sampler.

I have used various video capture cards to display my Roland's video output on my Mac screen. Previously an S-Video to USB capture device, and now an RGB to HDMI device (to USB) , and use OBS software to display the S760 screen on my Mac. Just switch between OBS and Logic is pretty neat, and no second monitor needed.

Yeah.. But during the process you can throw a whip back in or generally just hear it. Than throwing it and chopping it up hoping for the best.. That half hour is trimming down the back half getting your starts and ends in place.. Possibly "oooh that might sound good if I can loop that bit.. Like a Harrarah will go harrrahrarah ect.. A trick I picked up with another guys locomotive toots. Rahh turns into Rahhahh
Sounds ridiculous on constant loop, but just one go you can get away with it I frequently whip beats back so boom turns into boomoo, again sounds ridiculous going back and forth.. But just once you get that little bit extra.

I do love this guy but. He does say the Yamaha OS is not user friendly.

He also has a lot of samplers that are only really good for sampling one note, which he seems to do a lot.

He's just obsessed with interpolation - which is cool. But it's not a good example of what samplers to buy to make entire tracks on. Some absolute turds mite be ok for only note sampling. His S770 looks also awkward as he'll to operate in that video tbh, but he's probably only sampling one note anyway so what does he care, the OS could be in Russian asling as you know what to click to put one note on to a wide ass key group. Junkie is obviously an absolute legend though. I just don't think his use case 100% computes to most people's probable needs.

I'd rather have a workhouse sampler I can rely on than like a Casio rack sampler and a Korg rack sampler and 3 other random units with operating systems from hell, 0.7 seconds sample time, and some Milli Vanilli sound effects.

Some of these samplers are definitely purchases for after you get something solid imho. Some of this stuff is near impossible to make full tunes on constantly.

I love the Emulator II in that video! But it's more of a make an instrument patch type sampler. When most people think samplers - they usually think of something capable of making an entire track on its own, and I really did want him to just savagely errupt into programming chopped break beats but I highly doubt those samplers are even connected to a sequencer. Junkie XL in in his own little world imho. I love it but it's not really applicable for most of us.

I know what you mean definitely.

I think there's also ways to do this by chopping in a program though. But they are quite mad. I'm sure other people who mess with hxc and so on think about or do this kind of stuff sometimes though?

A very mad method would be to do the chop every single drum hit to midi thing in daw with the sample / break WAV from sd. Save the midi notes so you have all the off timings of the swing notes in the correct places then send the WAV chopped with every drum hit converted to the samplers format back to the sampler.

Now you've got the whole break and complete manipulation over it, you can even clone notes in the sampler and half or quarter them (from beginning, the end part or whatever) with a fade out to stutter notes and assign those to different midi motes (also you could do that before when editing on the computer), you can use an empty note to kill notes at any point also and all the usual tricks, reverse, pitch up and down via extra keys assigned and all that jazz.

The possibilities are almost endless and all at 0% CPU. And with a chop entire break to midi command that took 1 second for the editing program to perform.

Then you just rearrange the midi in the daw like you would software bit it's obviously doing the standard hardware thing with midi to external instrument and audio comming in probably on a separate track thing.

There's other more mental stuff too but it all gets a bit mad really.

That's quite basic madness really. When you start thinking about really advanced editing and sequencing software options like mad REAPER scripts and very advanced samplers like the ASR-10 some truly mental stuff is technically possible and without hammering the cpu too.

Talking about editing onna computer and sending stuff to samplers, this is good for a lot of low fidelity stuff which was a highlight of this thread I think.

I think wavetables sound very lofi, they pretty much destroy samples, any voice sample to wavetable instantly sounds super 80's digitised.

You can make wavetables and transwaves (similar thing) really quickly on a computer and send them to sm ASR-10 or something.

Granular synthesis also sounds very lofi, like maybe you could like turn a basic hardware rack sampler into a granular synth by in the software sequencer arpeggiting by velocity, then set notes to trigger at random velocities, then finese velocity modulation (most decent racks should have a way to modulate velocity).

There have been numerous deaths attributed to people trying to use Korg or Sequential samplers. The Ensoniq Mirage has killed more people than any other single piece of equipment.

No one using rack samplers is sane. Witness this thread for evidence That's not to say using racks is without merit

Pretty sure its just you and me.

This is a bugbear of mine.

Mootant's drums don't seem to lack punch.

Being a total Akai fanboy, it's the OS that kills me with Roland. I must be a cat. Currently housing an S-550, W-30, S-760, S-770, DJ-70mk2, MV-8800. Three lives left. I'll likely loose another moving house next month.

I expected this message to be 12 bit encoded

Yeah, you can donkey about time stretching and pitch shifting, altering rates ect on a rollie, it can play back anything (backwards compatibility) but will only record/process 44 48 22 or 24khz. Which takes time but unoccupied time.. Like waiting to process.. I'm not into that.
I don't mind spending half hour being involved with the sound. Not a fan of standing there watching "processing please wait"... Some things need bouncing in a computer.. If you're running a lot.
Like vocals I'll time stretch a large segment... Piss off for a bit let it take forever, then come back and edit it.
Instead of cutting then stretching (waiting) on each piece.

A good thing with it though, is if you loop something. Then time stretch, it'll keep the loop intact. Sometimes perfect when it comes out the other side but not far off. (very rarely I'll loop at zero point so there's that to consider if I did it may come out better after time stretching, I'll join it anywhere as long as it's a straight line)

I like to spend three weeks on a snare, then turn it off unsaved

this what i mean by sounding stupid constantly looping on the hit.
but one go around is alright.

the rest was ducking around the other day doing loops.

The beauty of the Roland is that it’s 30 quid for a USB video capture adapter that plugs straight into your S series sampler and thus it becomes a window on your existing monitor. Alas I’ve not yet figured out how to emulate the mouse, so you do have an extra physical mouse kicking around, but the Roland mouse driven interface is excellent to use and they do sound lovely, very different from akai

Are you talking about an adapter from the RGB output or the RCA? Would you mind posting an example of the kind of adapter you mean?

Right now I have my S-550 connected to my second monitor with a cheap RCA to HDMI adapter, just wondering if I can improve my setup at little cost...

Think mines is s-video - I’m away from home at the moment sorry so can’t post a picture!

Similar to this
USB Video Capture,Video Capture Card,RCA to USB Video Converter,VHS Mini DV VCR Hi8 DVD to Digital Converter for PC TV, MAC Windows Vista Compatible
https://amzn.eu/d/2QVkyJF

what i mean by whipping back a beat for that little bit extra. example.

Good bit of footage of a s550 in action.
Tutorialish...
Circa 6+mins