This is a thread for all of us who use the "old school" samplers and want to upgrade it with modern memory card readers.

That is good news!

Hello, everyone, JD here. I wanted to thank Don for allowing me to post here about the card reader drives.

I am building a new batch of my SCSI Card Reader drives and they are available now. These drives are compatible with most all samplers like Korg, Kurzweil, Yamaha, EMU, Roland and Ensoniq. I am building internal drives (with the proper install kits), external drives, as well as SSD units for those who would prefer that configuration. I'll be happy to work with you to get the setup that is best suited for your needs.

If you would like more information, please PM me with the make and model of sampler you are interested in a drive for, along with any questions you may have, and I'll get right back to you. Please include a working email address. Thanks!

SCSI For Samplers is like one of those furniture warehouses that's perpetually going out of business, it seems. heh

Hey there!

I know there used to be more info on scsiforsamplers.com, but since that's been usurped by mpcstuff, I was wondering...

I'm considering an internal cardreader to replace the floppy on my (incoming) TS-10, since I could load it up with all those ASR samples.

What are the prices like? And what's the installation procedure like? (I'm a dunderhead with a solder iron, but can screw stuff in and plug in cables).

I tired to get into their site, but it forwards me to mpcstuff.com. What gives..

I closed the business at the end of last year and sold the domains to MPCStuff.com. Due to popular demand (and the sudden availability of some SCSI Bridge cards), I am building a batch of my popular Card Reader drives for those who want them. Please contact me directly (via PM), as MPCStuff has nothing to do with these drives I am building.

And e6400ultra, you are right - I have closed up shop at the end of the last three years but like Pacino in the Godfather, everytime I think I'm out, they pull me back in! Really, I just want to help people keep their wonderful hardware samplers working and with interest in the card reader drives always so high, I just always seem to find myself building "a few more".

Franz, your TS-10 would need the SCSI interface installed and since the SCSI interfaces for the TS-10 and TS-12 are read-only, you would probably have a tough time getting the files over to a CF card. You could try Translator but let's face it - that programs fails about as often as it works and I'm pretty sure that supporting the TS-10 is far down on their list of important upgrades.

For all you EMU owners, my card reader drives works great for most all the EMU sampler models and installation is very easy (I love how EMU left all this room inside their rack samplers!). If anyone is interested in getting one of the drives, please PM me (include an email address) and I'll get right back to you. I still have drives available!

Do you make readers for the k2661? I'm about to purchase one soon. If so, how much am I looking at?

I do make an external CF drive for the K2661. It must be external because the K2661 does not have an internal SCSI connection to accomodate an internal drive and the design of the circuit boards make it impossible to get around this limitation. But an external CF drive would allow you to use up to an 8GB compact flash card for lots of storage capacity and the loading/saving is much faster than the horrible SM card slot that Kurzweil built into the K2661.

If you might be interested in an external CF card drive, please contact me via PM for more information.

PM Sent. I already own a CF reader/writer for my EMU E4 ultra. Looking for one for my Ensoniq ASRX.

PM sent JD.

It looks like I am sold out on this batch. I thank everyone for their interest - the demand has been high and at this time, I do not have the parts available to make any more. I am very hopefully that my supplier will be able to secure more of the parts I need soon to produce more drives but he cannot give me a definite "when" on that.

For anyone who is interested in getting one or more drives, please PM me and let me know who you are and what drives you want for which samplers. I'll add you to my list and make sure you get first crack at the next batch of drives.

Sorry that I am unable to supply any more drives at this time and thanks to everyone who purchased a drive. Special thanks go to Don Solaris for allowing me to make this post letting everyone know about the drives in the first place.

Thanks,
JD Wilson

JD I'm definitely interested in a SCSI card reader for my classic MPC 2000.

Maybe I can help you with your parts. For my day job, I buy and sell electronic components; including hard to find and obsolete components.

Update your hardware sampler - JD is back!




[URL REMOVED BY MODERATOR - please see the post below. Thanks!]

Eg?!? I would like one of these please Jd. I have sent you a pm last week. Not sure if you received it. Please let me know, if they are available. Thanks
D.

I'm after an internal kit for my ASR 10R and also my E4 Ultra. Quick question; are they hotswap capable? On the ASR some operations need to load the OS from floppy. Do you supply those slim floppy drives with the CF card in the same unit? Thanks!

(and glad to see you're back in business.)

Click on the link to his site. The answer to your question is there. If I read correctly the answer is no hot swapping. But check for yourself, cause I don't wanna give you the wrong info.

Hi JD, I was wondering if you had/could make an ssd reader for an ASR-10? If so how much would that run me? You can PM me the answer if you like. Thanks.

I did this for my EIII. Had top llok around for the right cards etc but worked out fine in the end. Worth doing.

Don:

Thank you very much for announcing my new website!

I'd like to invite everyone to visit the site and contact me if I can help you with a Card Reader drive for your sampler.

Thank you,
JD Wilson

Akai S-1100 full report:

Bought the SCSI/IDE bridge and the external CF card reader from SCSICardReaders (J.D.) The CF reader perfectly fits existing floppy drive which i have removed. In order to use the machine without a floppy (loading the OS) i have found EPROM chips on eBay from some guy in UK (these chips IIRC have 4 pins less, but they work just fine). JD provided me all the necessary cables, so all i had to do was to remove the floppy and install the CF reader on its place. And that was it.

After learning a lesson with damaged Akai CD ROM i backed up all my CD's on the hard drive in the .img format. (i still own the original disks, so i guess this is legal). Using a software called disk2file i can now transfer the content of a CD rom into a (1GB) CF card. Tried it and works perfect! That way no more need for the external SCSI CD ROM connected to Akai that was just taking space, producing a lot of noise, and was much slower than the CF card.

It is also possible to build your own CD ROMs in Akai format. Once you fill the new CF card, just convert it to image with disk2file progam. The image can then be burned to a CD ROM or stored for backup.

I will also purchase a program from Chickensys which lets you convert standard .wav samples into Akai programs. I will check with Chickensys guys first, but i believe these can be transferred to the CF card with a standard $5 USB card reader. So no more messing with SCSI cables or SCSI adapter cards in the PC! This is really a dream come true.

BTW my S-1100 is now fully pimped. New display backlight foil, latest OS on EPROM chips, S3000 contrast knob/switch for turning the backlight on/off (saves the foil which has limited running time of 2000 hours) and the mentioned CF card reader instead of the floppy (i took the black one to keep the original look of S-1100).

Long live hardware samplers.

Anytime. This is a dream come true to every musician/producer. It saves a lot of time, space, and nerves. When i remember messing with all those external SCSI devices, CD ROMs, ZIPs, JAZ drives, cables, terminators, PC transfers etc, this comes as a pleasure ride.

BTW Akai S-1100 does not support SMIDI (transferring samples via SCSI) so i guess ppl don't have much options left, but to either go: 1)CF card solution 2)or to manually sample all of their samples (ha! think of a drum set with 1000 .wav samples - good luck sampling them all - while it takes just 30 seconds to transfer them to CF card using Chickensys software).

Chicken Systems products (Translator, Constructor, Instrument Manager) all support the READING and WRITING and FORMATTING of Akai, Emu, Roland, Ensoniq, and MPC proprietary disks. You can add program, samples, banks, folders, and on and on. You can delete objects, files. In other words, you have absolutely full control of these disks the same way you have full control of regular computer disks.

This also includes images which you can burn to CD using any type of CD-burning software.

The old hardware samplers never properly supported direct sample or program transfer to their memory via MIDI or SCSI. There are exceptions, but far and few between.

Given the ability for the above programs to completely bypass these issues, and since once you transfer stuff to the samplers you have to save the sounds/programs/banks anyway, these programs provide a modern, fast, and powerful way to transfer any type of sound or program to your beloved older hardware sampler.

SMDI or any type of direct transfer may seem sexy and obvious, but the disk-based process is much more reliable, cheaper, quicker, obsolescence-proof, and way more powerful then simply flying a single samle or whatever over to your sampler. Instead construct the whole she-bang on your computer, where the REAL power lies, then write it to disk, and load it onto your sampler.

In my mind, with over 25 years of working with hardware samplers, it's an absolute no-brainer.

Chicken Systems/Rubber Chicken Software Home Page, and more more information, please email [email protected]

There's also this old program for getting WAV into Akai format: AkaiDisk

I've yet to try it but it looks promising.

Awesome news Don,

I received an email from Jd this morning. If all goes well my cf reader should be along shortly. I seem to have the OS on an EPROM as well, as it doesn't require a boot disk when turned on.

I still need to replace the screen as well. Where is the best to purchase a replacement screen? From Jd or did you find it somewhere else?

Thanks for any help.
D.

You can get it form Telesis in US and MidiRakete in EU.

Good to know i can use a standard USB card reader. And also a goodbye to messing with a SCSI cable and adapter.

I used the trial version of disk2file and figured out it requires a SCSI cable to the CF reader which somehow slows down the process. The Chickensys is more elegant solution.

Thank-you very much sir.

Ah... Found it. That would be Telesisgear.com if anybody else is looking. Thanks again Don.

I have not really done any gear repairs so I may be hitting you up for some installation advice in a few weeks. Err I don't wanna brick the old lady yet at the same time I think it's time to start learning how to do some repairs. Reading some of the threads about you guys fixing stuff up is kinda inspiring. Not to mention all the money saved!
D.