MPCHunter |

“It might be old, but Akai set the standard with these S-series samplers and they still hold their ground today.

General stuff about this unit
I have owned this unit for a few years and used it once – yes honestly ( i was going to sample a load of sounds from my analogue synths, but never found the time) and now i am purchasing a new synth with sampling option, so this unit is now redundant to me.

When i bought it, it did not have any upgrades, but i soon fixed that. I have installed the maximum 32 megabytes memory and bought (on Ebay) the EB16 multi-effects board as well as the IB-304F filter/envelope board.

What does Akai say about the EB16 effect board?
The multi-effects channels provide distortion, EQ, ring modulation, a choice of modulation effects that includes chorus, phasing, flanging, pitch shifting, and rotary speaker emulation, as well as echo/delay and reverb. The reverb-only channels add 2 additional reverbs for a total of 4 independent reverbs. All EB16 effects are extensively editable and custom multi-effects configurations can be stored in 50 effect presets. An additional 50 presets are reserved just for reverbs. Although the EB16 can add spectacular effects to single programs, its true power becomes evident when it is used in Multi Mode. Here it is configured as four processors, each with its own effects bus. Each Multi Mode Part can be routed, with its own independent send level, to one of the processors. In this way, an entire multitimbral composition, complete with mix and effects, can be executed entirely in the digital domain and routed through the digital outputs directly to DAT or to an Akai digital disk recorder. With the EB16, the new samplers truly function as a digital studio in a single box.

… and the IB-304F?
By adding the optional IB-304F board, a second bank of filters (res/low, band & high pass), real-time digital EQ and a third multistage envelope generator with eight rate and level parameters become available.

I have just installed a new backlight in the machine (best $60 bucks i’ve spent in a long while) and i am hopefully going to fit an internal hard drive for further storage. I have previously just used the internal 3.5″ floppy drive and you can connect an external SCSI Zip drive if you wish (not included – i dont have one, but they are available on Ebay).

The unit is immaculate. There is just a little wear on the Data wheel knob and some very slight scratches in the rackmount holes. Otherwise, not a scratch across the facia and all buttons and LED’s work perfectly.

I have also printed the MESA (Modular Editing System by AKAI) user manual which allows you to modify all the samplers parameters via the editing software on a pc (or mac). The software is freely downloadable, however, you need a computer with SCSI connectivity (not many of us use that anymore, but it is possible and available).” Link