Yamaha A5000 Sampler

[anode]

do have one? are they any good?

will be using in the studio and live pa.

will probably want to edit samples on the computer...but will be sampling straight into the a5000. if i get one that is.

are the akai 3000xl any better?

[dan the acid man]

yamaha samplers are supposed to be excellent

[Evil G]

i have an a5000.

gotchas about them:

-you can put any sized hard disk, but you can only partition up to 8 gigs. still, i've got a 4.5 gig disk in mine and it is nowhere near full.
-hard disk access is slow - a 60 meg library takes 2 or 3 minutes to load.
-not too many commercial sample cds available (but they will of course play regular wav files if you use cdxtract or something like that to get the samples of an akai disk...)

but there are a lot of good things about them. 32 midi channels, 129 voices of polyphony, lots of eq and filters and lfos for sound shaping, and the fx are half decent.

despite the fact that it only runs at 16 bit, the converters are pretty good. i sampled a tb303 straight in and playing the two side by side, you couldn't tell the difference.

[JACKSTAR]

I've had my A4000 for a few years & its been ok for me but now I use the EXS24mk11 sampler in Logic 7 which I prefer for ease of use & quick programming. I will be selling my A4000 & zip drive soon if anyone is interested.

P.

[JohnnyDigital]

i would opt for a emu 5000 ultra (in fact i did)

it's a sampler with a load of synth features and software to use from your pc

also very expandable: 128megs of ram and some users have reported using up to 40gigs HDs. Also works with IDE.

[FILTERZ]

i would opt for a emu 5000 ultra (in fact i did)

it's a sampler with a load of synth features and software to use from your pc

also very expandable: 128megs of ram and some users have reported using up to 40gigs HDs. Also works with IDE.

even better get a e 6400 seen em go fully loaded for 350-400 quid lately

mine cost 1800 pounds three years ago

[FILTERZ]

did have an a3000 for awhile was pretty good as well

took ages to load anything though

[Komplex]

I power on my a4000 every few months now and each time I'm amazed at the awesomeness of it. It's extremely flexible but you have to read the manual. When you take the time to make good patches, assign controllers and use it as an instrument, it will do wonders. Great as part of a "modular" sort of rig where you can patch other signal processors over it.

I used to play live with two of them in my rig (till they got replaced with ableton), really great sound over a big pa which unfortunately ableton doesnt compare to :(. I Also use them as a standalone midi synced efx unit. Nice wide delays and plenty of depth that I just can't get out of the computer alone. A few fancy efx too.

To cut it short, you get out of it what you put in. Give it some love and a lot of time and it'll excite you in special ways ;)