The Yamaha AN1x Synthesizer mailing list

From: "RayMaxer" <digil@...>

> Speaking about samplers - I am going to get a top-end sampler and am
thinking
> about EMU Ultra series and AKAI 5000 ... or maybe Yamaha A4000-A5000 (but
the
> latest has UGLY SCSI as I know so I am somehow not sure if its in the same
> 'line') ..
> Could anyone give some advice on this topic ?

For samplers - real instruments, not phrase samplers - you basically have
the choice between Yamaha, Akai and EMU. There's also Kurzweil, but their
price/performance ratio is quite poor, compared to the others.

Yamaha has a quite attractive price/performance ratio, but some time ago I
lost my trust in them. Yamaha chruns out one new instrument after the other,
but it also means that two years after it came onto the market, support
suddenly evaporates. Good examples are the FS1r and the EX5. Great machines,
but let down by Yamaha. A more significant example is the A3000, that was
dropped overnight in favour of the A4000 and A5000. A lot of dedicated
followers were rather pissed by this and it cost Yamaha a lot of credit.

But this goes along with this Japanese company. It's their way of conducting
business. In about a year and a half, the A4000 and A5000 will be, well,
dead. It will still be great instruments, but unsupported. You have to
decide what's important for you.

Akai, strange as it may sound, is not a Japanese company. As a matter of
fact, the company filed for bankruptcy, but the musical instruments division
survives. The S5000 and S6000 are professional samplers, and the S5000 can
be expanded almost to S6000 functionality, although you won't get the
detachable screen. I'm not sure about the software support, you'll have to
check that out.

Important for the Akais is that they have a *huge* sample library. This
means that you have access to an incredible amount of sounds that don't need
tweaking, unlike the Yamahas that read Akai disks, but require additional
tweaking because of the different architecture.

The Ultra EMUs are professional samplers as well. If you have some spare
rubels, you can get an E4 Platinum. It's full blown in every aspect, with
128 Mb RAM, 128 voices, 16 ADAT outputs, 8 ADAT inputs, an extra effects
board, a 20 Gb disk, two SCSI ports and 20 CDs. But it's not cheap.

Like the Akai S5000 (and unlike the Yamaha A4000) all the Ultra samplers can
be expanded right onto the top model. The entry level samplers are the E5000
and E6400, with the difference being the initial and maximum number of
voices. They too have a huge sample library to choose from, and if I'm not
mistaken you can read Akai CDs without any trouble.

So you'll have to decide what's best for you. The Yamahas are the cheapest,
but they are also the end of the road. If you don't think you'll want to
expand it, and don't mind a smaller library, it's an excellent choice.

My own vote goes to the EMU Ultra series, which are very, very good samplers
(or so I have been told by many people).

- Peter