Looking for old AKAI Sampler CDS (Drums & Percussion)

[MKMUSICRS]

Hello,

I am looking for old Sampler CDS for Samplers like AKAI, that were very popular for Drums & Percussion between 1995 - 2000. Does anyone can tell me some names from popular Sampler CDs for this Sampler?

Thanks in advance for every help

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kjh

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,mnhg

[MutantHero]

-1 for nostalgia. Ultimately it's a waste of time and energy if you're serious about making new music. There's been to much progress. I have wasted hella lot of time on it too.

[Obsolete462444]

Wow, I didn't know that asking for a sample format conversion tool is considered an offence?

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#'

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;lkj

[MutantHero]

EDIT:

Ok I can see some posts just got deleted that I was replying to. Understandable.

I'm going to [REDACT] what I think was the offending info. I'll post the rest because some might find it useful. Mods, please delete if you feel it crosses the line. Or even edit out whatever offending bits I might have left in. I'll do my best to cut them out. Do as you see fit.

This is my original post between "=================" lines.

I'll give a final comment at the end.


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[REDACTED]

Is there any current (preferably free) sample player that can read or convert them?

[/REDACTED]


When you say "them", you need to qualify that. There's a lot of sample cd's there!

In short, the answer to your question is: Yes, No, Maybe.

Yes, if the Sample CD has mapping information with it.

No, if the Sample CD has no mapping information with it.

Maybe, if the Sample CD has mapping information that comes in a format that can be read by a converter to re-map to whatever new format you require. There's a lot of formats out there, or rather, enough to really confuse things and for it to be sod's law when a particular sample set you want to use, does come with mapping information, but just not in a format that your converting program can read.

Also you can forget Sample Players, on the whole doing much of the dirty work of sample translation. That is why programs like Extreme Sample Converter, Chicken Systems Translator, CDXTRACT and FMJ Software's Awave Studio, exist and cost money to buy, although some give quite generous demos at least. CDXTRACT is probably the best in that regard.

Not saying that certain samplers can't do a great job of converting sample formats, because they can. Just saying that when you seriously get in to sampling and wanting to convert things between hardware and software then you will need to buy at least one of those programs to get the job done.

But again, it depends, and if you are working totally in the box, depending on what you want to do, your current sampler may surprise you. I'll give the example of the Ableton Sampler (not Simpler) being able to actually convert pretty much perfectly as far as I can see, Akai Hard Disk images that the PC computer can not even read - it then converts and maps things out for you beautifully and automagically so you can use those CD's with their Sampler. Quite a feat. And would have taken quite a bit of work by the Ableton devs to read the documentation of the format and then do the programming to convert it via drag and drop. Not a trivial task and this is why Sampler costs extra money and does not come with Live Standard.

There are also programs I have like Halion by Steinberg that can do this and also convert Roland CD's as well as Emu CD's apparently. Not tried it out yet to be honest. But I don't doubt it works just fine.

So as you see, you may not need that conversion software I mentioned above, depending...

I downloaded about 20 Gigs worth of CD's from that very link, and I can tell you now, some come with mapping information, but many do not. So you will not be able to convert the majority of stuff from that site. It's ripped bare .wav material.

Now in some cases, a lot of those older 90's Sample CD's contained nothing other than RAW .wavs. By that, I don't mean the format, but the fact they contained no mapping information as they were just loops that you cut out what you wanted and worked from there. So expect that as well with the older CD's.

But the Akai library CD's they do, sometimes contain formatting and mapping information in the form of .AKP files, but sometimes on other CD's they don't. While these CD's are available all over the net from various sources with full mapping included. So it leads you down a bit of a garden path. So keep that in mind.

Other CD's like ones from Spectrasonics only contain raw wav files. I expect this is because they are still sold and without the formatting information these CDs are sometimes next to useless compared to ones with mapping info.

Sor for those sample CD's with no formatting at all - you are SOL!

There is nothing to convert FROM, let alone TO.

Try to find a source for the sample CD you want that does include this info. There are many links on Gearspace that will point you in the right direction.

Where certain information is included such as the standard .AKP format, then you can load this up in many samplers including DirectWave and the free ShortCircuit which is being worked on by those clever chaps that did the free Surge synth and brought it up to date. It reads that format very well and you may find it can convert to other formats but I wouldn't like to say right now and it would depend on what you wanted to convert it to anyway.

Also keep in mind there is a difference between some of these CD's that essentially encryped with the manufacturer's specific format, or something like that. Was it Akai CD's which are .MDX or something? Now no PC can read that. Not even the excellent .ISO programs like UltraIso or PowerIso will read them. They say they are corrupted they are not. In certain cases that format can be converted with free software such as Infrarecorder (grab it while you still can) to a disc image such as the more standard .ISO which can be read by PC - it can't read the disc itself but it can convert it to a format that can be read.

I believe the .MDX files that the whole Akai CD's came 'imaged' in are also the ones that Ableton Sampler can convert and create brand new directory structures in your main Live folder installation, for. Then again I might have just made that up. I think I had to convert those very .MDX (or wtf they were) images to .ISO first with Infrarecorder, then the Ableton Sampler could convert them. I'm working from memory here, so forgive me.

Infrarecorder is free and just works. http://infrarecorder.org/

It's old, but so are a lot of these sample formats. It makes sense to use old software to use on old stuff.

Anyway, I don't think you actually get any of the Akai images from that [REDACTED] website, but they are out there, and if you do a quick search with [REDACTED]

So I know a few of those Sample CD's can be read with DirectWave by Image-Line and the free Shortcircuit, not fogetting Kontakt of course.

Ah, Kontakt...

Kontakt is very very useful to have for reading and converting all kinds of formats such as Soundfont (.SF2) and Akai (.AKP), though I think they have taken out this functionality in the very latest version. Might be wrong, but pretty sure Kontakt 4 and 5 do a great job of reading and writing to different formats, as well as reading the actual sample CD itself, if it can be read by PC.

As for those Sample Converter programs, I would say that CDXTRACT is probably the best of them. http://www.soundlib.com/cdxtract/

It can read .ISO CD images and convert them, then once converted can convert them again further to different formats such as for Reason's Sampler, Soundfonts, Kontakt, Halion, EXS24 and many more. It even works a charm for doing stuff for hardware samplers.

Awave is probably the most useful after that. https://www.fmjsoft.com/awavestudio.html#main

Both of these are free to try and you can definitely get a sense if they are going to work for you before you shell out the 100 or so bucks they both cost.

Chicken Systems Translator seems to have a lot of problems though it does the job perfectly for some people. Dev is not the best in the world to deal with, so they say.

Another very useful one is ESC. https://www.extranslator.com/index.php?page=demo

That one is the cheapest of the lot and has a lot of utility. Try the demo. It's an excellent program that works very well.

Just don't expect there to be any one ONE STOP SHOP for converting all this stuff, even if you shell out hard cash. You will probably need at least a couple of these programs when you build a big sample library such as is available on the net right now.

If you want to really get in to the nitty gritty and down and dirty then you are looking at programs such as Omniflop and EMXP, because you will get a sample CD one day that you really really want to use, be it a new hardware sampler you just got, or just your fave software sampler. These programs can really save the day, but they have a bit of a learning curve. They are essential really to anyone working with older samplers who is converting more obscure formats.
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TL;DR:

Is there any current (preferably free) sample player that can read or convert them?

Yes, if they have formatting and mapping information such as included .AKP files (Akai format) then ShortCircuit can read that format. It's free.

Samplers such as DirectWave can be downloaded and used in the free FLStudio demo and they can read .AKP as well. You might even be able to convert and save within the demo. Not sure.

Older versions of Kontakt (and maybe even the latest version) can read .AKP files and convert them too. Not free, but perhaps the demos or cut down versions that came with some bundles might be able to do this.

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No, if the Sample CD's you dl'd did not contain any mapping info. There is nothing to convert because there is nothing to read.

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Maybe, if there are formats on some of those sample CD's that can be converted by free software such as I already mentioned. I haven't downloaded them all so I am not familiar with everything on that site. You might get lucky but I think these are just raw rips most of the time.

Pretty sure when I was doing my research that some of those sample CD's can still be bought, so it's getting in to quite a grey area. I assume the sample companies know about this site and are happy to have the promotion of their work, which really is essentially useless in its current form most of the time, and when people like what they hear, they head on back to these companies and buy the bona fide CD itself. Really, this is an oversaturated and dying market, so I expect they are glad of the exposure.

But don't forget, a lot of those old sample CD's never came with any formatting anyway and you were just supposed to browse the CD and cut and loop out whatever took your fancy. It's a great resource in that regard. The more lovingly crafted stuff by Spectrasonics et al is essentially useless without all the mapping that went in to making up the great multi-sampled instruments that they provide. So again, if you like what you hear by these glorified 'demos' you would head over to their site and actually buy them.

Pretty sure that is the loop hole that allows this site to exist. The end-user gets a site where he can browse a library to see what takes his fancy, and the original manufacturer gets to make a sale when the end-user realises he needs to buy the full product for it to make sense. Ok, a few people get freebies in the meantime, but on the whole, there is a bit more income than there was before. Just my very uninformed opinion as usual. Head over to [REDACTED] if you want to see more discussion of this topic.

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Ok, as you can see in my ending paragraphs, I touched on the 'grey' area of it all.

If mods feel this crosses the line, then by all means just wipe it!

I've given no links and [REDACTED] what was the offending post.

It wasn't meant to be a discussion on morality or ethics or wares, but again, Mods if you feel it crossed the line, just delete.

I did download a lot of stuff from the offending site, but not used any, just doing research. These links are still up at [REDACTED], but you'd need to do quite a clever search to find them. That's where I got the original links. I assumed the fact that they were up at a reputable site that bans all discussion and links to ware(z) and illegal software/content meant they were 'kosher'. Everyone draws the line somewhere I suppose. Still not looking for a discussion, just giving my end of things.

The site that someone put up did contain a lot of content. Most of it useless, really. Then again, they had stuff from people I've worked/liased with who I know are very strict about re-distributing their work IN WHATEVER FORMAT OR WAY, even with disclaimers. And that's ok. It's their work. They get to say how it's distributed. I finished the work I could, and made a link back to their site for the end-users to get the OG work, which was the whole point I expect. No hard feelings.

And Mods, no hard feelings if you just want to delete/edit this post.

I'll only respond to discussions on technicalities on sample conversion and whatnot, not ethics/morals etc. etc. I'm not interested to be honest. And don't PM me for any personal links to stuff, I won't respond.

In my research, I have already PM'd and informed other Mods on other large sites such as this where their work was being used, without their consent. So I suppose I am doing some good.

Hopefully people will find this an interesting technical discussion, which is what this site is meant to be about.

Mods, do what you got to do.

But please note, I have provided no links to illegal sites. I have provided no moral or ethical justification for providing 'dubious stuff' found on these 'grey area' sites. I have even made an explicit statement against the very use of it in one particular case as it pertains to me. I have made several compelling arguments why the end-user should in fact buy the original material from the original source.

But hopefully the hard-won technical information I provided helps out people who have done the right thing and all have legit sources/copies of this media. And they just don't know how to get in to their particular hardware or software sampler.

And more than that, there is just such an absolute wealth and cornucopia of free material available, that it just doesn't make sense from a time/brain cpu cycles used, perspective, to even download this stuff in the first place unless you know what you are looking for and know what you want to do.

There are people providing free stuff today that just doesn't compare to all that old 'tat'. And in some cases you might need to spend a fiver or tenner just to make up for the time-intensive donkey work labour it takes to provide a thorough and well working sample library. With all due respect to the original pioneers of course.

I've researched it more than most. And I can tell you: Nostalgia ain't what it used to be!

that is one long ass post

[enroe]

Wow, I didn't know that asking for a sample format conversion tool is considered an offence?

Indeed. I bought many AKAI-samples for the S3000i in the nineties.
These are still on CDs and also on floppy-discs and I would like
to convert them to sfz. Here a conversion-tool would be handy.

What I did: I manually created new sfz-files - step by step and
very tediously. But all of this is made for my studio library.

Of course, nobody is allowed to sell AKAI samples as their own
- regardless of whether they have been converted or not.