12 bit sampler that doesn't cost thousands?

[jocknaethick]

When I bought my Juno 106, the seller through in a Roland w30 for free. Not sure if they are worth anything these days (7% inflation, my arse), it seemed a pretty solid 12 bit sampling keyboard but I guess not exactly valued.

[Alyctro]

Yes, YouTube degrades audio quality, based upon the original content, which formats it was converted from (and into), and what platform you're listening to it on. Add the fact that you're going based upon what you remember something sounding like, and all bets are off. At any rate, it sounds like you have a recipe to get closer to what you want.

What is the "SC1200.WAV" from? You mention an Akai in your post, but there was no Akai 1200. There was an Emulator SP1200, which, from what I've read, did some interesting stuff with pitch-shifting, considering it wasn't meant to do "high-quality" pitch-shifting.

Steve

My bad, thanks Steve. It's a preset from Decimort, i only realised that's not an akai when you told me. Because there was another similar preset there. I based a 950 off it. And indeed i have the recipe, but i'll welcome any other tips.

[Alyctro]

When I bought my Juno 106, the seller through in a Roland w30 for free. Not sure if they are worth anything these days (7% inflation, my arse), it seemed a pretty solid 12 bit sampling keyboard but I guess not exactly valued.

Depends, although it's disk based so that means it doesn't record sounds.

[planetearth]

Yes, YouTube degrades audio quality, based upon the original content, which formats it was converted from (and into), and what platform you're listening to it on. Add the fact that you're going based upon what you remember something sounding like, and all bets are off. At any rate, it sounds like you have a recipe to get closer to what you want.

What is the "SC1200.WAV" from? You mention an Akai in your post, but there was no Akai 1200. There was an Emulator SP1200, which, from what I've read, did some interesting stuff with pitch-shifting, considering it wasn't meant to do "high-quality" pitch-shifting.

Steve

My bad, thanks Steve. It's a preset from Decimort, i only realised that's not an akai when you told me. Because there was another similar preset there. I based a 950 off it. And indeed i have the recipe, but i'll welcome any other tips.

To me, the Decimort one sounded the "crunchiest" (in a good way), but also had a bit of noise. I'm not sure I heard much from the Emulator II emulation. Not compared to the original, anyway.

I know you were also looking at TAL-Sampler, but they also offer the DAC as a standalone plug-in, if you think you could ever use it. (https://tal-software.com/products/tal-dac)

A quick Google search of "tal dac vs decimort" will show you a few threads (with many opinions) from this site and Gearspace as to which gets closer to the Akai S950 sound (among others) you may want.

Steve

[thecontrolcentre]

Try looking for a Cheetah SX16 Sampler ... I had 2 of them of the 90's and they can sample audio in 8,10,12 & 16 bit iirc. They are generally much cheaper than AKAI etc, as the OS takes a bit of getting used to. Only 512k memory tho' and floppy disk export

Here are some tracks I made in 1997 using the Cheetah SX16s ...

https://ashfelt.bandcamp.com/track/people-from-jupiter (almost everything)
https://ashfelt.bandcamp.com/track/klik (almost everything)
https://marineville.bandcamp.com/track/encryption (drums, riffs & voice edits)
https://marineville.bandcamp.com/track/east-4 (drums & voice edits)

[Alyctro]

Try looking for a Cheetah SX16 Sampler ... I had 2 of them of the 90's and they can sample audio in 8,10,12 & 16 bit iirc. They are generally much cheaper than AKAI etc, as the OS takes a bit of getting used to. Only 512k memory tho' and floppy disk export

Here are some tracks I made in 1997 using the Cheetah SX16s ...

https://ashfelt.bandcamp.com/track/people-from-jupiter (almost everything)
https://ashfelt.bandcamp.com/track/klik (almost everything)
https://marineville.bandcamp.com/track/encryption (drums, riffs & voice edits)
https://marineville.bandcamp.com/track/east-4 (drums & voice edits)

Didn't find it. But sounds cool! I dig your soundtracks, specially encryption.

[Alyctro]

Yes, YouTube degrades audio quality, based upon the original content, which formats it was converted from (and into), and what platform you're listening to it on. Add the fact that you're going based upon what you remember something sounding like, and all bets are off. At any rate, it sounds like you have a recipe to get closer to what you want.

What is the "SC1200.WAV" from? You mention an Akai in your post, but there was no Akai 1200. There was an Emulator SP1200, which, from what I've read, did some interesting stuff with pitch-shifting, considering it wasn't meant to do "high-quality" pitch-shifting.

Steve

My bad, thanks Steve. It's a preset from Decimort, i only realised that's not an akai when you told me. Because there was another similar preset there. I based a 950 off it. And indeed i have the recipe, but i'll welcome any other tips.

To me, the Decimort one sounded the "crunchiest" (in a good way), but also had a bit of noise. I'm not sure I heard much from the Emulator II emulation. Not compared to the original, anyway.

I know you were also looking at TAL-Sampler, but they also offer the DAC as a standalone plug-in, if you think you could ever use it. (https://tal-software.com/products/tal-dac)

A quick Google search of "tal dac vs decimort" will show you a few threads (with many opinions) from this site and Gearspace as to which gets closer to the Akai S950 sound (among others) you may want.

Steve

Thanks, i was reading though the different forums. To me the votes are even.
Those who stood with decimort paise its quality. And those who stood with tal say quality comes from workflow which their sampler enables.

[thecontrolcentre]

Didn't find it. But sounds cool!

https://musictech.com/reviews/vintage-r ... etah-sx16/

[Lotuz2019]

When I bought my Juno 106, the seller through in a Roland w30 for free. Not sure if they are worth anything these days (7% inflation, my arse), it seemed a pretty solid 12 bit sampling keyboard but I guess not exactly valued.

Depends, although it's disk based so that means it doesn't record sounds.

Afaik the W30 has the same sampling engine as the S330 and S550. I had the S330 for a short while when I was testing 12 bit and 16 bit samplers from the eighties and nineties. Not the easiest sampler to use, even with a screen and mouse. With Decimort 2 I got quite close to its sound at 15 kHz. Very nice for drum breaks, too clean for pianos and such sounds. Decimort 2, TAL-DAC and SP950 give me all the vintage sampler flavours I need. No, they won't make your samples sound 100% the same (as with most vintage gear emulations), but close enough imo. I enjoy the flexibility of advanced bitcrushers. And you don't have to buy and sell various vintage samplers in the search for your favourite sounding one. All vintage samplers have their own (fixed) sound. Which is the right one for you?

[Alyctro]

Didn't find it. But sounds cool!

https://musictech.com/reviews/vintage-r ... etah-sx16/

What i meant was i didn't find one that's selling. I'm no akai fanboy so even this rackmount looks sexy to me.

[ChamomileShark]

You might also want to have a look at this AD/DA converter (a bit like Tal Dac)
https://www.inphonik.com/products/rx950 ... converter/

and also this
https://the-akaizer-project.blogspot.com/

btw there is one really cheap 12 bit sampler, the Teenage Engineering PO-33.

[Alyctro]

You might also want to have a look at this AD/DA converter (a bit like Tal Dac)
https://www.inphonik.com/products/rx950 ... converter/

and also this
https://the-akaizer-project.blogspot.com/

btw there is one really cheap 12 bit sampler, the Teenage Engineering PO-33.

I have tal-dac and akaizer, but akaizer is really only for cyclic time stretching. I didn't check if it also saves the sample in its own bit rate.

[Big Mouth Strikes Again]

The thing is i'm working on a few projects that have the 90's games crunch. Yes, a lot of those samples are already 16bit in most rompler synths. And i even tried emulating it with plugins, i tried shrinking my audio the way it was shrunk back in the day due to the constraints at the time. But it's still missing something. The sound feels much duller yet still lively at the same time. And no, i don't want to bitcrush the sound, i'm not making chiptune music. I'm just trying to make it more crunchy and i figured that the sounds need to be driven through a sampler such as the EMU2 or AkaiXL, whatever i know they're expensive but you get my point. But i couldn't find any. I come from Europe so i don't want to pay another hundred for shipping. There's nothing on the local market. The only site i found that seems to sell used samplers is reverb but the prices there are way over my budget. I was thinking of something between 200 to 400€ tops. I don't care about time stretching and most commonly used features. I just want something to drive the sound through, and then output the file as a 12bit audio file, maybe even 16. I know about VAGedit.
I'm open to alternative solutions too.

The E-mu Emulator II is what you want. It sounds fantastic. Super crunchy and lo-fi. It's instant Depeche Mode circa Violator and earlier albums.

If you can't afford an E-II, then give TAL Sampler a try. It has an E-II mode that seems to capture some of the hardware mojo.

[bite_me]

Inphonik crushes them all.
The Akai S950 and the latest RX1200.
https://www.inphonik.com/products/rx120 ... nstrument/

[Ex Machina]

I’m curious. What does an Akai S-950 sell for these days? There was a time when software samplers like Kontakt and the EXS24 came on the scene in the early 2000s after which you literally couldn’t give away an S-950 (or any hardware sampler for that matter). I think the Emulator II and E-III held their value somewhat because they sounded so distinctive and had real analog filters. But no one wanted to deal with the limited memory and floppy disc storage format.

To me the E-II is the only hardware sampler worth owning for its crunchy warm sound. I think you can replace the floppy drive with a Zip drive or something similar. But I think you are still stuck with the limited memory. That’s why I would get TAL Sampler and call it a day.

Incidentally, I don’t understand why anyone would want an Akai S1000 to achieve some sort of retro sound. The S1000 sounded horrible with a noticeably narrow stereo field and had the shittiest non-resonant digital filters imaginable. The Roland S-770 and S-760 sounded infinitely better.