Akai S900 | |
---|---|
Manufacturer | Akai |
Dates | 1986 [1] [2] |
Technical specifications | |
Polyphony | 8 voices |
Timbrality | 8 parts |
Synthesis type | Digital Sample-based Subtractive |
Storage memory | 896KiB (768KiB for samples) |
Input/output | |
External control | MIDI |
The Akai S900 is a 12-bit sampler, with a variable sample rate from 7.5 kHz through to 40 kHz. It was common in recording studios until it was superseded two years later by the S1000.
An expanded version, the Akai S950, was released in 1988 alongside the higher end S1000. The S950 imported some of the S1000's improvements, including timestretching (allowing the user to change a sample's length and pitch independently of one another), [3] and it increased the maximum sample rate to 48 kHz. [3] Unlike the S1000 series, the S900 series allows a sample to loop alternating forwards and backwards.
Notable users include The 45 King (who named his hit "The 900 Number" after the sampler), [4] Juan Atkins, [5] Beatmasters, [6] Black Box, Ian Boddy, [7] Enya, [8] Fatboy Slim (who nearly exclusively uses a pair of S950s), [9] Front 242, [10] KLF, [11] The Bomb Squad, Prince Paul, Renegade Soundwave, [12] and Tangerine Dream. [13]
The Fairlight CMI is a digital synthesizer, sampler, and digital audio workstation introduced in 1979 by Fairlight. It was based on a commercial licence of the Qasar M8 developed by Tony Furse of Creative Strategies in Sydney, Australia. It was one of the earliest music workstations with an embedded sampler and is credited for coining the term sampling in music. It rose to prominence in the early 1980s and competed with the Synclavier from New England Digital.
Akai is a Hong Kong manufacturer of consumer electronics. It was founded as Akai Electric Company Ltd in Tokyo, Japan, in 1946.
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The KLF are a British electronic band formed in London in 1987. Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty began by releasing hip hop-inspired and sample-heavy records as the JAMs. As the Timelords, they recorded the British number-one single "Doctorin' the Tardis", and documented the process of making a hit record in a book The Manual . As the KLF, Drummond and Cauty pioneered stadium house and, with their 1990 LP Chill Out, the ambient house genre. The KLF released a series of international hits on their own KLF Communications record label and became the biggest selling singles act in the world in 1991.
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The Akai S1000 is a 16-bit, 44.1 kHz professional stereo digital sampler, released by Akai in 1988. The S1000 was among the first professional-quality 16-bit stereo samplers. Its abilities to splice, crossfade, trim, and loop sound in 16-bit CD quality made it popular among producers in the late 80s through to the mid 90s. The S1000 used 24-bit internal processing, had digital filters and an effects send and return, and came with 2MB of RAM.
In sound and music, sampling is the reuse of a portion of a sound recording in another recording. Samples may comprise elements such as rhythm, melody, speech, sound effects or longer portions of music, and may be layered, equalized, sped up or slowed down, repitched, looped, or otherwise manipulated. They are usually integrated using electronic music instruments (samplers) or software such as digital audio workstations.
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