WARNING Power requirements Power requirements for electrical equipment differ from area to area. Please ensure that your machine meets the power requirements m your area. If in doubt. consult a qualified electrician. 120V. 60Hz for USA and Canada 220V. 50Hz for Europe except UK 240V. 50Hz for UK and Australia Precautions FOR CUSTOMERS IN THE UK IMPORTANT FOR YOUR SAFETY What you should know to protect yourself and the Akai S950. Watch out! You might get an electric shock Never touch the plug with wet hands. Always pull out by the plug and never the cord. Only let a qualified professional repair or reassemble the Akai S950. An unauthorized person might touch the internal parts and receive a serious electric shock. Never allow a child to put anything, especially metal, info the Akai S950. Let's protect the Akai S950 too. Use only a household AC power source. Never use a DC power source. If water is spilled on the Akai 5950, disconnect rt and call your dealer. Make sure that the Akai S950 is well ventilated and away from direct sunlight. To avoid damage to the internal circuits and the external surface, keep away from heal (stoves, etc.). Avoid using spray type insecticide near the Akai S950. It can damage the finish and might ignite suddenly. To avoid damaging the finish, never use denaturated alcohol, paint thinner or other similar chemicals to clean the Akai S950. Place the Akai 5950 on a flat and solid surface. To enjoy the Akai S950 for long time, please read this operator's manual thoroughly. The flex supplied with your machine will have two wires, as shown m the illustration. TWO CORE FLEX IMPORTANT The wires in this mains lead are coloured in accordance with the following code: Blue: Neutral Brown: Live As the colours of the wires in the mains lead of this apparatus may not correspond with the coloured markings identifying the terminals in your plug, proceed as follows: The wire which is coloured blue must be connected to the terminal which is marked with the letter N or coloured black. The wire which is coloured brown must be connected to the terminal which is marked with the letter L or coloured red. Do not connect any wire to the larger pin marked E or down when wiring a plug. Ensure that all terminals are securely tightened and that no loose strands of wire exist. Should a problem persist, write down the model and serial numbers and all pertinent data regarding warranty coverage as well as a clear description of the existing trouble. Then, contact your nearest authorized Akai Service Station, or Akai Electric Co., Ltd.. Quality Assurance Dept., Service Section m Tokyo. Japan. Warning -- This equipment generates and uses radio frequency energy and if not installed and used properly, that is, in strict accordance with the manufacture's instructions, may cause interference to radio and television- reception. It has been type tested and found to comply with the limits for a Class 8 computing device in accordance with the specifications in Subpart J of Part 15 FCC Rules. which are designed to provide reasonable protection against such interference in a residential installation. However, there is no guarantee that interference will not occur in a particular installation. If this equipment dose cause interference to radio or television reception. which can be determined by turning the equipment off and on, the user is encouraged to try to correct the interference by one or more of the following measures: Reorient the receiving antenna Relocate the computer wish respect to the receiver Move the computer away from the receiver Plug the computer into a different outleet so that computer and receiver are on different branch circuits. If necessary, the user should consult the dealer or an experienced radio/ television technician for additional suggestions. The user may find the following booklet prepared by the Federal Communications Commission helpful: "How to Identity and Resolve Radio-TV Interference Problems" This booklet is available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. Washington, DC 20402. Stock No. 004-000-00345-4. The lightning flash with the arrowhead symbol superimposed across a graphical representation of a person, within an equilateral triangle, is intended to alert the user to the presence of uninsulated "dangerous volts"" within the product's enclosure: that may be of sufficient. magnitude to constitute a risk of electric shack. The exclamation point within an equilateral triangle Is Intended to alert the user to the presence of important operating end maintenance (servicing) Instructions fn the literature accompanying the appliance. "This digital apparatus does not exceed the Class B limits (a radio noise emissions from digital apparatus set out in the Radio Interference Regulations of the Canadian Department of Communications" AKAI S950 SAMPLER MANUAL - INTRODUCTION Welcome to the Akai S950 Digital Sampler. This versatile instrument provides the flexibility associated with more expensive machines yet is easy to use once you become familiar with its operation. It took many months of intensive development to produce the S950 and it will take some time and practice for you to master this advanced instrument but the reward for your efforts will be the opportunity to make creative and exciting music using the latest in sampling technology. No-one can deny the impact sampling has had on the way we make music - it could be argued that it is as revolutionary as the invention of the synthesizer itself. The Akai S900 was the first sampler that brought affordable, studio quality sampling in an easy to use and flexible rack mounting format to many musicians and studios the world over becoming an industry standard by which all other samplers were compared. The new S950 !s the successor to that sampler and combines the benefits of improved technology with all the best features and software updates of the S900 plus all those features that people wanted to see on the S900 such as higher bandwidth, expandable memory, etc.. We are sure you will enjoy using your S950 for many years. But first, let's take care of the unit. If the unit is going to be kept in a rack full of other equipment in a studio, it's a good idea to make sure there is some ventilation around it if you can. This can be done by leaving a 1U gap on top of the S950- which can be filled in with a blank rack panel. This will prevent any overheating of the unit. If you are going to be transporting the S950, especially if you are gagging with a band, we recommend the use of a sturdy flight case to protect your investment. Once again, if it's in a rack with other gear, leave a gap. If you don't have a flight case, you can use the box the unit came in when transporting your S950. When you are transporting the S950, ensure that either the supplied disk protector or a blank disk is inserted in the disk drive to protect the disk drive's delicate heads. If the unit gets dirty, you can clean it with a warm, damp cloth and some mild detergent but do not use any strong solvents or you will ruin the finish. If your S950 develops a fault, there are no user serviceable parts inside so don't open the unit up in the unlikely event of anything going wrong. This will invalidate your warranty as well as potentially damaging the instrument further. You may also get an electric shock. Please refer the unit to your local Akai dealer who will have it repaired by an authorized repair center. If any liquid is spilled into the instrument, turn !t off at the mains supply do not try to switch it off at the front panel as you may get an electric shock. Do not open it up to try and clean it but take it to your local Akai dealer. Under no circumstances open the unit up if it is connected to the mains supply even if the unit is switched off as you may get an electric shock. There are a variety of options available for the S950 which are discussed later. To fit these, please take your instrument to your local Akai dealer who will either fit them for you or will arrange for an authorized service center to fit them. Trying to fit them yourself will invalidate your warranty. Similarly, any modifications you might make to your S950 will also invalidate your warranty. To avoid damage to the internal circuits and the casework, ensure that the S950 is kept away from heaters, radiators, stoves. etc.. Never let a child put anything, especially metal, into the S950. Also, keep children away from the polythene bag that the unit is wrapped in. Although the S950 has been built to withstand the many rigours of the music business, it is a precision instrument that must be treated as such. Look after your new instrument and it will look after you providing you with years of reliable service. 3 GETTING STARTED You are probably impatient to hear your new sampler so let's connect it up. Referring to Fig. 1, connect the MIDI OUT of a suitable keyboard to the MIDI IN on the S950 using a standard 5 pin DIN cord. Preferably, to take full advantage of the S950's expressive capabilities, the MIDI keyboard should have pitch bend, modulation wheels and touch sensitivity but don't worry if it hasn't. Naturally, we recommend the use of the Akai MX76 master keyboard but any MIDI controller can be used including guitar-MIDI converters, wind controllers such as the Akai EWI or EVI or a MIDI drum controller. Now take a standard Jack-to-Jack lead from the MIX OUT socket on the rear of the S950 to the LINE input of a mixer or amplifier. If you are using a standard guitar amplifier, connect the lend to either the input on the front of the amp marked 'HI' or, better still, have n look round the back of the amp to see if there is an input marked 'AMP IN' which will bypass the amplifiers preamp and so reduce the possibility of distortion. If you are using a hi-fi amp, then you will probably need to use a hack-to-phono lead and connect the S950 to the AUX input on the amp. FIG. 1 Connecting the S950 Making sure that the amplifiers volume control is right down and the S950 is switched off, insert one of the disks supplied with the S950 with the label facing upwards. Push gently until the disk locks in place - the push tab will pop out from below the disk drive when it has been properly inserted. Now turn the S950's power on - the disk will automatically load. While that is happening, you may like to adjust the contrast control to the left of the display for the most legible display. This should take around 40 seconds depending on how much data is on the disk and the red light on the disk drive will be lit and you will hear some clunking and whirring noises from the S950 as the disk contents are loaded. This is normal so don't worry!! 4 CAUTION: UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES MUST YOU REMOVE THE DISK WHILE THE RED LIGHT IS ON AS YOU MAY DAMAGE THE DISK OR THE DRIVE. NEITHER MUST YOU TURN THE S950'S POWER OFF WHILST A DISK IS LOADING. After the disk has loaded, you are ready to play your S950 so turn up the volume on the amplifier and play a few notes on the keyboard - you should now hear a sound. To see what other sounds are in the S950, simply turn the grey CONTROL wheel anticlockwise to scroll through the programs. When you want to change the sound, simply type in the appropriate number using the blue keypad. Repent that process to select the other sounds. Once you've heard all the programs on chat disk, you can select another disk so turn the amplifier volume down, take out the first disk you put in by pressing the push tab below the disk drive and switch the S950 off. Now insert another disk as described above and turn the samplers power back on. After 40 seconds of more clanking and whirring, turn up the amplifiers volume because you are ready to listen to the sounds on the second disk scrolling through the different programs using the data wheel as described above and selecting different programs by typing in the relevant program number. You can repeat this whole procedure for the remaining two disks. 5 S950 - AN OVERVIEW The S950 is a digital sampler that has 16-bit processing and 12-bit sampling with a maximum sampling rate of 48kHz. As well as allowing you to use any of the large library of S900 sounds you can also use sounds from the S1000 sample library and double density or high density disks can be used for storing samples. The S950 enables you to sample and play sounds with astonishing clarity and dynamic range and because the bandwidth is variable up to 19.2kHz, you can be sure that high frequencies are faithfully reproduced. The basic memory is 750K (which is expandable to 2.25Meg) and the basic sampling time is variable between over a minute at reduced bandwidth to ,lust over nine seconds at full bandwidth. Furthermore, bandwidth is totally variable allowing you to squeeze as much sampling time as possible out of your S950. The S950 also has 8 individual monophonic audio outputs which can be used with drums. and percussion and other ...