30 to 50 years ago, any technician and musician could only dream about todays possibilities. And now many "producers" think that reducing the possibilities to what was available some time ago would magically make their samples "fat and incredible sounding".

 

I had an S-750 and an S-760 (1 rack space). At the time, they were cool because you could use a monitor. I produced a few records and some decent tracks with them. It was 16bit. It was way better than Ensonique Mirage, but not as good at the E-Mu stuff and the Akai.

 

I had one. I didn't know it was supposed to be all special and nostalgic now but it was certainly a vast improvement over an Ensoniq Mirage. Although, as big a PITA as the Mirage was to use I love it's sound. So 8 bit.

 

I've got Hohner HS1/E which is essentially a Casio FZ-10. A rack version of the classic Casio FZ1 keyboard sampler that was used by Aphex Twin and Autechre. Hohner licensed it from Casio but they're the same sampler. Much warmer sound than most Akai samplers, nicer filters too, digitally controlled analogue filter, really fat for drums and has some interesting synthesis inside it as well. It's a bit of a hidden gem.

The Roland S-760 had digital filters, as did most of the Akai and Emu samplers. The really early Roland and Akai samplers had analogue filters though.

 

AKAI S900, Dynacord ADS and E-MU e64 user here, never looked back ANY time since, but feel free to dream on.

Edit: And buy an Atari 1040 ST, it will instantly make you productive like Michael Cretu or Stock, Aitken, Waterman.

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2025

Listen to any old Source Direct or Dom and Roland records.. "Roland" was a 760.

Certainly got a nice sound, it's a Roland and the filter is its high point. It's very 'hi fi' its very "Roland".

The tiny era of Jungle to me is all about Akai's, S900/950/1000. The E-MU/Roland's are later, right around the time someone decided we needed another term called drum and bass.
No Roland ever had an analog filter in it, but the Ensoniq Mirage, Akai S900 and S950, and the Emulator II do. Roland's digital filters in the JV's, XV's, and the S samplers are pretty awesome though.

 

Yes, I still have mine, and it sounds great. It also has a nice Quick Sampling function that is faster in use than other samplers of that era, and I've used an Akai S3k, an E-Mu e6400 and a Yamaha A5000.

 

The Roland Fantoms have analogue filters but they're much newer. But you're right, no Roland samplers from back in the day were analogue.

 

First, they're incredibly well designed and spec'ed machines, with great sounding filters. These are not Akai (cold) or EnsoniQ (gritty), or Yamaha (remember those). Only hardware rivals were EMU and of course Fairlight and NED.

Secondly, most if not the entire library was sampled, designed, supervised, authored by Eric Piersing - if I'm not mistaken. Top notch 16-bit samples. They maxed out at 32MB of RAM so it was typical of us (Film, TV, Theater) composers to have a battery of those: one per section (Violins I, Violins II, Violas, Celli, Basses, Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion, etc). The more fortunate of us had two per section, slightly detuned, just enough to create a thicker sound.

They're an absolute workhorse and bargain these days, if you can get them from a trusted seller. Typically, they sat in racks in composers' studios, so besides dust and electrical component burnout, there should be minimal wear and tear.

Highly recommended - the sounds are stellar, and maybe today's libraries eclipse them, but the S-760 sounds sit very naturally in a mix, with very little adjustment or correction (same goes for EMU sounds, btw). At the right price, I wouldn't hesitate to buy a couple to bolster my existing arsenal - if that's your question.

The only negative I've ever heard anyone bring up about them is the 32MB RAM limitation (which, for the late 80s and early 90s was top dog then). Everything else is how it should be - or best it could be at the time.

It would still be very helpful on modern tracks, especially, if - like most keyboard players and producers - you layer several sounds together. Make sure you get the CD-ROMs or libraries when purchasing, so you can get started straight away. There's online resources still - or were, last I checked 3 years ago.

 

You most likely didn't sample correctly. Envelopes are super fast but when you use a threshold in auto-sampling, chances are that the attack isn't even sampled in the first place.
The S-760 is somewhat unique in that it has an adjustable pre-trigger amount to avoid that.
So Auto + Threshold + Pre-Trigger > 0 would be the way to go.

And regarding the screen, I can highly recommend to use the OP-760 board with video, mouse and digital audio connectivity.

 

Last edited: Mar 28, 2025

I don't think he did the whole set (meaning, Roland's factory CD-ROM set), but he might've. I do remember him doing cheesy fusion demo tracks with the stuff on a circa '94 demo CD.

But Spectrasonics got going back then already, so those classic sets like Heart Of Asia and Heart Of Africa I & II were done by his team, and came out on in Roland format.

 

S-760, some breaks, an Amiga, plus some Roland rack synths = jungle

 

I'm glad to be able to work with modern DAWs and editors; they're simply much better graphically and more clearly arranged. I want to watch HD TV, not VHS tapes.

The fact that these sound processors of the time, like the Yamahas, Korgs, and Fairlight CMIs, had a great sound is especially noticeable in the records and radio stations of the time, during the most important era of modern electronic music, the 1980s.