Which version of ESC are you using? Are these windows/ms based file system type ISO's or the ISO's of the original sampler file systems? I tried to make ESC pick up on an ISO of an original AKAI sampler disc and it wouldn't have it. I'm running v3.6.0 btw...

 

I just loaded them into kontakt

 

The OP doesn't seem to really be asking a question about using them in Halion. But the post about MachFive being able to use these files got me to wonder. What about trying this sort of thing in UVI Falcon? The UVI guys were very involved in the development of MachFive at the time. There was a program called UVI Extract that could read sample disks like these also. Like some Chicken Systems era stuff.

https://www.motunation.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=66949

These old sampler cd's and their formats have been a time drain forever. There are some great sounds and can save a lot of work if you have a sampler to load them into. But I'm not sure these aren't like the "magic version" of some plugin people spend way too much time on getting to work, only to get it to work and decide to use modern sample library releases instead. After all that work.

 

I'd stick with Halion too. It hasn't failed me yet on either Akai or EMU format discs yet. It can't read E4B files, but it will do an actual EMU CD/ISO. I haven't tried a Roland one yet, but I only have a couple of those and never really used them even 20 or so years ago when I got them heh.

The only thing you're really going to get from converting a lot of these is just envelope settings, and that's IF the presets had anything special setup. These were meant to go across Akai's whole range of samplers so there usually wasn't anything for filters or effects as those were different/optional on just about every model they had. I've been pulling stuff from Jungle Warfare, Distorted Reality, Datafiles, etc for ages and still do. I've converted plenty of them in all of the different apps, and loaded them into my Akai's and EMUs (which is a pain in the ass). Its a big headache and a waste of time for the most part.

The important thing is to get the samples, and make sure whatever converted them didn't kill the loop points in them. Your best bet is to scrap the Akai discs and see if the pack was ever released in WAV or an ACID bundle like a lot of the Zero G stuff was. Otherwise, if you've got Halion, you're set. When it imports the disc, your presets will go in the VST presets folder for Halion, and the samples will go wherever you tell it to save them to. You can pull them from there as you need to.

 

I believe that's right.. He seems to really ask WHY to use those samples and not HOW. I didn't want to answer that and misunderstood him on purpose and the thread has better information now. Now that we have Kontakt, Halion, Falcon, Nexus, Omnisphere, Reason, Live etc pp yada yada it's imho best to use just those as they are. It's so much more convinient. Those "old" samples were designed for hardware with very limited memory and it can show in the quality. They are still usable, but why bother these days. I am a heretic and don't believe in the magic of old hardware sound and prefer functionality over anything, Menu diving sucks

 

Almost every thread on this bigger picture topic is always started by someone who is not getting one format, or software, to work how they are trying to do it. They are almost never "ok I got this finally working, what next?". there is too much legwork to make them worthwhile if you do not have the hardware. they will sound great in the hardware and be playable keymapped instruments with almost no work. But by the time you have them into your virtual sampler; you have lost all of the upside to it. I have this one Kontakt library, and it is all the old emu synths; and it is fairly well done. It's usefulness compared to a standard Kontakt instrument is about 0.

 

Just one thing I'd like to mention on topic of hardware samplers:
Take a simple waveform or short sound and play it aaall the way down the keys. Because those samplers were pitching it "wrong" the sound falls apart and becomes something else and there is your otherwordly pad.
It's like a "poormans" paulxstretch The old Akais seem to smooth things out, while trackers sounded absolutely awful doing that. There are better words to describe it, which I don't have in my vocabulary.

 

Naw man, just click on "Virtual Discs -> Open Virtual Discs" and that will let you directly open ISOs and other images like nrg or bin.

 

How old do you mean? s612 s700 s900 s950 used "Variabale Playback Rate" method, S1000 S1100 used "Eight-point windowed sinc interpolation" method for pitch-shifting, but there is no magic you can't transpose samples without artefacts, filters had to do their job. You can mimic these kind of pitch-shifting methods today with TAL Sampler

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2023

Yeah, I had a S700 rack sampler.The "bug" was used as a feature and I guess the analog filter blended the artifacts while trackers produced a big mess. I am not sure if I want to go that route again, because they are so many way to produce sounds now, but I still pitch samples down to shit as a layer. Speaking of, I just grabbed Devious Machines - Pitch Monster that seems geared towards that.
Edit: The comment on Pitch Monster doesn't show up on sistersite and don't want to start a new thread: If presets are missing, copy them from /Library/Application\\ Support/DeviousMachines/PitchMonster/Library/presets/ to /Users/<username>/Library/Application\\ Support/DeviousMachines/PitchMonster/Library/Presets/

 

Last edited by a moderator: Dec 7, 2023

AKAI images --> Extreme Sample Converter --> Emulator X3 = zero leg work, batch conversion of whole discs, convenient to use in any DAW, flawless sound, identical to the hardware (minus the sound coloring by the hardwares' DACs).

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2023

I'm also using ESC 3.6.0. You need original AKAI ISO files (they are different from Windows ISO files). Just open these as virtual discs. Here is a good and legal? source on the Internet Archive for those old image files: 90s-sample-cds directory listing (archive.org)

 

This is the best reason for Sample Robot if you are sampling external hardware. It is an auto-sampler program, which sends midi data out to your hardware synths for every key up and down the keyboard (or some interval like 3 keys). It does Latency Compensation in a way, captures the incoming audio being played, per note it triggers. Then it trims them all, auto names the sample per key, and so on. It makes a "kontakt style" instrument out of the samples it has automatically recorded.

The main purpose of the procedure is to create many "root key" samples so that they may be mapped across the entire keyboard. This addresses the problem you are mentioning, because it's for all samplers. They will use pitched and stretched "root note" samples to fill the whole keyboard when there are not a separate sample for every key. Because the sampler will degrade the quality of any keys without a root note. The more you pitch it, the more quality suffers.

This is also behind the reason HW sampler library CDs are so nice to use in the hardware. Many of them are a root note sample for every single key, and then all rolled up into a playable instrument. Very few people will put that much work into a sampler based instrument, or even in Kontakt for their own use. It's why Kontakt libraries are way more useful than just a pile of samples dumped in.

Sample Robot is awesome program, but expensive. It's price is realistic if you actually make multi-sampled libraries, so mostly to a developer. But there is a PC copy on Sister Site. On the flip side, you will see why screwing around with these monster instruments is wasteful of resources, when you sample 61 keys and then use 4 of them in your newest track.

 

Last edited: Dec 7, 2023

Importing Legacy Samples into Kontakt 5
http://zine.r-massive.com/importing-legacy-samples-into-kontakt-5/

 

”Convenient in any DAW”? How would you use E-MU X3 on a modern Mac, hmm?

 

If you’re talking about the Digital Sound Factory set, I’m not surprised: it sucks. It’s supposed to be the ”official” digital version of E-MU’s rack modules, but to me it sounds like they just took the waves, recreated the patches in there, and used Kontakt’s effects and architecture. None sound like the modules and everything is drenched in sucky Kontakt reverb.

IMO the only way to get those properly is in X3, by loading the various ROM images and CD-ROM libraries (like Phatt etc). It sounds exactly like the rack modules’ presets did.

 

Creative's beef with Apple is what really killed them, when the industry was going software as opposed to straight hardware. Not porting it over caused the usual useful hype of what the pro users used go to Giga and elsewhere. I agree with you that once they started losing money they just couldn't make it work but Emu was just a small part of Creative back then, so they let it die.

I worked with many of the film guys from the early 90's on and Emu's were the standard. Some had Akai, some had Roland but all had Emu's and plus Emu's could basically read them all. I still have six different variations of the samplers and they are still in use.

 

I do prefere to load these samples in the hardware sampler and saturating a bit before to recording trough modern converters. Old school but best results.

 

Same one, I checked. It does suck. Because it's exactly what I mean about losing all parameter controls by simply dumping one of these sample cds in as just a big batch of waves. They are just bulk samples. You lose the "instrument" aspect of it when you don't put them in a sampler they were made for. It's like comparing a Serum preset pack to a bunch of wavetables.
I always mean to get around to checking out the X3 but i'd have to use Parallels. I took the ADAT expansion from one of my older ones and stuck it into the 6400 ultra. I have a few of the old analog synth playable libraries in it, but i mostly just transfer things as separate sample hits and loops that I plan on using. I'm not trying to create some curated library of stuff i'm not going to use. People used to spend so much time on that with these old scds and isos.

 

Last edited: Dec 9, 2023

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Last edited: Dec 13, 2023