Akai S3000XL |
|
| Manufactured by | Akai |
|---|---|
| Dates | 1996 |
| Price | £1500 new, ~£150 used |
| Technical specifications | |
| Polyphony | 32 |
| Timbrality | 16 |
| LFO | 2 |
| Synthesis type | Digital Sample-based Subtractive |
| Attenuator | 4 |
| Memory | 2MB (32MB upgrade option) |
| Effects | none (4x50 EB16 option) |
| Input/output | |
| Keyboard | none |
| Left-hand control | none |
| External control | MIDI (IN, OUT, THRU) |
The Akai S3000XL is a 16-bit professional stereo digital sampler. The instrument has 32 polyphonic voices, and 2 MB of built-in RAM. While this may not seem like much compared to today's standards, when the S3000XL was released, it was top of the line. For adding sounds to the sampler, the S3000XL featured a 3.5" floppy drive that read Akai-formatted floppies only, and a SCSI port to link with an external storage device, such as a zip drive for storage of longer, or more samples. The built-in 2 MB of RAM could be upgraded up to 32 with (2x16) SIMM that Akai provided. Iomega Zip drives were very commonly used for storage and backup. This was especially important when you consider that the device could play back MIDI files to external MIDI devices, thus syncing samples with any number of other MIDI instruments. A great benefit was that during live performance the Akai could take the role of the computer to trigger the other instruments. Other upgrades included various extra cards such as the EB-16 & IB-304f. The S3000XL had 8 outputs, and two 1/4" inputs, allowing for the S3000XL to operate as a hard disk recorder. The interface consisted of 32 buttons, eight of which were function keys, three knobs, and a four-key directional pad for navigating the 240x64 display, located in the upper-middle portion of the sampler.
The Akai S3000XL is widely considered to be one of the most versatile and useful samplers money can buy, primarily due to the large screen, and easy-to-navigate interface allowing for quick and in-depth sampling. However, there were several problems apparent in the S3000XL and various other Akai samplers as age dawned on them; the LCD screen's backlight faded easily, built-in MIDI file playback functions were glitchy, and lack of ability to upgrade to a larger memory capacity.
Although Akai has discontinued production and product support for the Akai S3000XL, many units can still be found working in recording studios around the world. In order to obtain this sampler today, the only option would be to buy used from a local or online dealer, such as eBay.