AKAI s2000

[insinkerator]

I have had one of these sitting in my rack for aaaages.

Dunno where to begin using it.. any ideas?

Im not really all that sure on what it does, and how it does it.

[VermonaLisa]

it is a sampler, isn't it?

[Lichtaffen]

Maybe sample a rhythm and play over it while it loops.

[superbassman2000]

here is a small youtube of what they were made to do
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TVN9ges8Bo4
you could do some live loop stuff recorded off records,tapes, radio, etc and chop them up with the included effects. You could also use the s2k for throwing loops in a recording, like the way hip hop samples other songs

however I see no problems using it as a looper on bass, but you'd want to get a foot controller for sure--just something like a behringer FCB1010 or something.

you could also use it live for some weird in-betweens between songs if you want, but with only 11 seconds of looping, you'd probably want to upgrade the memory to 32mb for more time, or buy a lot of disks for various loops

[insinkerator]

I have the two memory sticks, just no idea on how to install them.

How would the FCB1010 work with the s2000. I'm a complete n00b when it comes to midi in general sorry.

I was thinking of buying a Boss RC-2 or RC20XL, will me installing the RAM, and getting the FCB stop me from having to do that?

[superbassman2000]

it is actually easier than it sounds, but just find out what midi messages control what on the akai unit, and then assign the switches on the FCB with a PC editor.

As for replacing a RC-2 or 20XL, yes and no. Depending on the max sampling time on the Akai, you might even have something better than the RCs, depending on what you want to do with looping. lol a lot of qualifiers in that last sentence!

[insinkerator]

After our next gig, we will be kicking out one of our guitarists, so my main aim with looping, will to be to loop some bass parts to free me up to fill the sound from the missing guitar.

Other than that, it would be cool to loop some synth texture sounds for going behind songs etc. Am i better off with this and the FCB or with an RC-2 + footswitch? Second hand they come to nearly the same price...

[superbassman2000]

I think the Akai would probably be just as good. with the 32mb upgrade you can get just short of 6 minutes of looping in the memory. It has an SCSI connection so you could hook up a hard drive or CD rom drive so you could set all your loops/sequences on the HD or on a CD and trigger them either on the unit or with a foot controller.

The RC2 doesn't have a memory card input so all the looping on that would be live looping, or you could make the loops during a soundcheck at the show because I believe once you unplug it, you lose all the loops. You could also check out the digitech jamman, which has an SD card where you could store loops/sequences

so if you go with the Akai, i'd check out hard drives to hook up for a place to store your sounds, as even though floppy disks are cheap, they don't hold that much. Then you'd have a pretty nice looping setup.

If you go with the RC2, i suggest going with the digitech jamman, JM solo or the JM stereo (or whatever that one is called) or any looper with an SD card or some kind of long-term storage