S900 owner David Mellor receives a package in the post from Akai, which rekindles his enthusiasm in the sampler which was one of the first to combine a wealth of facilities with a reasonable price. Will the Version 2.0 software update bring the Akai into line with the latest samplers on the market or has it become old technology - just after its first birthday?

Akai's super-sampler carries on where their S612 left off. Paul Wiffen finds its ease of use belies its sophistication.

SamplerCheck

Paul Fishman gets weird — again

How To Upgrade Your Akai S900

What do you do when your 12-bit Akai S900 sampler starts to seem a little underspecified in comparison with the latest models? Upgrade it with a '16-bit injection' from Marion Systems. David Mellor reports.

Akai S900 Sampler

Akai's first foray into the sampling market, the S612, was a resounding success. Their new sampling system, aimed more at studios, is considerably more advanced yet still a respectable price. Eventually it will incorporate a multitrack event recorder and harmonic synthesis module, but just released is the first system component - the S900 rack-mount sampler. Mark Jenkins checks it out.

Akai S900 Sampler

State-of-the-art sampling at a state-of-the-building society account price.

Akai S900 V2.0 & ASK90 and Steinberg Soundworks

Already a well-established sampler, the Akai S900 is on the receiving end of a series of software and firmware updates from Akai and Steinberg. Chris Jenkins boots them up.

In the third part of this series on the growing uses of multiple MIDI channelisation, Paul Wiffen looks at the advantage of using separate audio outputs on the Akai S900.