AKAI S5000 Sampler Overview and Upgrades

I take a look at the hardware inside the AKAI S5000, update the firmware, add a USB floppy drive emulator, and install a hard drive. For a hard drive, SCSI2SD options should really be used as they are quiet, reliable, and run cool. If you have an old spinning disk SCSI drive and want to add it in, I show how to do so.

[@d.g.f.7056]

Personally what sold me on hardware samplers, and something you'd only really know by reading the manual cause no one really talks about this part, is that these old samplers were not just samplers. They had complex synth engines behind them as well. If you wanted you could load a sample and essentially use that sample as your oscillator and make a completely different patch from it, resample it, and then do it again if you wanted. The capabilities are absolutely mind boggling and I highly recommend these kinda machines to anyone looking to have tons of control over your sounds.

[@shortythepresident3913]

The S5000 and S6000 were EXTREMLEY expensive back in the day. We used to go to Sam Ash and just lust over them. I forget the actual prices. But I know in today's money, it would be the equivalent to about $10,000. They were machines producer's only bought with a purchase order from a record label. And the sounds were amazing. They used these machines strictly for storage and playback of drums because the Akai filters were so raw and it held alot of space for those days. It also was a very intimidating machine as well because of its size. You thought you were in a cockpit of a plane. It's amazing to see what recording studio's look like today. This guy once was bragging to me that he had a big studio and we were chopping it up talking. When I visited the place, he had just a laptop and a midi controller. LMAO - And basically that's all you need nowadays. I remember the days when you'd be in the studio in the summertime and the studio is burning up inside because of all the heat generated from all the hot tubes from pre amps etc. Now, it's just a midi controller and a laptop. Wow, the evolution of music technology.

[@kazhilly]

Compared to AKAI’s previous samplers like the 1000, 2000 and 3000 series, the S5000 and S6000 were a massive Relief, Finally a sampler that could do what other samplers couldn’t: 256 Mb of memory doesn’t sound like much these days, but it still enabled you to record 3 minutes of 16-track recording at 48 KHz, and if that wasn’t enough, the virtual sampling feature with recording Directly onto the harddrive was simply Unheard of in those days, and it left AKAI miles ahead of its nearest rival, the Kurzweil. USB connectivity, 16 channels, 128 voice polyphony, the option of putting in a HD really put the S6000 at the Top of the wishlist for many recording studios. And the sound quality, well Nothing beats the AKAI, not even now. The difference between the S5000 and the S6000 was that came as standard in the S5000 were optional extras in the the S5000, which was basically a cheaper starting point.

[@cameronmarshall9556]

Excellent fly-through and component description, really nice to see those data sheets too. Covered the hardware in masterly detail, I look forward to finding one soon. Thanks for taking the time...!

[@TheArnoldnikolaus]

Sounds as fresh as back in the days. I have the 5000 and a bunch of EMUs stored, time to bring them back to live! Love the jungle sets. Amen break forever!

[@znolive]

Brilliant video. I started my music production back in the 90's with an S2000. I could never have afforded an S5000 back in 00's but have now picked one up for 200 quid. Cant wait to see if my muscle memory is still there with programming the S series :) Thanks for this video. Inspired me to start a fun project

[@spengellymusic]

Thanks for the great and super informative video! Taking receipt of one soon and this made me more excited! Im finally barely able to afford the units I wanted from 30 years ago! lol Looking forward to good times! Thanks again!

[@genx1144]

Great video and commentary. I love stuff like this. Thank you. Your point about each model having its own 'sound' is exactly right and the AKAI S series from the 80's and 90's definitely do. The S950 is a great unit, but it is over sold. The S612 and S700 also have immense personality.

[@mb2776]

The start and end slider on the s612 for the sample is awesome!

[@jonathansoko1085]

Do you want me to slap you now or later?

[@DiSC0RDUK]

@@jonathansoko1085 😅

[@doblebombowey]

Your videos are really good! Can,t wait for the next, I learn a lot. Thanks for sharing

[@marctronixx]

great video. from time to time i like to search YT to see if there are new s5/6000 uses to pop up and do a video. yours is one of the best ive seen. thank you for educating those who may be interested in this gear. for me, i still exclusively use hardware for all my music creation. i have an s6000 fully loaded. the adat card, usb, extra outs, voice memory, fx. to keep it real old school i swapped out the floppy for a JAZ Drive. i also have a CD rom and internal SCSI2SD emulator/SSD, version 6, Revision F. i bought an xp PC to be able to use the usb out and a keyboard. this is really tough sampler. I have an old glyph storage rack with two SCSI drives. i did a standard format on those because I wanted to have the HDDs reliable to work with the system. took over a day to format.

[@filtomsun]

I bought a vanilla S5000 recently but haven't used it yet. This is very helpful, thanks.

[@applemarkwantsvids]

This video was outstanding!!! It's good to know that the 6000 is so similar to the 5000, as that is the next synth purchase for me. I wonder if some machine language guru out there would be willing to EEPROM the usage of EIDE and thus SATA drives for this biscuit. Thanks man... THis was DOPE!

[@phdirac]

Really interesting video, thanks for sharing the overview and specs breakdown 🔥

[@PaulisMediocre]

Great video, I'm about to be gifted 2 of these that both have issues so I can "Frankenstein" into 1 working one, you just answered everything I need to know and then some 👍

[@johanjof5613]

Waaaaoooo, an akai s5000 video in 2020 ! That is what i said to myself when this video raised on my youtube. Thank you for removing dust from this magic piece of hardware. I have done so much engineering like investigation in this one you know. I have the datasheet of every single component I could find on the web from this box. I have many high quality images or the routings on all the boards to get a clear idea of the details of the architecture. It is too bad i do not have sufficient audio electronics knowledge, I'm afraid to do mistakes for some twicks. A very basic mod could be to have the sound from all the outputs instead of of the just 1/2 in headphone output. You have probably seen this free cable going out from the output board to the input board. This cable is exactly for this ! Could we repeat that simply by taking back the signal from the other outputs adding them with simple electronics and puting the signal back in the input connector or there would be some perturbation of the outputs ? I am not sure all the lines are exactly the same as the main 1/2. Can you look a bit at it ? I can share you the photos of the routing on the boards if you need.

[@radicalfreq]

another great video! keep them coming man

[@jenskuhnemann1241]

Bought a 950 a couple of months ago. Well worth the money

[@themixcartel]

Thank you for this video, pure gold!!

[@jefffitz8995]

I purchased my Akai S5000 in the year 2000 and still packs a punch, it is interstellar architecture and design, I am sorry that Akai discontinued the line and haven't released any further OS updates. Understanding the fundamentals of Filtering and Affects for this unit really educates you how synthesis works, even now it a wonder the highly skilled engineers development such a instrument. However thank you Brad for sharing this very useful Video especially the SCSI adaptors that can install a SSD drive and the USB Floppy.

[@bradthx]

That's awesome you still have your original S5000 Jeff. Akai was at the top of their game when they made the S5000/6000 before the hardware sampler market died a few years later. Thanks for watching!

[@jefffitz8995]

bradthx thanks for responding Brad, what is involved with putting a SSD onto the Akai sampler you indicated in your video, did you have another video that demonstrates this? I would like to convert my existing drive over. Thank you.

[@aanon2550]

Very informative, thanks. You covered everything I needed to know -- and a bit more.

[@davidgoodwin3935]

Very detailed tutorial appreciate you brother.

[@reallyniceaudio]

yeah I went for SCSI-sd for my Kurzweil k2000 because I use samples above 1.4Mb. I have to use the Lotharek floppy emulator on my Ensoniq mirage which is nice because it has a display so you can name the images. And in all my years playing with SCSI I have never seen those end-cable terminators before. We would use these overly chunky terminator that would plug into a socket on the outside of the sampler. I guess they weren't that popular in the UK. Great Video!!

[@DigitalFacts]

That was damned interesting stuff you told about the Akai S5000. Thank you very much!

[@magicspiral3323]

Informative video, you covered some things I was curious about. I installed a SCSI2SD in mine and it’s fantastic. It takes the place of the floppy drive so I can quickly transfer files to and from my computer.

[@pierrekarti8417]

I want to know more about this. Where can i order it? Do i need special parts (cables, adapters) to install it in the floppy slot? Can you give me (or us, i think i'm not the only one:) some info about it? The S5000 is an absolute beast for creation. I'm sure there will be a lot of people interessted! Thanks for your reply. Amazing video Brad! Please continue! :)

[@Schokobratel]

@@pierrekarti8417 www.ebay-kleinanzeigen.de/s-anzeige/hot-swap-cardreader-kit-fuer-akai-s5000-s6000-sampler-16gb-karte/1029239267-74-2807

[@gruponemesis]

magical...you mean a hard drive emulator...not a floppy

[@magicspiral3323]

The King you’re right. To clarify, I said that because I took the floppy drive out to place the SCSI2SD in its place. The floppy drive itself is inactive by using a jumper so the unit thinks a floppy drive is on standby. The SCSI2SD hijacks the internal hard drive slot for an SD card reader.

[@gruponemesis]

@@magicspiral3323 such a sweet deal...i will be doing this conversion next week....ive had mine since 1995. i collected a ton of akai cd libraries during that time....i pull the folders off th scsi drive using a PCI scsi adapter for my computer....now i use that library in Kontakt....Kontakt remembers all the key mappings!!!

[@Peter12662]

Excellent overview. I love your channel. I'm pretty sure I have watched all of your videos.

[@ollieroks]

Wish I had the room to collect these Beautiful gear.

[@diglet553]

I got really lucky with my S5K. The previous owner had installed a SCSI 2 IDE adapter board for an internal hard disk, which of course meant I could replace the floppy drive with a CF card reader and remove the old whining hard drive.

[@gtubgle]

You rock dude! Thanks for the video.

[@mc-ec3bu]

Very well done sir.

[@hexateck]

thanks for the video, I learned a few thing about the machine..I think I will return to mine !!!

[@justpsteb]

Thanks so much for this informative video!

[@johnbuurman]

perfect informative video very well done!

[@mb2776]

Those samplers do have a special sound. Not just the s900/s950, also the s2000 and S3000xl. To my ears, it sounds like they add some nice compression and roll of some of the harsh higher frequencies.

[@tonelab]

Great informative clip, thank you for posting! ..I have a newly purchased S6000 on the way. I sold my previous one a while ago, now I can't remember what SD reader I had, but this SCSI2SD looks like a better option. I loved the flexibility of using an SD card.. but had a few issues with my previous SD card reader... things like a suspected 'sleep mode', which would crash my S6000.. and.. if there too many 'folders within folders' there would be a limit to how far down I could go in levels before it 'froze up'. Have you encountered anything like that with this SCSI2SD ?! 🤔

[@robjansen5236]

Excellent video, thank you very much!

[@TheBizzyBScience]

Nice work shop! is osicillators in the background, also can this load s950 samples?

[@marctronixx]

for those interested in getting the s6000, it does have a fan in the rear for using HDDs.

[@hektekbeats]

great video, there was some unanswered questions like the process of you formatting the floppy to V2 which was not seen in the video an important part.

[@bradthx]

Good call-out, the firmware update instructions contain the details of how to get the updates onto the floppy, which is easy to do. Not sure if Akai still provides it but several external resources have them archived if you search. Thanks for watching!

[@xjohnlangerijs527]

In case of 128 voices, I would upgrade everything.Nice legacy material! It is defenately a great rack asset. Like it. Tx 4 the S6000 tip. Namasté.

[@rckstr3419]

Hi! Great video. I have a question. For the Gotek installation you need to do something on the floppy emulator and on the usb? I mean you need to download, install, firmware, flashing the usb in some way or is just an easy plug and play and it works ? Thanks

[@bradthx]

In this case, it really is just plug and play. There are numerous hardware and firmware upgrades that can be added to the Gotek, but for basic operation, none of them are needed. Thanks for watching!

[@slackmaster_b8032]

Great video man! This and like one other have helped IMMENSELY during my S5000 adventure lol I'm wondering if you could help me set up my floppy emulator? I purchased one off Ebay with Flash floppy firmware 3.34 and loaded up .HFE images but I can't get the sampler to acknowledge the presence of my USB stick. It sees the emulator just fine, but It acts as if there are no "disks" available? Any tips??

[@bhamadicharef]

Any place you recommend to source a Akai S5000 LCD ? thank you. Love your videos ... :-)

[@gruponemesis]

i have an extensive library for the s5000 that i collected during the 90s. i was able to pull the library (30 gigs) from the scsi hd to my desktop computer using an ancient PCI scsi card....then use Kontact as the player....best thing since sliced bread!!!!!

[@TheBizzyBScience]

Can you give me some more info on the molex cable pins as I could not see a clear enough picture of what pins go where?

[@sadaaki]

pretty cool!

[@robinwilliams5348]

Loving your videos, they're really interesting and useful Can I pick your brain for one minute please? Can you think of any real reason why it would be risky to swap the internal battery on a keyboard while or is still powered on? I see plenty of people saying not to do so but none of them have had any actually electronics knowledge nor can they offer an explanation as to why it would be risky. Many thanks

[@albertrynkowski3599]

Hi! First of all thank you for a great tutorial on this beast! I have 2 questions. 1 Is the floppy on s5000 ide or scsi? 2 I'm on Akai cd3000 non XL. Im trying to install internal scsi zip drive instead of floppy drive. The problem is that the original floppy ribbon cable Is narrow and i have a wide socket in Zip. There is no internal scsi socket inside the sampler so i tried to unplug the external scsi (the one that goes to the back of the sampler) and connect to iomega drive but it didnt work. Termination is on, i tried different channels. Any ideas?

[@skipperthomas]

thanks for this video ! maybe a little naive but what would be the advantage of installing a hard drive instead of just relying on the usb floppy emulator ? or would you be using them for two different things ? maybe i should pay closer attention if you already address this and i missed it lol

[@maccagrabme]

Faster data transfer and not having to load multiple floppy images per soundset and overall higher capacity. You could probably get away with a Gotek for light sampling if you dont use big libraries. I went scsi2sd a while back which is probably the best option but having used a Gotek on another sampler since then I think a Gotek would have been enough for me as I dont use the sampler that much.

[@supiriabeats2433]

I like how the s3000 sound when you sample in low resolution. I hate the bit crushers on all new machines from the mpc 2500 to the X. on the s5000 or s6000, could you sample in a low resolution?

[@supmission]

I got this in storage somewhere. True about the IDE connector inside.. But more importantly does the aksys software work with today's Mac OS? Had that installed with USB connector for easy interface on laptop.

[@warmrollsforthetable]

yes!!

[@XBASS247]

the s3000xl is the king . i still use my s3000xl and s5000 , give my music a different sound ,never will sell

[@midnightkiteflight6333]

i have been thinking about buying an s6k but i really don't know if I'm just on some nostalgia trip or if i would actually use it.

[@znolive]

Can you elaborate on the molex connection for the SCSI adapter to the board? It seems that AKAIs connections on the board are weird AKAI only molex sockets and I cannot for love nor money find a cable! :( I have limited soldering skills and am willing to take a regular molex and solder but would be grateful for the pin configuration. (Looking at your video - Red to the left and yellow to the right and the blacks are as they are from the socket, no need to change out the black cable order?) Thanks!

[@xpez9694]

on my MPC2000 I would use an external scsi hard drive daisy chained to a switcher that was daisy chained to my macinstosh. I would use the switcher and that would allow the computer to read the drive then switch for the MPC to read the drive...

[@jwfleck64]

Well-done video. It would be great if you did a video showing the installation of a SCSI to SD card. I want to get one into my S5000 and have not found a very good tutorial yet.

[@bradthx]

Thanks John, I have a video I'm working on now installing a SCSI2SD in a Kurzweil K2000R. It will be the same process except the Akai can see large partitions > 2GB.

[@jwfleck64]

@@bradthx great - thanks!

[@StargateMax]

I bought one in 2019, and I have no clue how to use it, LOL, it's just a pretty thing in my rack tower. :D It has a USB+SD card reader instead of a floppy drive.

[@WARDISWARD]

Could you give me the type of the ide 2 cf adapter used in the video ? Thnks

[@acetateassassin7933]

I don’t know if you are familiar with the screen, but when you take it apart there’s a paper on 2 sides. Any idea what that is for?

[@opentroor3900]

Hey what was the name of the hard drive and could you comment a link to where I can find a scsi2sd card with termination resister

[@mumuchu]

Aww.. I remember this thing. The ram cost a fortune and now, i have two hidden in my storage.

[@sK3LeTvM1]

I bought my (expensive) S5000 new. I upgraded with FX, 128 voice, 16-out, SCSI HD built in) Although pristine sound quality for me the rather low RAM memory (max 256) and slow loading times was a reason to sell it. Although it is possible to stream samples directly from HD !! I now use Kontakt as my main sampler in DAW, but it must been said : Although I use Apogee DACs, still they don't match the sound of the 5/6K !!! The voice expansion and FX cards are rather hard to find and therefor expensive. Buying an S6000 is a better option. They have al options on board and a removable remote controller. And last but not least : it's such a pity that Akai never updated Aksys ( editor & sample transfer >< computer) so latest OS that Aksys works on was Windows XP and OSX Snow Leopard. Finally what I liked is the 26 different filter types. That makes this thing a real monster !

[@wachirapornrangpan1000]

hey i recently got the s5000 but when I turn it on it shows "searching for disk" but when I try pressing record it wont take me to the menu page. I haven't put in any floppy either.

[@wickfut]

I don't suppose you know of any drop in replaceable LCD screens do you ?

[@TheBizzyBScience]

Where do you get the bin file for the 2.14 ?

[@andrewverran3498]

Nice, can it do antlything the Kurzweil K2500RS cant ? ✌️

[@remembernoahtheflood]

Does anyone know how to have the Akai S5000 prompt for a 2nd floppy disk when saving data? It will show "Out of disk space" when it fills the first floppy disk. The Akai S1000 will prompt you to insert another floppy disk when saving data. I would think the Akai S5000 would be able to do the same.

[@SpencerLemay]

prices of all Akai samplers seem to have jumped a lot.

[@acetateassassin7933]

Is there any trick to fixing the screen on these? Mine works but signs of it burning out.

[@lupaviva1]

You should post some vids of you messing around with all of these devices you repair. Nothing serious! (Unless you want to)

[@amonster8mymother]

The fx card works with the mix overall not with individual channels.

[@cygnus_XI]

Is it possible to swap out the floppy drive in these with an SCSI CD drive for those Akai Sample CDs (or at least attaching an external drive)? Or is a drive emulator the best choice?

[@maccagrabme]

Cd drive wouldnt fit even if you could mount them internally. External scsi cdrom is the only option. You could possibly create some virtual iso images of the akai cdroms and put them on a hd or drive emulator or load the banks and re-save to the hd.

[@cygnus_XI]

@@maccagrabme I figured... Thanks!

[@alexalbaneive7015]

Good morning. AKAI S5000 Gotek USB DRIVE dont run! pleace help me. Thank you soo much!!

[@thebarrylurveshow5530]

Hello, can you help me please? My S5000 has worked faultlessly for 3+ years, but now, when I turn it on, I get nothing on the display and all the editing buttons come on and the thing just hangs. I have changed the battery but still 😢. I hope you can help me get it working again. Regards, stay safe. Ross Anderson

[@amonster8mymother]

I dont have any nostalgia and they are amazing pieces of gear.

[@AgentsofRush]

Mine keeps locking up on start up. Says Fatal Exception. :/

[@diversionesconvenuslausinr8791]

Hi first sorry for my poor english I have been trying to install a hard drive in my akai for a long time, I have never succeeded, where can I get that scsi adapter with its termination. Thank you!!!

[@bradthx]

I found mine on Amazon, search "SCSI SCA adapter terminator". Unfortunately they are not as inexpensive as they used to be. Thanks for watching!

[@bukaglasna]

Emu ultra next maybe ;)

[@Stopinvadingmyhardware]

You keep forgetting your goons jumped me on camera.

What happens if i connect this with my Akai MPC 5000 or and other hardware drum machine sampler sequencers?

[@micindir4213]

It doubles or triples the fun

@@micindir4213 what device do you use for sampling first if two are connect?

[@micindir4213]

@ Sorry, I don't have these devices, just thought it would be funny comment to make. I'm actually looking to get s5k for the studio. MPC is the centerpiece of the studio anyway and I would use whatever is more convenient. I think I would use mpc as the recorder too, so anything you come up with on s5k could be recorded as audio track/long sample into mpc.

@@micindir4213 i got one that's why i asked

[@lab-by-the-sea]

do you know if the s5000/6000 can import s1000 dat backups?

[@remembernoahtheflood]

The Akai S5000 can read and load S1000 data but can't write to it.

[@lab-by-the-sea]

@@remembernoahtheflood yes i know, but i wanted to know, can you import s1000 dat backups!?

[@remembernoahtheflood]

Can you explain DAT backups? From DAT backup tapes? Exclusive data? I own both Akai S1000 and S5000 for decades. @@lab-by-the-sea

[@mapache_al_ataque]

Skynet. :-)

[@alphabeets]

You know.

[@synkuk]

Not quite so cheap nowadays

[@wytrych666]

Hello! Can I ask for a contact to you, e.g. e-mail address? I have a few questions about the S-5000, thanks