Akai S5000 Operator's Manual download pdf (Page 254)

244 Version 1.21

VIRTUAL SAMPLES /

Some guidelines as to the number of virtual samples you can expect to play simultaneously from

different drive types are shown below:

TYPICAL MODERN HARD DISK DRIVE 12-16 mono samples

JAZ CARTRIDGE 10-12 mono samples

MO CARTRIDGE 8-10 mono samples

ZIP CARTRIDGE 6-8 mono samples

NOTE: Halve the figures shown above for stereo.

However, this is in no way a definitive statement or promise of what to expect and Akai Electric

Co., Ltd. does not and cannot guarantee the performance of these or any other drives as there are

so many variables.

For example, one brand of drive may offer impressively fast seek times but may not be able to

sustain high rates of data transfer (throughput) for any length of time. Others may have dependable

throughput but slower seek times. Different brands and models of drives also rotate at different

speeds and so this will also affect performance.

The number of samples any given disk can play simultaneously also depends on how the data is

organised on disk. For example, if you are trying play a virtual sample at one end of the disk

simultaneously with another at the opposite end of the disk, performance may suffer. If you are

trying to play several virtual samples that are scattered all over the disk, performance may suffer

even more.

How you play the virtual samples is also a crucial factor in this and the above guidelines are based

on playing virtual samples at their nominal pitch (i.e. the pitch they were recorded at). If any of

these is transposed in any way (especially if any are transposed up in pitch), the disk is having to

work much harder. For example, if you play a virtual sample recorded on C3 at, say, C4, then the

disk is having to work (literally) twice as hard for that particular sample and so the performance of

others you may be trying to play will probably suffer.

None of the above is a deficiency on the part of the S6000 as all devices that play audio back from

hard disk are faced with similar problems but the fact that you can transpose virtual samples and

change their pitch in real-time simply compounds the issue (multi-track hard disk recorders typically

play all their recordings at nominal pitch and so can predict track performance slightly more

accurately).

However, if you bear the above in mind, virtual samples are a valuable resource if only to save

memory usage and to speed load times up.

NOTE: As mentioned, virtual samples use the S6000’s voices just like any normal RAM sample

and polyphony is not increased when using virtual samples (i.e. 64/126 voices PLUS the

virtual samples). In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Assuming you have a drive capable of playing

8 mono virtual samples, 8 voices of the S6000’s polyphony will be used to play them.

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Akai S5000 Operator's Manual Page 254