partying like it's nineteen ninety nine

It dawned on me that getting into a millimetre by millimetre account of what synthesisers I use and why might not pan out to be the most exciting of reading. So I'll just talk about my latest acquisition for the now which is a hardware rack-mounted sampler. On the surface it might seem like an anachronism given the advances with software samplers. Perhaps doubley so as I have and use NI's Kontakt 4 on a pretty regular basis. Although I've seen signs of a rising fashion for "vintage digital" such as the clamour for classic Akai MPCs, that's not been my own reason for splashing the cash. I've a degree of skepticism about the "sound" that is attributed to this sort of gear which I often think is just hipster justification. I do agree that there is an audible difference but that is only part of the equation; the remainder being the interface, workflow and how you just use the thing. Which I think you can get from any sampler, not just the one's that the latest flash in the pan hip-hop producer suggests is their own personal magic bullet.

The sampler in question is a Yamaha A5000 which you could say is one of the last hurrahs of the hardware sampler along with the Akai Z series. It's amazing to think that in the 10 years since it was released it's gone from costing £1500 down to the level where I scored one that has nestled unused in someones rack for less than £200. Naturally, I've only just scratched the surface of it in the few weeks I've had it but I'm already seeing loads of potential. Once I get myself sorted with an internal hard disk for it I think the first port of call will be to use it in conjunction with a hardware sequencer for further experiments where I'm not using the computer at all.

If I get time before my rotation is up, I'll try to pull together some audio examples of some of the more unique features such as the expand/detune functions or the loop remix/divide functions. Loop remix/divide strikes me as an interesting alternative to combining Beat Repeat and Slice-to-Midi within Ableton Live which, given the scarcity of the A5000 in comparison to Live, will hopefully not sound so "familiar".

As a final note, I'd recommend the page at Sealed's Deep Synthesis site on the A4000 as a great source of information. Reading that was one of the main things which turned me onto the idea of tracking one down.