Emagic amt8 USB MIDI interface

I always liked that blue colour!

When using lots of external MIDI devices, a dedicated multiport interface definitely is a must have. The Emagic (the creators of Logic) line of interfaces includes the Unitor8, Unitor8 mk-II, amt8 and mt4. They have USB and serial connections for mac and PC, except for the original Unitor8, that only has serial. The Unitor8 units have some extra timing features (like smpt) but, I don't know much about that. I don't think it is of much use these days. I got the the amt8 with 8 MIDI ports, USB and serial. It also has the ability to work in stand alone mode, so you don't have to run your synths through a DAW, but have direct access to your MIDI devices. All you have to do is push and hold the patch/panic button until the lights blink, and you will be in stand alone mode. Repeat the procedure and You are back in normal MIDI interface mode.

This interface, by many seen as outdated, is actually still supported in OSX 10.9 and runs perfectly in this environment, probably because Apple bought Emagic in 2002. The original pref pane, however, has not been working since OSX 10.4. Fortunately there is a solution for this...

Kurt Arnlund has written his own pref pane that works from OSX 10.5 and up and it is available for free from his site. You need this pref pane to program the MIDI interface for stand alone mode. He was also kind enough to email me an application to filter out certain sysex messages and generally very helpful. You can also find the user manual on his site.

Selecting patches for stand alone mode.

The Unito8 Pref pane icon

My unit was very cheap, just about 30 EUR, but it came without a power supply. The unit requires 9 VAC, which I had available on a broken Commodore 64 computer psu. These power supplies have both 9 VAC and 5 VDC and are known to fail on the 5 VDC line. I had one of those lying around with a faulty 5 VDC line, so now that works happily together with my Emagic amt8 :-) If you should come across a cheap unit without a powersupply, don't hesitate to buy it, since you could easily get a new one from a thrift shop or maybe ebay. Just make sure it is 9 VAC and 1000 mA.

Bargain alert!! If You own an amt8 or Unitor8 mk-II with USB, but need more than 8 MIDI ports, then you should look for an original Unitor8 without USB. Nobody wants these anymore, since they are practically useless with only serial connection, especially on the mac. So it should be quite possible to get one for a very decent price. Here is the trick: If you already own a unit with USB, then you can connect it to a unit without USB via serial cable. This way you would get 8 extra MIDI ports without using another USB port on your mac! And it's cheap too!! You can chain up to 8 units together this way.

All in all, this unit is rock solid and highly recommended. I am definately looking out for an original Unitor8, to get those eight extra MIDI ports.

AKAI sample transfer

So, how to get sounds into the memory of the AKAI you might ask... Well, there are many ways. My focus is on getting as smooth a workflow as possible using a mac computer with the newest version of OSX (10.9 Mavericks at the time of writing).

Remember floppy disks? Those little plastic things that aren't so floppy, unless you take the actual disk out of the case... Normal DOS formatted 3.5" floppies have a capacity of 1.44 Mbytes, while AKAI formatted floppies have an insane capacity of 1.6 Mbytes!! Floppy drive is the only permanent storage option you have on an unexpanded AKAI S3000XL. So floppy it is...

As far as I know, there is no way of making an AKAI floppy with a mac. Not even one that is old enough to have an internal floppy drive (that's very old!). I have an old PC that can be used for writing floppies, which is necessary as USB floppy drives, unfortunately, are not capable of writing AKAI floppy disks.

After doing a fair bit of research, I've found that there a lots of ways of transferring samples to an AKAI sampler. The following are some of the possible ways of transferring samples to the AKAI S3000XL. I'm sure it can be done in more ways.

Floppy disk (only internal PC floppy)

• Omniflop (Reading and writing of images)
• Teledisk (Ancient dos program to archive floppies)
• Akaidisk (Transfer samples to floppy, Windows 98 required)
• EMXP (Transfer all necessary files to floppy, Windows XP and Omniflop driver required)

SCSI (smdi)

• External Hard drive (requires PC with SCSI card)
• Compact Flash adapter (requires SCSI to IDE adapter and IDE to CF adapter, sweet but expensive)
• External CD-ROM drive (requires USB drive for mac and SCSI drive for AKAI)
• External ZIP/JAZ drive (requires USB drive for mac and SCSI drive for AKAI)
• Hooking up to PC with SCSI card and transferring samples via SMDI using MESA software (developed by AKAI), Chickensys Translator, AWave Studio. It might be possible on a mac with one particular USB to SCSI adapter, but it's too expensive to be of interest.

MIDI (sds)

• Transfer samples via MIDI is possible with Chickensys Translator, C6 SysEx Manager, AWave Studio, Recycle, Wavelab and probably many others. Slow but easy.

Resampling

• Just play the audio and sample it in the AKAI. Doesn't really require anything special...

Here are my favorite workflows:

MIDI (sds)

1. Prepare samples in Audacity or your favorite audio editor (if necessary).
2. Send samples to AKAI using C6.
3. Edit program on AKAI S3000XL.
4. Save to floppy.

Pros:

• All you need is your Mac, AKAI and MIDI interface.
• C6 is a native OSX application with a normal modern feel.
• It's free.

Cons:

• Sample names are not preserved after transfer.
• You have to do a lot of editing on the AKAI after transfer.

Floppy disk

1. Prepare sample and programs in AWave Studio.
2. Save instrument as AKAI S1000 instrument.
3. Rename .s and .p files to .aks and .akp with NameChanger.
4. Copy files to USB stick.
5. Fire up vintage PC with floppy drive.
6. Format AKAI floppy and transfer files with EMXP.

Pros:

• AWave Studio is a Windows application, but fortunately it installs fine with Wine Bottler.
• Everything can be made right on your mac in AWave Studio. Setting up sample collections, setting up programs, editing samples, making loops etc.
• For basic sounds, no editing is required on the AKAI, once your are familiar with AWave Studio.
• Sample names are preserved.

Cons:

• AWave Studio is natively Windows only, so you have to fiddle with Wine Bottler.
• Big old PC with floppy drive is required. (An old laptop with floppy drive would be handy here...)
• Many steps involved in the process.
• AWave Studio is shareware. There is a free trial for 30 days.

What a bargain!!

I've had my trusty old Formac 19" VGA monitor for a long time (Also bought 2nd hand of course!). It has served me well for about 7-8 years on two generations of Mac Minis, but now it finally went to monitor heaven... So what to do?

My old 19" display (picture from web)

• Get an ordinary PC kind of standard DVI monitor? Well, I have to admit I'm a sucker for Apple design, there is just something about that white plastic and aluminum that is so, well white and plasticky... So a generic PC monitor was out of the question.
• Get one of those new absolutely gorgeous Apple displays. Yes thanks! Uhm, not so fast... That's WAY over my budget!
• But here's the solution! Some years ago, before HDMI, DVI or Thunderbolt was standard on Macs, Apple made a line of Cinema Displays with ADC connectors. These Connectors actually contained Power, DVI and USB. Since nothing can use that kind of connector today, nobody wants these displays. But that obsolete connector contains DVI, so naturally it is possible to use these monitors on a modern computer. This is what i found for 40 EUR on the danish equivalent of ebay called dba.dk:

My 23" Apple Cinema Display

I was very lucky with this one, since it came with an Apple ADC to DVI converter box. That way it worked right away, using the DVI to HDMI adaptor that came with my 2013 Mac Mini. Even without the converter box it would have been possible to make my own adapter by cutting of the ADC plug and wiring it up for power and DVI.

Here is the ambitious way of doing it:

http://www.instructables.com/id/DVI-to-ADC-converter/

And here is the cowboy way of doing it:

http://blog.shewu.me/2010/11/hacking-apple-studio-display.html

So that's a real bargain for a 23" widescreen display with great picture quality. But you have to do some hacking, if you're not lucky enough to get a display that comes with the converter box. I have spotted the converter box alone some places, but it is generally way too expensive to be interesting, but that may also change, since demand is so little.

AKAI S3000XL

AKAI S3000XL

The AKAI series of samplers from the 80's and 90's has always fascinated me, but I suppose when they were hot, I was so young that I could only dream about owning such an awesome piece of equipment. Well... Times have changed and a few  months ago I was able to pick up one of these beauties for the ridiculous price of 50 EUR!!

This unit has got floppy drive, scsi port, s/pdif, 8 individual outs and 16 Mb ram. It is in excellent condition and I'm generally very happy with it.

Anyway, since I'm not really into collecting things just for the sake of owning them, I had to consider how I would actually put the unit to good use.

Here are the main reasons:

• My Audio interface (NI Komplete Audio 6) has 6 Inputs and two of those Inputs are digital. The S3000XL has s/pdif in and out, so I figured it would be a cheap way to get two extra inputs. This could come in handy when tracking external MIDI sound modules in Cubase or Logic. I haven't gotten around to trying this out yet, but there is no reason it wouldn't work. And the S3000XL is so much cooler (and cheaper) in a rack than some digital to analog box.
• Let's not forget that the S3000XL is a really good sampler with very nice envelope and filter sections, even though my unit does not have the optional extra filter card. Since my Mac Mini, although it is a 2013 model, is not exactly a powerhouse when it comes to audio production, I thought it would be an advantage to let it do some work as a drum machine sampler, instead of a virtual sampler, using up a lot of cpu power and ram. So whenever I feel like using some of those classic TR-808 or TR-909 sounds, I'll put a floppy in the S3000XL and let it do it's thing.
• I like analog synthesizers from the 70's and early 80's but at the moment I only own a Roland JX-3P analog synthesizer. And to be honest I cannot justify spending those insane amounts of money on that kind of equipment (being the father of three!!). Again, here comes the AKAI S3000XL to the rescue! You can always find some samples of those sounds and transfer them to the AKAI. I know, it's not the real thing, but maybe it's the next best thing. For me, somehow it beats having those sounds in the computer... By the way, transferring stuff to the AKAI is a different story all together and I'll come back to that topic later.