S1000

SampleStack supported

Akai Professional

The 1988 16-bit rack sampler that defined a decade of records, and still needs its samples on a disk.

The S1000 was Akai's first 16-bit sampler and became the studio standard for years. It records at 44.1 kHz or half that, holds its sounds in keygroups across the keyboard, and stores everything on floppy disk or SCSI drive.

Getting samples into one today usually means a floppy emulator or a SCSI emulator standing in for hardware that stopped being made decades ago. Either way, the sampler reads its own filesystem from a disk image, not files from a card.

Format

Standalone

Sample Rate

44.1 kHz or 22.05 kHz

Bit Depth

16-bit

Channels

Mono, or stereo as a -L / -R pair

File Formats

WAV, AIFF (converted into Akai sample files by the transfer tool)

Storage

Floppy disk or SCSI drive, in practice a floppy or SCSI emulator holding disk images

Specifications

Memory

2 MB as standard (~23 seconds mono), expandable to 32 MB

Features

16-bit, 44.1 kHz sampling
Keygroups with velocity zones, which map closely onto SampleStack's zones
Software V2.0 adds resampling to 2/3 or 3/4 of the original rate
Stereo samples stored as -L / -R mono pairs

Transfer Method

Build a disk image (akaiutil, Chicken Systems Translator), then load it from a floppy or SCSI emulator.

Notes

SampleStack's S1000 collection is a preparation folder, not a card layout. The sampler reads its own filesystem inside a disk image, never loose files
Names: 12 characters, upper case, using A-Z, 0-9, space, # + - . only
Stereo is a pair of mono files ending -L and -R; validation reports unpaired ones

Preparing samples for the S1000

SampleStack prepares samples for the S1000 rather than transferring them: it converts to 44.1 kHz or 22.05 kHz at 16-bit and checks the names, which is where hand-prepared Akai libraries usually fail. The S1000 allows 12 characters, upper case, from a limited character set, and stores a stereo sample as two mono files whose names end in -L and -R.

Once a folder passes, a tool such as akaiutil or Chicken Systems Translator builds the disk image you load on the sampler. The S1000 help page walks through that step.

Third-Party Tools

akaiutil (open source, reads/writes Akai disk images)
akai-disk-tools (open source, Python)
Chicken Systems Translator

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I just copy WAV files onto a card for the S1000?

No. The S1000 has no FAT support at all. It reads Akai's own filesystem from a floppy or SCSI disk. Even with a modern floppy or SCSI emulator, the card holds disk images with that filesystem inside them. SampleStack prepares the audio; a tool like akaiutil builds the image.

Why do my sample names keep getting rejected?

The S1000 allows 12 characters, upper case, from a restricted set: A-Z, 0-9, space, and # + - . Underscores, brackets, accented letters and lower case are all out. SampleStack flags any name that won't survive the transfer before you build the image.

What sample rates does the S1000 accept?

44.1 kHz (full bandwidth) and 22.05 kHz (half bandwidth). Software V2.0 can resample existing material to 2/3 or 3/4 of its rate, giving 29.4 kHz and 33.075 kHz, but those are rates the sampler produces itself rather than ones you can import, so SampleStack converts them.