Emax

At 02:39 PM 12/6/2014, you wrote:

>Most samplers which pretend to be compatible with the Akai S1000 actually only accept either Akai S1000 floppy disks or Akai S1000 cdroms/hard disks.

Specifically the ASR-X and the EPS/ASR and Emu E3/ESi are the S1000-only ones. The rest also read S3000/XL too.

If we are talking about the S1000/3000, it's ALWAYS proprietary format. There is technically no such thing as a S1000 or S3000 program or sample that exists on a file that a computer can read natively.

There are three exceptions: 

-The .s3p and .prg that Millennium and MESA use
-The .p. .sts, and .s files that Creamware made for their SCOPE samplers, they mimiced the Akai format.
-Chicken Systems .ak1 and .ak3 files, which are programs and samples combined. Kontakt loads them.

>I think the Z8 is no exception - although I can't confirm this, I don't have a Z8.

The S5000 and Z4/8 are no exceptions, correct.

>I think the Z8 supports the import of Akai S1000 files, but only from Akai S1000 cdroms/hard disks or from flash cards that contain a raw image taken from an Akai S1000 cdrom/hard disk.

Put a better way, it reads them through it's SCSI port, so you can use a CD-ROM Drive or a SCSI drive.

>The same is true for the EIII import: only native EIII cdroms/hard disks are accepted by the Z8, not individual EB3 files saved on a FATxx formatted flash drive.

Correct.

>EMXP is not capable of creating the proprietary Akai S1000 cdrom/hard disk filesystem format (because the specifications of this filesystem have never been released to the public domain...)
>As a consequence EMXP can only create sample and program files, which typically should be copied to Akai S1000 formatted floppy disks (which are supported by EMXP). But as far as I understand, the Z8 doesn't have a floppy drive. I'm not sure if ChickenSys can write or generate Akai S1000 cdroms/hard disks filesystems, but I'm sure it can read them.

It can write them, it's been able to for over 10 years.

>Another important remark regarding the files created by EMXP:
>EMXP assigns the .AKP file extension to S1000 program files, and the .AKS file extension to S1000 sample files.
>The Z8 however assumes that the AKP and AKS file extensions belongs to programs and files created for the S5000, S6000, Z4 and Z8. So while it may "see" the AKS and AKP files created by EMXP, they certainly won't be compatible to what the Z8 is expecting...
>I'm aware that the file extensions created by EMXP are confusing. I think I will add an option in one of the next versions, which will allow to choose between .S and .P instead of .AKS and .AKP.

Could I suggest that you completely change this - no option? .AKP is the extension Akai assigned for S5000/Z program files. Having non-S5000/Z .akp files floating around makes for a lot of confusion. I would highly suggest you change it to .p files for programs and .s files for the samples. Those extensions already existed for that purpose (sort of), it's what you should ahve done in the first place - it's a no brainer.

>Many software packages expect file extensions .S and .P for Akai S1000 sample and program files instead of the .AKS and .AKP. extensions used by EMXP.

See above. This came from the Creamware people ages ago.

>You might try to change the file extensions of your files to .S and .P, but as I mentioned before, I don't think that will be sufficient because you still lack the Akai S1000 cdrom/hard disk filesystem.

Change the extensions and then use Translator to write them to Akai proprietary disk or Virtual Drive which you can burn to CD. Or, change the extensions and convert them using Translator to S5000 format (.akp/.wav) and us akSys to transfer them over.  

Garth Hjelte
Sampler User