Destination - Akai,
Creamware Pulsar/STS, and MESA Disk and File Formats
Translator supports the Akai S-1000 and S-3000 disk
and file formats. Both of these are quite similar; the S-3000
format is just an extension of the S-1000’s, with
the data chunks a little larger, along with different
file type numbers. In fact, Akai updated the S-1000’s
OS after the S-3000 came out so that it would read the S-3000’s
format - without the additional options, of course, but
it could read it nevertheless. S-3000 Volumes are quite a
bit more capable - they can store up to 509 "objects"
- Programs, Samples, Multi's, other. The S-1000 Volume
could only store 128 Objects.
The Akai disk format is the same for the S-1000 and S-3000. Partitions are the same for both formats. A Volume can be either S-1000 or S-3000, and of course Programs and Samples can be either way as well. Even if the files are different, it's a moot point since the S-1000 OS 4.4 sees and reads both. Translator, when you write a Volume, or other file (Program, Sample, whatever), checks your format choice in Options about file type and writes the appropriate type volume or file.
Basically, the S-1000 and the S-3000 are interchangeable to some extent. The only total incompatibility worth mentioning is that if you can't write an S-3000 Program with more than 128 Samples attached to it to a S-1000 Volume. Another interesting twist is that many other samplers (such as Emu), although they can read S-1000 and S-3000 Programs, they can't read S-3000 Programs which are in S-1000 Volumes!
Why do we bunch Pulsar and MESA into this category? Both formats are almost direct duplicates of the Akai format just in a different form. See below for a description. We will describe all these formats, except when they deviate, as the Akai format.
Architecture
Description
The single Instrument unit on the Akai is the Program.
This holds the parameters and the pointers to the
wavesamples to be played. The Program file does not hold
the samples themselves. A Program holds a mapping system
called Keygroups. A Keygroup contains a group of
parameters, and can reference up to 4 samples (in
structures called Zones). It’s not documented very
well, but Keygroups can overlap or layer on top of one
another, making for a very flexible (but under-used)
architecture.
A common usage of the Akai is to play multiple Programs stacked on top of each other. This was common practice in the S-1000, so common that Akai implemented this feature as a Multi in the S-3000, whereas all you had to do was to select the Multi and that would play combinations of Programs together.
This refers to translating to the S-100 and S-3000 format, either to .ak1 or .ak3 files, or directly to Akai S-1000-type disk. This does not refer to the Akai S-5000 series.
Pulsar/STS
Translation Status
This
refers to translating to .p and .s files of the original
Pulsar. .p+.wav combinations will be available shortly,
as well as the new .sts+.wav combination.
MESA
Translation Status
This
refers to the .s3p and .prg MESA format, along with .wav
files.
MESA and Millennium: .s3p, .prg
Akai has an ambitious program called MESA (called properly MESA II), available on Mac and PC, which can communicate to the S-3000 through SCSI an transfer any type of information to and from it. When it gets a object or file from the Akai, you can save it on the computer as a .s3p file (PC) or a file with no extension but a MESA creator code (Mac), with wavedata stored as associated .wav (PC) or AIFF (Mac) files. (There was a MESA I; in the PC flavor, it wrote the Akai program files with the .prg extension, but the file has practically the same contents as to render them identical.) The program file simply has all the sys-ex strings that MESA uses to communicate spliced together, basically.
The MESA program files are commonly called "MESA format" files.
However, MESA is not all that reliable. Often, it can screw up certain files, and many times a program and samples come into the Akai as garbage.
For this reason, we recommend a better program that was developed in response to MESA, called Millennium. It lacks some of the little frills of MESA, but it is solid and operates faster. We have found that Millennium transfers the MESA files written by Translator very accurately, while MESA it is quite hit and miss. You can purchase Millennium from Rubber Chicken Software Co., see www.chickensys.com/mil for more info and ordering information.
Pulsar: .p, .s, .sts
The Creamware Pulsar SamplePlayer and SamplePlayerF
are able read directly off Akai disks, and store their
data in .p (Program) and .s (Sample) files. The newer
PowerSamplers STS-3000 and 4000 use .p files plus .wav
files with special chunks, while the STS-5000 uses .sts
files for the programs and the same .wav files for the
data. These files are exactly the same as the contents of
the Akai files themselves, and Pulsar actually edits
these files in the same way the Akai does. In fact, you
could call the Pulsar samplers virtual Akai S-series
samplers and you would be just about right.
(However, Pulsar takes license with files sometimes, and omits some information that an Akai needs. Translator tries to compensate for these differences.)
The newer STS-x000 players within Pulsar add some extra parameters not found in the Akai’s, but it’s minimal. The reason for the .p-.wav combinations is that it allowed compatibility for external listening to the samples without having to go into Pulsar, and along with the .sts files it allowed long file names to be used.
.ak1, .ak3
We developed our own DOS file counterpart called .ak1
and .ak3 (1 being the S-1000 and 3 being S-3000). We did
this in order to integrate Programs and Samples into a
single file. An .akx file contains 1 Program file
and all the Samples associated with it, along with a
Volume header, which ties them together. There is also
the .p and .s formats, which are just the Program file
and Sample files separated. This is used by the Creamware
Pulsar - they have adopted the Akai file format as their
own.
Akai Compatibility
Compliance
Almost every modern sampler, whether hardware or
software, is programmed to read Akai disks, especially
CD's. Translator has been extensively designed to
translate foreign formats not only to Akai itself, but
also to appropriately load into "Akai-compatible"
samplers as well. Please see the Miscellaneous topic Akai-compatible Compliance Support for more information.
Import Formats
Akai S-1000 samplers can only read Akai samples and
drives. The S-3000 series can read Roland and E3 (not ESi
or ESi v3) formats.
Comments
Akai samplers have wound up to be tremendously popular,
almost to the point of the being a de facto standard,
since so many CD-ROM’s are produced for them. This
is due partly to Akai’s popularity in Britain and
Europe, where many sound developers there have taken
great opportunities.