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Akai S612 - OS 1.3e
Yes, indeed there was an OS Version which enables a lot of interesting features in the S-612. I think nobody outside Germany really knows [*see below], that this ever existed. The OS Version 1.3e was created by Werner Szugat, who was the technician at a music shop in Munich (the owners of the shop also were the first importers of Akais musical instruments). Akai never took over the OS-Version, so this guy decided to sell it on his own.
The update added the following features:
- multisampling and six midichannel multi-monomode with extended diskhandling
- two voice MIDI controllable pitch transposer
- five voice multitap audio delay (no feedback)
- amazingly improved autoloop function.
- additional parameters (velocity to loudness, velocity to filter, MIDI-note to loudness, MIDI-note to filter, sample level and sample tune for multi mono mode)
- interface for tapedump of the sample data (instead of saving to disk)
The upgrade consists of an EPROM which replaced the original OS, an additional IC socket with an encapsulated kind of dongle (the EPROM itself does not work in the S612), and some add-on electronic components, if you wanted the tape-dump.
This update/upgrade was fully supported by the editing software of harald plontke (http://www.plontke.de/HaraldPlontke/).
The owners manual for this update can be downloaded here (unfortunately this manual only existed in german): Akai_S-612_OS1-3_Manual_German.pdf
One day in September 2005 I mentioned on analog heaven maillist this update, and two guys asked me how to get this. It took me some days but finally I found Werner Szugat (the guy who developped the update). I asked him, whether he would still sell it, but he said "Oohm, I could build it, but I don't like the hustle with sending gear, checking bank accounts and similar stuff; people will call me and stuff like that; but if you [means me] are really interested, you could take over the distributor part".
Ok, that was not what I wanted ;-/. I already have a job and I do not want to setup an additional business. Though I think this is a great piece of software for an nice old sampler, which should be spread a little bit more, I am definitely not able to do this task. So the update won't be available any more.
[*]This is not really true: recently I got a mail from Senso from Vintageplanet.nl in the Netherlands, that he sold the update when he had a shop for electronic musical instruments
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