An inSync reader recently inquired about sampling off of CD ROMS.
“I was wondering if it’s possible to connect a CD ROM drive to the SCSI connection of an Akai MPC-2000 and sample sounds from CD ROMS that you sell?”
It is important here to make a distinction between “loading” samples and “sampling” samples. The data on a CD-ROM is not audio data – at least not in the sense that it can be played and listened to like an audio CD. A CD-ROM typically contains data that is configured for a specific type of machine. Consequently they cannot be “loaded” into other machines. So a CD-ROM made to be “loaded” into an MPC-2000 would not load into an Ensoniq EPS, for example. Some samplers are able to load sounds designed for other machines to varying degrees, but that is up to the specific software of the sampler. For example, a Kurzweil K2500 can load samples off of CD-ROMs made for Akai samplers, but not from CD-ROMs made for Sample Cell.
Doing “sampling” of a CD implies that you are taking samples of audio material from an audio CD. There is no such thing as “sampling” from a CD-ROM because they do not contain audio to sample. For the most part audio discs (CD’s) are universal. You can “record” the audio into any sampler capable of sampling audio. This is very different from “loading” already programmed and optimized sounds into a machine. CD-ROMs are loaded in through a SCSI port (usually) like any data, while audio is “sampled” through analog or digital inputs. Recording and producing your own samples is often very tedious and time consuming to an extent that most people don’t bother and just buy CD-ROMs with sounds already sampled and programmed for their specific machine. So when looking at CD-ROMs of already made sounds you need to look for discs that are designed for the specific machine you want to load them into, or at least are designed in a format that your machine is compatible with.