AnnualPact underway! Fabulously aware that I've had a recently refurbished Akai S5000 sitting in my studio unused for months, this week I fired it up and got sampling.

I spent a good amount of time acquainting myself with the machine (which was refurbished by Jazzcat's Akai Parts & Repairs last year, and subsequently fitted with an SCSI2SD board for onboard storage by me). The good news: with its big screen and context-aware buttons the S5000 is certainly the easiest hardware sampler I have ever used.

To talk of sampling, I decided to delve into a library of recordings made from LPs I acquired from an auction a couple of years ago. First was some Chopin piano music – this was not the most conducive to being sampled, but it was useful to run through the S5000's workflow.

Next, I sampled a long passage of Wurlitzer music (recorded in Bath, not far from where I live). This had some interesting sonic sections that were more suitable for sampling, and I ended up working with a short section from the beginning of that sample and creating a workable sample program that certainly has an -otronic quality about it.

I will be returning to this longer Wurlitzer sample in future sessions, with the plan being to create more sample programs from it and build up the basis of a track.