Yamaha Third Party Sound Developement SupportTop Developers Providing Titles for A Series Digital Samplers
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| A4000 |
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| A5000 |
July 23, 2000Yamaha Corporation of America, Pro Audio & Combo Division, Digital Musical Instruments, announces the launch of a third party sound development program at Summer NAMM 2000. The program partners Yamaha with a variety of leading content manufacturers to develop native format CD-ROM support for the companys' A series professional digital samplers (A3000/A4000/A5000). Participating manufacturers currently include Big Fish Audio, East/West, Q Up Arts, Sampleheads, and Sonic Reality.
To date, 15 titles are in development and include a wide variety of instrumental, ethnic, vintage, sound effect, and ambient samples. Titles include Bob Clearmountain Drums 2, Ultimate Piano, Interactive String Section, Vintage Keyboards, Roots of South America, Percussive Adventures, Voices of Native America 1, and Prosonus Orchestral Collection.
"The A Series samplers are like high-performance sports cars and these CD-ROM titles are the high-octane gas to power them," notes Athan Billias, marketing manager, Digital Musical Instruments. "Users of the A3000, A4000, and A5000 now have access to incredible material from some of the world's premier developers and distributors of sample CD-ROMs. It's really a 'vote of confidence' for Yamaha and its sampler products."
The A4000 and A5000, introduced at Winter NAMM 2000, are ideal tools for project studios, film scoring facilities, professional musicians and creators of loop-based music. Like their predecessor, the A3000, both offer the ease of operation and superb audio quality associated with Yamaha digital products. The A4000 and A5000 include sound and wave editing software (for both Mac and Windows platforms), and a complete 9 CD-ROM native format sound library set developed by Yamaha. The library includes many sounds from its award-winning synthesizers like the EX5 and S80.
Doug Rogers, president of New York-based East/West, notes, "By reaching out to developers like ourselves, Yamaha reinforces that they are a serious player in the sampler market. We are in the process of programming our most popular titles in native Yamaha format, and look forward to a successful ongoing relationship with Yamaha." The A4000 features full 64-note polyphony with 64 multi-mode resonant filters, 20-bit A/D converters, 24-bit D/A converters with 8X oversampling, and a sampling rate of 44.1/48 kHz. Other features include three effects blocks per program with 96 different effect types, 4-band total EQ, and loop-based Break-Beat functions (Loop Remix, Loop Divide and Time Stretch). Optional SIMM memory gives the A4000 up to 128 MB of sampling RAM. "We're really excited to be working with Yamaha," adds Susan Morton of Q Up Arts, Grass Valley, CA. "They have a reputation for quality, and the A Series samplers are no exception. Q Up Arts was impressed with the products, and is proud to support them and to be part of such a program." The A5000 has all the features of the A4000, but features 126-note polyphony and six blocks of effects per program. Both units share import/export compatibility with high-end samplers such as Akai, Emu Systems and Roland, and with standard computer formats such as WAV and AIFF. Front-end CD-R software allows the units to write their own native format CD-ROMs for data backup, and to write Red Book Compatible audio CDs. "The A Series samplers are a great platform," notes Jeremy Roberts, founder of Sampleheads. "It's not surprising that we, along with the other developers, are more than happy to support it with some of the best titles." For more information, visit Yamaha's web site at www.yamaha.com. |
