Digital Personal Studio, 12 tracks

You can record through an analog soundcard as normal, but this won't give you a great sound. If you have a soundcard which has a digital input you can upload stereo pairs of tracks digitally, and if you have a digital output as well you can dump them back to the DPS.

Finally, if you have a CD-R connected to the DPS12, you can burn stereo pairs of tracks (or whole mixes) to a CD-R, then put the CD-R disk into the CD-ROM drive on a Mac or PC, and use one of the many pieces of software to digitally extract the audio from the CD into a computer sound file (AIFF for the Mac, WAV for the PC).

There has been a recent drive on the mailing list to develop some software to aid those of us who would like to transfer audio from the DPS into their computer. The idea being that you backup your project to CD, then put the CD into the computer's CD drive, and run a piece of software that reads the backed-up project and extracts the relevant audio and other data automatically into WAV files.

See the DeepStripper section for more details.

MESA is a MAC/PC application from Akai that enables data from SCSI equipped Akai samplers to be transferred to the computer via SCSI for editing, then dumping back to the sampler. Unfortunately, MESA doesn't allow this with the DPS12 - it is a front-end for the mixer and mixer automation only, and does not support audio transfers between the DPS and a computer. Check out the software page for more info on DPS MESA.

The effects only work if you have the optional FX board. If it is not fitted, you can still access the FX screens as though they were there, but they obviously won't work.

Good question! You can set up an obvious FX patch, say a reverb, and if you can hear reverb, then the board is installed! Alternately, you can open up the DPS12 and check if there is a daughter board fitted. Also, Akai say that FX-equipped DPS12's were shipped with a red sticker on the unit, as a quick means of identifying whether the FX board was installed or not.

Yes, there's some quite comprehensive diagnostic routines. To access these, turn the DPS12 on while holding "REC". Be careful though, it's quite possible to do dangerous things here, and easy to lose an entire disk's worth of data.

Also, with early versions of the OS it is possible to crash out of the main program during an "ALIGN" procedure, and go into the debugger screen. If you type "GO" (using the alphanumeric keys) followed by enter at the prompt, you can restart the DPS12's program and recover from the crash. Later OS versions are much more stable.

This from Kurt Landre' on the DPS list:

"Getting the fx to work the first few times can be a little confusing because there are so many steps involved in doing it. Once you do it a few times, though, it will become second nature.

Personally, I would recommend initially recording WITHOUT fx, except maybe compression or eq (and even then, go real easy). That's a personal preference, though- a lot of people do it differently.

I often record my fx in when I'm going to actually mix the music. It's easy to do, you can undo it if you'd like, and there's no loss in fidelity. With a small amount of modification, the following steps can be used that way, too.

Basically, you do the following:

1	Press the ASSIGN button.
2	Press the F1 key (it should say FX RTN) above it.
3	Turn the jog wheel until you get either 1 MIXED STEREO or 2 STEREO PAIRS. I usually used 1 MIXED STEREO. For the rest of this, I'll assume that scenario.
4	Press the F2 key (THRU). Make sure the FX RTN-L and the FX RTN-R have an arrow pointing to THRU MIX. Change them to that using the jog wheel if not. Later, you'll be changing them to SOURCE ASSIGN.
5	Press the F3 key (SOURCE). Figure out which track you want to record on. Use the jog wheel to set it's source to FX RTN-L or FX RTN-R.
6	Press the MIXER button, just above the rewind button.
7	Scroll through the main screen (using the F3 and F4 keys) until the F5 key has the EFFECT button above it. Press F5 (EFFECT).
8	Set fx A and fx B to the desired type, then press CLOSE.
9	Press the F2 button (THRU).
10	Use F3 and F4 to find the LEVEL screen. Set the level of the THRU MIX channel you want to record from. Also, make sure THRU MIX channels 5 and 6 are up (or 3,4,5, & 6 if you chose 2 STEREO PAIRS back in step 3).
11	Press F4 until one of the AUX SEND screens appear.
12	Using the jog wheel, adjust the level of the the THRU MIX channel you're using to feed some signal into the AUX SEND. Also use the jog wheel to increase the far right knob on the screen to an appropriate level (SEND-B MASTER).
13	Make some noise with your instruments. You should hear some fx on it, though maybe very slight. Repeat steps 7 to 13 until it sounds like you want it to.
14	Press the ASSIGN button.
15	Press the F2 key (THRU). Change the FX RTN-L and the FX RTN-R channels to SOURCE ASSIGN.
16	Click the blue RECORD SELECT button on the channel(s) you chose in step 5.
17	Press record, record your music, mix it down, make a million bucks, and send me my %15 cut. If you had to repeat steps 7 to 13 more than twice, make it a %20 cut.

If you want to record you fx AFTER you've recorded the track, change step 9 to F1 (TRACK) and use the recorded track to feed the AUX SEND. Just make sure the track you'll be recording on IS NOT THE SAME as the track you're getting your AUX SEND source from.

Hopefully, I didn't leave out any steps. Somebody correct me if I did. It probably seems a bit overwhelming at first, but it does get easier. Be sure and make the time to just let yourself learn how the machine works."

When doing this, make sure the DPS's clock is set to "DIGITAL" and not "INTERNAL", so it's clock is derived from the digital input. This setting is found in the control panel on the sample rate screen. In all other cases, including mixing digitally to DAT, it should be set to "INTERNAL".

V2.0 only supports CD writing in track-at-once mode. This burns individual tracks one at a time, and where the laser is turned on and off, it is possible that glitches are left. Decent CD writers write a whole disk in disk-at-once mode, which doesn't leave these glitches. However, modern drives seem to be able to handle track-at-once burning correctly, without leaving glitches, Many people on the list have successfully burnt CD's track-by-track, without hearing any glitches on the finished CD.

For more information on CD burning, check out: http://www.fadden.com/cdrfaq/

Yes and no. CD's are always burnt from two (definable) tracks, which means you must bounce your mix down to stereo before writing a CD. Bouncing to stereo means you have to have two free tracks to bounce to, so you can only use 10 tracks at once. The only way around this is if you own a DAT machine - you can digitally record a mix of all twelve tracks to DAT, then upload that back into the DPS for burning, hence you can use all twelve tracks at once.

Firstly, if using a synced sequencer, try setting the time display to "BAR.BEAT.CLOCK" mode. Now all your edits can be referenced to bar boundaries. Of course, you've got to have a strict tempo for this to work, otherwise your music won't line up with where the DPS thinks the bar divisions should be!

Secondly, try recording a metronome on a spare track. Now, when copy/pasting etc, use the jog/shuttle mode on the metronome track to align the in/out points with the metronome click. This way your edits will always be on the beat.

From the list:

"Hey guys I did a bit of experimenting on this: When I tried to do a "copy" from a Jaz 1 GB disk to my IBM 4.3GB disk, no matter you select the option as "format" or "erase", the DPS12 will still format your destination drive to be as the same with your source drive, regardless of the size of the dest. drive. So I guess the way to work around this is to backup your source disk to a third drive, format your dest. drive in the "disk page" and restore each project one by one from your third drive onto the formatted drive, that way you will be able to use the entire capacity of the dest. drive."

"A small tip here, after formatting the dest drive, to ensure that the right disk capacity is recognised by the DPS12, go to disk page and select that drive and press "inform" and read the capacity reflected there."

Zip drives can only be set to SCSI ID's 5 or 6. The DPS12 defaults to being on 6, so either make sure the Zip is set to 5, or change the DPS's "self-id" to something other than 5 or 6.

You need to get an optical to co-axial convertor. These are little boxes that have an optical input and output, and a co-axial input and output, and can convert between the two.

DPS12 Optical Output	-->	Convertor's Optical Input	Convertor's Co-axial Output	-->	DAT Machine Coaxial Input
DPS12 Optical Input	<--	Convertor's Optical Output	Convertor's Co-axial Input	<--	DAT Machine Co-axial Output

• Fostex COP-1 details (from Fostex website)
• Midiman CO2 details (from Midiman website)
• Friendchip OP-CON details (from Turnkey website)

(If you have details of other similar convertor boxes, please let me know.)

With computers, conventional wisdom suggests that you turn on all peripherals first, working from the end of the SCSI chain in, and then the computer last. However, in this case, turn the DPS12 on first, wait until it has fully loaded, and then turn on the CD-R drive. It should now be recognised. (This only happens with some drives, notably Plexwriter & Plextor 4220 drives.)

Brett <brett12@home.com> posted the list with:

"...when they load the demos on they do it from a 1 gb jaz, so the 2 gb hd think's it's only 1 gig.  Akai should really at least let people know that they have to reformat to get the full 2 gigs."

So yes, you will have to reformat your drive in order to get the full capacity.
See the item about copying disks for a full explanation.

This is normal. With no record select buttons pressed, the indicator shows how much time there is left on the drive (let's say 10 hours, in this example).

Press one record select button, and the display becomes a "record time left" indicator, and it will still show 10 hours. If you press another record select button, the display will show 5 hours left - as two tracks are record enabled, the disk space will fill up twice as fast, hence you have half the recording time left. If you are recording on four tracks, you will have 2.5 hours of recording time left.

The DPS12 has a "System Protect" mode, intended for demonstration purposes so mischievious fingers don't delete all the audio on the disk. When protected, the DPS12 won't let you do anything destructive to data. The reason I mention this here is that one person's DPS12 went into this mode seemingly accidentally.

Anyway, to change the system protect status, power on the DPS12, and after it does the SCSI scan, the DPS says "Loading Project - Please wait while loading...". While it says this, hold the "F4" key. A screen will popup saying "Do you want to turn on system protect?", with options for ON or OFF. The normal DPS12 operating mode should be OFF - unless you don't want mischievious fingers tampering with your DPS... :)

No. You can record at whatever sample rate you like, but when the data is backed up *the backup* is performed at whatever sample rate you require.

Think of it like this: if you have an 8-second 44.1KHz audio file, when you back it up to a device that's capable of recording the data at 44.1 Kbits per second, it will take 8 seconds to store the whole file. If your receiving device can receive at 48 Kbits per second, it will take less than 8 seconds to store the whole file, as it's storing the data faster. The actual data remains the same in either case.

If the backup speed you select is different from the sample rate you recorded the audio at, what effectively happens is the audio is played faster or slower to the backup device, with a consequent drop or rise in pitch. For instance, if you are backing up a 44.1KHz project to DAT at 48KHz, if you monitor the audio during the backup process it will sound about 10 per cent faster (and higher in pitch) than the original (which is why it's a little faster to backup at 48KHz than 44.1KHz). On reload the data will be played at the original sample rate and will sound unchanged.

When backing up to an external CDR, you should select the DAT backup method (as described on the backup page), and select the 44.1KHz speed. Otherwise the CDR will sample-rate-convert the incoming digital signal in order to "fit" it onto a CD, and this will mean the data is garbled and consequently won't reload into the DPS.

Yes. Designate one DPS12 as the "master" and the other as the "slave" machine.

•  Connect a MIDI cable from the master's MIDI OUT to the slave's MIDI IN. This is used primarily for syncronising the two machines.
•  Connect an optical (toslink) cable from the master's digital OUT port to the slave's digital IN, and another from the slave's digital OUT to the master's digital IN. This enables you to transfer audio both ways between the two machines.
•  In the Control Panel, select the "SYNC" page, and enable "MTC/Master" mode on the master DPS12, and "MTC/Slave" mode on the slave. Still in the control panel, on the "Sampling Rate" page, select "Digital Input" clocking on the slave DPS.

  Some notes:

In order for the two devices to sync properly, press play on the slave DPS12 first, as this puts in into "MTC play waiting" mode. Now when you press play on the master DPS12, the second will lock up and start playing in sync. If you do any edits on the slave DPS, remember to stick it back into play waiting mode by pressing "play", otherwise it won't start when the master starts.

Configure the master DPS12 to assign it's digital inputs (7 and 8, which carry the slave DPS12's audio) to THRU MIX, and pan the inputs left and right respectively. Now all the audio from the slave DPS12 is added into the main mix from the master DPS12, so you don't have to monitor audio from the slave separately.

Bounces are easy to achieve with this setup, as rather than assigning new vtracks, assigning the source tracks for the bounce to extra bus etc etc, you can bounce directly to the other DPS12. To record on the slave DPS12, assign it's digital inputs to whichever tracks you want to record on, record enable those tracks, and mute everything but the source tracks on the master DPS12. Then press record and play. (Note: I can't remember offhand whether MMC will let you press record on the master and put the slave into record mode, or whether you have to press record on the slave only. I'll check next time I get the two DPS12's together...)

Just like analog audio, you have to be careful not to get digital feedback. For example, if you are recording the main output of the master DPS12 onto the slave, if the master fader is turned up on the slave it's output will be added to the master mix, which will be fed to the slave, which will be added to the master mix etc etc. So do be careful about how you route things.

There is a syncing issue that may raise it's head. Because the two DPS12's are clocked by two sources, MTC and via the digital audio stream, there is a possibility that you may get problems as the MTC pulls the slave one way, and the digital clock pulls it the other. If you start new projects on both, you shouldn't have any problems, but I did notice some iregularities once (although I didn't have the time to investigate - I will try to find out more in the near future).

Also note that you can't use varispeed in sync mode, so you won't have access to this when using both DPS12's.

Another useful feature of a dual-DPS12 setup is that you can copy projects between machines using the DAT backup function. Select Project-->Reload on the destination DPS, and Project-->Backup (DAT) on the source. Then press start on the destination machine, then start on the sender. Now the whole project will be copied from the source machine to the destination. DAT backups are fairly slow however, and it may be quicker (although more hassle) to backup to a CDRW, then connect the CDR to the other DPS12, and reload it on that, especially if the projects are fairly sizeable.

From the list, Ian (ruffrecords@geocities.com) writes:

"A quick flick thru the Service Manual (snicker) reveals the following: A 16 Mbit DRAM connected to the 'host CPU' which seems to handle scsi, midi and user interface The on board DSP chip is connected to a Flex 10K FPGA which in turn connects to the SCSI bus and another 16 Mbit DRAM. And finaly there's one more 16Mbit DRAM on the FX board. So fully loaded its got 6 Mbytes."

Make sure that the transmission and reception of controller messages is switched on (Mixer-->MIDI Control), and both channels are set to 1 (for now).

Go to the control panel and make sure the MIDI out is set to "OUT" and not "THRU", and on the sync page make sure the Deeps is device zero.

Connect the Deeps and computer both ways via MIDI (IN to OUT, and OUT to IN).

In MESA, go to the "MIDI Setup" page, and make sure the channels match the ones the Deeps is set to transmit and receive on, and both of the "Connect" boxes are ticked. Make sure MIDI is routed to the correct outputs in this box too - mine read "SB Live MIDI Input" and "SB Live MIDI Output" respectively.

Lastly, make sure your DPS12 has version 2.1. MESA will not work with a pre-2.1 version DPS12, as the 2.1 version added specific sysex commands for use by MESA.

Not yet, although the IDE<-->SCSI daughterboard in the DPS12i is rumoured to be made available as a separate item, meaning that soon you will be able to use the cheaper IDE drives in your DPS12. The DPS12i already comes with this board installed and so can already use IDE drives (in fact, it comes with an internal IDE drive.)

Up until recently, this hasn't been possible. However, Akai have released a new version of OSMaker that can now recognise and write the OS to CDR!

When testing this, OSMaker successfully found my Yamaha CDR and wrote the OS to it. However, the DPS12 would not validate the OS ROM image, and due to one alarming bug, the DPS wrote the invalid ROM image to the EPROM chip anyway, thus nuking my DPS12! So proceed with caution. If anyone has upgraded their DPS12 from CD, please let me know and I'll report that is does work.

Currently my DPS12 is awaiting the time when I can afford to get it fixed (an erased OS chip is unable to be fixed without sending the DPS12 in for repair, unfortunately :(

Nothing, this is normal. The DPS12 reports "REC NOT READY" because a CDR is not a normal drive that the DPS can directly record to - the DPS12 has it's own specific routines for writing to CDR/RW disks via the audio CD or backup functions. The DPS12 will therefore report "REC NOT READY" for any CDR drive.

Formatting a CDR will result in an error because CDR disks do not need formatting - they don't work in the same way as conventional disk/hard drives. Just pop a blank CD in the drive and proceed to write an audio track, or backup a project directly.

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