MachFive to Falcon - Akai disk images

[jantoman]

Hi guys. It's been a while since my last post... Apologies
A couple of months ago I saw a special offer by UVI and I bought Falcon: since MOTU didn't update MachFive for years I thought it was time to move on. I've already seen the slow dismiss of Unisyn and it wasn't funny.
I'm quite happy with Falcon, it sounds great and it can easily read MachFive presets and multis: the only drawback I found is that it can't read/mount Akai disks and images. Since I have some free time before starting a huge project next year, I decided to convert the 200+ Akai ISO images I collected through the years, and I'm looking for the best - and easiest - solution. These are the alternatives I found so far:
1 - mounting a disk image with MachFive and loading the Programs one by one, then saving Program + Samples in the M5 folder. With some mixed library disk it's a good method, but it's VERY slow! A batch conversion would be faster and easier for most of the disk images.
2- I booted the Mac Pro from an old Snow Leopard hard drive and I launched CD-Xtract: unfortunately it couldn't export in MachFive format. Pity.
3 - on the same drive I found UVI-Xtract: it was bundled with MF1, it could read Akai disks and convert them in M5 format... it's still downloadable from MOTU website. Great... but there's a bug that prevents the correct translation... or maybe it's just a corrupted preference file I didn't find, who knows.
My goal is batch-translating each Akai disk into a single folder, containing all presets and a single "Samples" subfolder: my MachFive-Falcon folder is organized that way. According to MachFive 1 manual (chapter 9), it should be easy, just leaving unchecked the box "Save samples in separate subfolders" in the Conversion settings window. But checking or unchecking that box doesn't change the result: Samples are saved in separate folders, and that drives me mad
This is the only workaround I found: after translating the whole disk, I trash the Samples folder with its subfolders - one for every program - and export only the samples to a new folder in the same directory. But now, of course, Presets and Samples aren't linked anymore... I have to load the Programs one by one in M5 or Falcon, select the Samples folder and re-save the Program. Every Program. For each disk. Aargh
4 - I heard about Translator Pro, but I also read that the demo can't save the converted sounds. Well, I'm not gonna buy any software from Chicken System without trying it out: I got Instrument Manager years ago and it was so hopelessly buggy I just had to give up. Anybody tried Translator Pro? Does it work as expected?

Every suggestion about other apps, utilities, tricks... will be highly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[mikehalloran]

Dang. I feel your pain. Other than trying it with an even older Mac OS, I have no suggestions.

If you live in the San Francisco Bay area, I'll give you a working G4 running Tiger and a monitor to play with. It's slated for the next Homestead High School electronics recycling drive otherwise.

You might be able to find one where you live that's free to a good home by looking on Craigs List.

[HCMarkus]

Years ago, I spent a fair amount of time moving all my Akai format samples from CDs and other sources into NI's Kontakt which, if I recall correctly, took care of the translation for me. I still have all the old stuff, now on an SSD, ready to call up if needed.

Not familiar with Falcon, but if it can read Kontakt format, perhaps you could accomplish your goal using Kontakt s an interim step, perhaps on a friend's machine if you don't own the software.

Good luck!

[mikehalloran]

Please verify but IIRC, while MachFive can read older Kontakt libraries, Falcon can't. There might still be a way to use Kontakt as a translator — perhaps?

[monkey man]

M5 reads so many formats I decided to make it my one-and-only, go-to sample-playback VI back in the day. So disappointing that Falcon didn't continue with that aspect of the feature set, and yes, I still, perhaps naively, hope that MOTU will come up with some sort of upgrade path from M5 one day.

I'll be getting Kontakt eventually, but at this stage I can't bring myself to buy Falcon for this reason alone. My EMU, AKAI and other libs lie in wait... still...

I feel your pain, jantoman.

[jantoman]

Guys, thanks for your support and sympathy, I really appreciate it.
@Mike: thanks a lot for your kind offer, but I live in Italy... not exactly near the Bay area
But I have a lot of working old Macs: SE-30, PB520c, tower G3, MD tower G4... I could put up a museum.
I'm starting with the G4-Tiger method, hoping that UVI-Xtract would enjoy the old enviroment and behave. I'll let you know ASAP.

[monkey man]

Good luck man...

[jantoman]

No way. I installed UVI-Xtract on a dual-boot PowerMac G4, with 10.4.11 and 9.2.2, and it always saves the samples the way he likes, creating a subfolder for each preset: in other words, the Save path is the same whether the "Save samples in separate subfolder" box is checked or not.
I know it's the default M5 v1 bank's format, with three folders: Performance, Presets (with all the programs) and Samples (with a subfolder for each program). But there's a paragraph on page 109 of the M5 manual that explains what the box should do:

"Save samples in separate subfolders"
When the "Save samples in separate subfolders" option is checked, then each Mach Five preset will have its samples saved in a separate folder. This will of course take more space on your hard drive because some samples used by more than one preset will be duplicated several times. You can turn it on for individual conversions, but is usually better to turn it off for bulk conversions. The advantage of using this option for bulk conversion is that it will be much easier to remove a preset from your soundbank

Looks like a bug... but I can't believe nobody ever noticed it after all this time. I didn't find any complaint about it in the forum, so it's quite possible that I'm doing something wrong

[jantoman]

Maybe I got it... I forgot about Akai disk directory. Level 1 is "Disk", level 2 "Partitions", level 3 "Volumes". The infamous box lets you choose between two options: to keep all Volume's samples in the same folder or to create separate subfolders for each preset.
That means I can't get Presets and Samples sorted out the way I want, unless I dump UVI-Xtract and find another tool

[bayswater]

Please verify but IIRC, while MachFive can read older Kontakt libraries, Falcon can't. There might still be a way to use Kontakt as a translator — perhaps?

That's my recollection too. EXS24 could read them too.

[jantoman]

You are both right, but still IMHO CDXtract is by far the simplest tool to convert Akai-to-Kontakt.

One more question, fully related to this painstacking process... Anybody knows if there's a way to manage keyboard shortcuts in MachFive?
The standard "Save" and "Save as..." shortcuts are assigned to Multi by default, and it should be handy to swap them to Program.
Thanks in advance

[monkey man]

That functionality should be context-sensitive, no doubt.

IOW, depending on whether you have a Program or Multi highlighted.

[Michael Canavan]

Falcon can read EXS files, so IMO your best solution is to use CD Xtract to covert to EXS, and you're golden.

Side note. I'm a little upset at the CD Xtract developer for not responding to emails, but he still has the website up... blah, I long lost most of my information on CD Xtract so I cannot instal it on an older machine etc. unless I get ahold of the developer....

[jantoman]

Try the Win version inside CrossOver or another Win wrapper, it should work. The user interface is almost identical to the Mac version

[jantoman]

Falcon can read EXS files, so IMO your best solution is to use CD Xtract to covert to EXS, and you're golden.

Good idea. I will.