Dope Machines You Didn't Know Existed:  Zoom ST-224 (Sampler)

 
There is always this trend. No matter the hobby or intrest. A trend of "Tried and Proven"

Or people who see someone do something great with one thing, and have the (also common) misconception they will be great with it too (or sound like that person).

You really miss out on a lot playing follow the leader. You close your eyes to an entire world just to take what has been set in front of you without question.

So right here we have the Zoom ST-224 SampleTrak. What some refer to as the "Poor mans SP1200". Hopefully someday it can earn a new title of ST-224!

That's what I'm going to call it. This unit deserves it's own name and identity.

I don't remember what it was I was doing that had me come across the ST-224. But the fact it was made by Zoom and I saw it sampled, and it looked wierd, I had to look it up and read into it. Purely out of curiosity. So I read about it, see a few forum posts here and there talking about it, some pretty good things said about it. So I then go to Youtube to see what I can find, and saw a handful of some videos (I will link in the video section) and it looked like a lot of fun.

So between all that I was reading, and seeing in the videos, I had to know.. How much does one of these go far? Not very much I found out. Retailing at £199 when it first released, now can be had between £60 and £100 from what I just saw.

And just bought for £81! ($128.00)

The ST-224 is defiantly a cool unit. It's got a ton of sampling time, about 4 minutes worth. From what the SOS article states, this is not expandable. So most likely an embedded chip, rather then using SIMMs. Not bad though either way! Uses these "Smart Media" cards.

From what I saw you can still buy the Smart Media cards on Amazon.com. You can also buy Smart Media adapters, where the Smart Media card plugs in, but has a slot on the front of it to use XD, SD or MicroSD.

ONLINE RESOURCES

With anything, one of the first things I do is check to see if there is an enthuast forum. Typically when something comes out, you have someone who starts a forum for it. Sometimes not. Other times especially when older equipment, a lot of those forums don't exist anymore.

For the Zoom ST-224, there is still a running forum:

http://sampletrak.lefora.com/

You also have SOUND ON SOUND, whose website has the original articles they published when equipment first comes out.

For the January 1999 Article on the Zoom ST-224:

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jan99/articles/zoomsample695.htm

MODS

Looking online to see what mods currently are known about (at least written about and searchable online) I came across absolutely nothing.

Soon here I'll be opening it up and spilling some details on what I find, but from the time of writing, there most likely is nothing proprietary about the internals of these.

The release day price of £199 ($300) really screams "off the shelf parts" or "dime a dozen components" making for inexpencive and doable repairs (unless there is some bizzare IC in there, but even these days company's are re-making!).

Now for some mods! (This page will be updated as more things come to mind, and I will write a guide on any mods done!)

LED's

First mod that comes to mind, is all the LED's on this thing. LED's both through hole and SMD (surface mount design) are easily swappable by desoldering the orginals and soldering in new ones in their place. SMD requiring a bit more skill however.

So whatever color you can think of, you might find an LED for! In many cases however, there is a size requirement, and some LEDs have different shapes! So the more obscure shapes and sizes might have less color options.

Click Here for my guide on changing the LED's in your Zoom ST-224:

MANUALS

Official Operations Manual:  Zoom Sampletrak ST-224 Operators Manual (PDF)

Factory Service Manual: (Unavaiable -- May not have yet been released online)

PHOTOS

VIDEOS

 
This one, is a defenate good one to check out for the ST-224, done by a brother called Dj Reggie Reg. Dope cuts on it especially. I was supprised to see one of those controlers actually be able to handle cutting like that. 



This brother here really shows what this machine can do. Not to have anyone thinking if they get an ST-224 they will be this dope. This defenatly takes soul, and the kid has it! Great inspiration, big chune, heavy business inside. Man like BrainZtain. Big it up.



More recent in years video, from 2014, a guy called Kinay. Another big one to feed the mind in all that is the Sampletrak

 
Another video from Dj Reggie Reg