how do you make songs on your sp 303?

I have done several different ways:

1- Just create drum pattern and play the melody by hand

2- create an 8 bar loop, 4 bar loop, etc of drums and melody at your loops bpm.

3- buy a second sp 303 - one for drums and one for melodies

I would really be interested in insights in beatmaking on this machine.

I mean do people really record 99 measures? I read somewhere that some of the more popular producers just do this and then record and cut and paste.

I found more success for myself out of two sp 303's - one for my drums and loops and one for my melodies and backgrounds....


how do you think people like samiyam, flying lotus, dilla, madlib use the sp 303 to create - sometimes it hard for your melody to fit that 4 bar loop and it is just barely 3.5 at the appropriate bpm.


i don't want to emulate their style - I want to understand more of their mechanics for actually creating a whole song on these sweet machines.

I mean when I read and saw fourtet using 3 of them and triggering using just his ears and hands it made more sense.

when using the mpc you just compose but when you use the sp 303 you have to arrange it by ear and feeling.. i have both and both have their uses.

thanks for your help

Well it sounds like you have some good ideas. I'm sure Flying Lotus, Madlib, and Dilla followed a similar process of trying new methods until they organized some techniques they found most usable.