Hello Forum,
I've been messing around with the sp-555 for a while but I have recently been trying to master the pattern sequencer. I have run into a problem recently though when trying to create a pattern. I have a 2 measure drum beat that I sampled off the intro to a song and I want to elongate it for 20 measures. So I adjust the length of the pattern to 20 measures and record. After the the 20 measures though instead of returning to the first measure with the loop still playing it cuts out into silence. This makes it impossible for overdubbing. Also my metronome never matches the loop that is playing (i.e- it falls out of time) although the loop does sound like its in time.

FYI: I tried turning of the loop button and just sampling a 2 measure pattern but it doesn't seems to work out with the chords I want to overdub with. If anyone can solve this problem it would help me out a lot.

Thanks and I appreciate your time,

N.

I was having the same issue! Very frustrating. I called Roland Support today and they told me that you can't have loop on at all. I find that hard to believe, but it works if you constantly cue the sample throughout the duration of the allotted time as if it looped on its own.

If you found a solution where you're able to keep the samples looped, that would be amazing!

Hope things work out!

-Marty

I was just messing around and I think I figured out what's going on.

Its pretty poor engineering, but it appears that when you determine the length of your sample for any 'n' bars and you have 'loop' enabled on the sample, it will only loop for 'n' bars and stop. So, if you go to overdub on the next pass or you cue a sample after the initial 'n' bars, it will continue to play into the next pass of the 'n' bars while the first sample stopped.

For example say I choose n=8. I want to cue 2 samples (A and B) at different positions along the 8 bars.

I start off with sample A and let it play by itself for 2 bars then cue sample B. At this point, by the time the next pass of 8 bars comes (let's call it [pass 2, bar 1], which would be the 9th bar in the sequence) sample A will have stopped and sample B will continue on until bar 10 (pass 2, bar 2). Now by the time we hit (pass 2, bar 3), both samples will be silent and continue on in silence until the current pass (pass 2) has finished.

This is ridiculously frustrating, so the only way I can think to get around it is either my first solution or to cue all the samples you want at the same time and use this technique to add or subtract parts accordingly:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=leroeH3fVTM

(Thanks to 7Th CITY for that video!)

Hope it all works out and Happy New Year!

Best,

-Marty

why dont you just retrigger the sample as many times as you want to fit the 20 bars, the loop function is more for live jamming, not for the sequencer.