its been a long week.. my bad, I just realized you were talking about the SP challenge... go for it Asha.

Haha yeah was talking about the resample challenge. I'll post it later!!!

I really enjoy to see this subject brought in the battlefield right now...
I am actually using ableton since I begin to make beats, then when i got my SP404 i stop and start making beat only using the sp and samples wherever they came from. I still make beat in ableton but those are 2 different things in my opinion.

Since I believe the point is if we should use external stuff for the beat making battles, I will give my opinion and say that if we are making SP battle let just use sp , I personally do and I also understand person that don't.

But anyway I'm down with the resample challenge and I'm enjoying this shit everytime I can be a part of it. Cheers to the forum and to all of you making dope sounds in here !

I do get that feeling when I try to listen to certain John Zorn stuff, I just think "what the fuck is he even trying to do here..." but not with Naked City. I used to listen to mostly Grindcore as a teen though so the project was pretty perfect for me. & TBH I don't really listen to much of his work besides Naked City.


Still not really sure about this myself. I told Chopper he could take control of the whole structure cause I feel like every time I host a BB I make the rules too strict and esoteric and it doesn't seem like anyone likes them.

Chopper did you mean only a physical instrument you play yourself? Kind of out of it today and my brain isn't... doing anything lmao


Not really sure what's going on here either...
For what it's worth I'm personally a fan of the 'use only 1 SP and push it to the limits' rules, and the esoteric do-something-weird sub-goals besides just making a track even more-so. I do kind of understand Chopper's stance of "they're going to do this anyway, might as well just make it a part of the rules so there's less conflict". Personally I'd rather the rules be policed more. Although in the rules thread, even though it's very old and well-predates my time here, it states that dumping into a DAW and "mastering" [I don't consider that mastering] is allowed. I don't agree with this at all. I think if you have a fucked up grungy 202 with absolutely no compression or EQ, then just rock it grungy and fucked up. That's the whole aspect of the SPs that made me want one. If I wanted to keep the precise-clean-surgical sound of Live with hand-drummed drums I could have just bought an MPD or something. OK I'm getting a little off-topic here but I was basically trying to say that while I think these things kind of defeat the purpose I also kind of acknowledge that other people's 'purpose' of either doing beat battles or getting an SP in the first place might be different than mine.


I can't figure out if you're mad at people using 404s or people using Live...
BUT overall it was my decision to give Chopper free-reign with the structure of the battle because I felt I became too much of a burden hosting them and that's exactly what he did. So I don't question any of Chopper's decision making because I told him to. I only don't understand some of the rules.
I also support the 'let whoever wins and hosts the next battle be able to pick the rules' even if it 'disagrees' with my personally-imposed SP cage of elitism I brought upon myself. It's a kind of a reminder to myself that my strict SX-only microwave ethic is self-imposed and I'm supposed to be having fun [not training, cause I don't think I'll ever be too great at making stuff... and even if I am it will be shit that only I will like] so if it becomes a burden rather than a fun exercise I have failed. Fuck I'm getting off-topic with bullshit again, sorry...

yes. this. an instrument. one outside instrument. not samples. an instrument. instrument. one instrument. other than the sp. just one. not two. or three. one. instru. ment.

worst rule ever.

.. just trying to be funny.. the only person i'm annoyed with is myself for setting a rule that would confuse

of course, after recording your instrument, feel free to chop and arrange it like a sample. hope this clears things up

Hey thanks to everyone chiming in - it's nice to know we can have a civilised discussion based off what was essentially a rant (I got my coffee in the end) but like any good rant, or hyperbole, or comedy, there is usually some truth.

So yeah, to clarify i really have two point to make, both encapsulated in that this is SP-FORUMS - a discussion-group dedicated to a simple machine that can be used in endlessly creative ways.

1. When it comes to ANY other aspect/application of the SP, plug it into your grandma's dishwasher for all I care, but for the battles show us what you can do with it and it alone, creatively.

2. Hey, a buncha SP's are like purposemade for boom bapp. Go apeshit with those knobs. My point agen is this is SP FORUMS. It may be the go-to-dope, but I'll say it again, even more clearly I hope - this forum is dedicated to a brand of machine, not a genre.

Trust me, this No. 2 - it's just me...i'm just bored of hearing the 404's dj effects squeltching a sequenced drum pattern and loop - and meanwhile, partly it's the 808 doesn't have that dj-rig, so let me cry into my late-night cuppa tea. Whatever sounds best to you and what floats your boat. I don't care much for Celine Dion's pipes or Sevie Vai's whammy bar either but I ain't gonna hate on someone who does.



So...rules are meant to be broken. Indeed.


But to apply that to an SP-battle is to be unnecessarily deferrential. Killing us with kindness, even. The old rules were hashed out by a bucha people a long time ago, but what's changed that we need to throw away what they set up 178 battles ago? Those basic-rules even encapsulate variations at winner's discretion, but let's hold onto the essence of an SP-battle.

Winner's discretion... who has an issue with even the most esoteric of rules? No-one in their right might would bother entering a battle if they didn't enjoy the challenge and the process and the learning.



Practical suggestions:
With the timestretch shit, 808 pitch-transpose is choppy and shitty sounding too. I hardly ever use it. Instead I've always tuned samples by tuning whatever i've previously sampled to what i want to sample using the bpm/vari-pitch funtion... can the 404 not change sample/playback rate?
Or the person providing the files could pitch them before loading them up.


I'd like to see us do away with the poll entirely and bring in a judging system that gives a first-place each to

1. HEAD (concept/creativity)
2. HEART (pure-dopeness)
3. HANDS (SP skills)

But why on earth would I actually consider that an improvement?

^^ well put.

I think it was around the middle of 2010 when the rules started to drift. Up until then it was pretty strict... 1 SP only, no outside anything, with 1 musical sample and 1 break. Overall, I prefer this way. But it was refreshing to participate in the resample challenges, as well as the regular sp-battles when new rules were made up by the latest winner, because often I'd be itching to battle but just couldn't get down with the sample, whether it was too busy or too.... alien vs predator dub step?? (or is a shitty mp3) .

I can relate. For years I didn't use a computer at all. I just recorded from SP to a tascam cd burner. I've been going through some of those old beat cds. most tracks are just one short ridiculous loop for like 3 minutes. for a long time I was ashamed of how much my music sucked but now i'm proud of it because of how far I've come. there are a few gems on those old cds and I think i'm gonna make a tape rhyming on them. like a collab with my old self. even though he's a moron

sorry yall if my attitude's been kinda shitty around here. Had to work on my day off and that shit makes me a cranky cunt.

am i allowed to bounce samples off of tape, also can you please extend the deadline like a couple days

yes and yes.
new deadline is Tuesday March 31st.

so I was going to make a video showing how I made the beat, recording it live and explaining through the internal mic, but that didn't work out. so i sped up the footage for this video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jFA81cA0v4
and here's the track on soundcloud
https://soundcloud.com/chopperman/spbb178
for an extra instrument i used a lead from the audiosauna.com synth.. perhaps badly but it was fun time.