yo wut up to everyone on this here muthafukin forum. im the new nigga who doesnt know if he should get the sp-404 or an mpc2000. these questions go out to all the tru hip hop junkies. its a two part. id appreciate the feedback. 1) can u take audio from a cassette tape in a cassette player wit AUX IN and transfer it to the sp-404? and also niggaz can u take out the vocals of a sample using the effects? thank u for ur time.

yes and yes

1. yeah.

2. not really. I think the sp has an effect to take out the vocals but it doesnt usually work too good- if at all.

the mpc and sp are both really ill machines. choose wisely

Thanks. But do u kno what cable is necessary for da cassette/sp-404 transition? And wut effect is most effecient?

You need regular RCA cables(red and white) which are easily obtainable and you don't necessarily need to use the AUX,just an headphone jack will give you excellent results.
You know what.I love using samples with vocals and working the eq or filters to my liking.But I don't own a 404 as of now,so I can't answer the fx question for you bruh.

yeah i was referring more to isolating bass than removing vox.

it depends on the output out of the cassette player. if your gonna go from the headphone jack on the cassette player get this.



as for the most effecient effect to take out vocals, its the c canceler. but dont get your hopes up. if you plan on taking vocals out from your samples then your gonna be disappointed. thats part of the art - you gotta work with what you have.

the center canceler works great (depending on the recording) for removing vocals and other things.

if the vocals are panned dead-centre, as they *should* be, the c cancel works pretty well.

Problem is, with modern producers gettin' all creative n stuff, vocals tend to move around the stereo field, making the c cancel useless. Generally, the older the recording, the better it works.

thanks nikkas! the advice is great. much appreciated. but do you guys know if a mixtape can be created with this machine? what other hardware/software will i need to make street mixtapes?

you can make a mixtape with everything. It's not about the machine, it's about you.

But well, you will need something to record on. I use a taperecorder. Other record through their pc input.

Make sure the tape recorder has a "line-in" jack. Otherwise if you plug your patch cable into the mic jack you're gonna get a whole lot of hiss and static due to the noise preamplifier. (If there's a way to counteract this, I'd like to know.) Some, if not most, boomboxes from the 1970s-90s have line-in and they're cheap off of eBay, thrift stores, pawn shops, garage sales, etc.

If you want a decent, inexpensive analog tape machine for field recording then you might want to get a Sony Pressman TCM-400DV voice recorder (mini/standard cassette, not micro) that has a tape speed selector and an analog tape speed control that's good for changing a samples' pitch. It doesn't have a line-in jack, though. The Walkman Pro and Marantz PMD222 and PMD430 have it and a lot more, but are more expensive.

like this one (scroll down):

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