I just recieved one today for a decent price. I am getting the manual printed out tomorrow. Until then, I am clueless where to start. Give me some help on where to start messing with this thing tonight, i'd like to break it in a little.

uno

mikeB

you should check Olby's tutorials vids on youtube as they are excellent!!
It's a pretty fun machine,you'll enjoy it dearly...

I've watched them. I'm having trouble starting to sequence a beat. How do I record a pattern?

Bah.. back the 505. I've just been mashing buttons for an hour now. All I've figured out so far is how to access the pad banks and play around with the preset sounds.

Anyone else with some pointers?

i would junk the presets. go to the library here. start recording and chopping. fill up some banks. pitch out a few samples, add them to the banks. next record a 2 bar drum break on track one. throw some snares and hi-hats(maybe a clap) on track two. add a synth to track 3, maybe change up the synth and add it to track 4. voila, you got a beat.

thanks for the explaination? Don't tell me what you would do.. explain it fool lol.

If you have no manual yet, check out this;

ftp://ftp.roland.co.uk/productsupport/M ... 505_OM.pdf

You want to take a look at page 55 and onward I think.

You know what,mess with the presets for now,they're not the greatest sounds in this world but it'll be easier to learn this machine.
then click on record and then you should see bar,bpm etc...
A single bar would be 1.1-1.2-1.3-1.4 so 2 bars would be 2.1-2.2-2.3-2.4 and so on....Set the bpm to 80,so it's slow enough...
then press play to start your sequence and go to your left to pick a track(you press on the button to highlight it) and you could start with a snare on each 2,then a hi hat on 1,2,3,4 while you match the metronome then add a kick on 1 and 3.
If you're satisfied,press stop and select another track,go to pad bank 4 where the bass sounds and few piano and organ samples are and pick whatever sound you like and then press pitch on the left,then select the root note,Music
etc...
your bass or piano sound will be pitched so you can play it like a keyboard and find a variation that you like and play...
Then press the play button,and record the bass or piano sound that played using the pitch function on top of the drums and then add another track and here you go for now,you have a beat and then follow JBL's great advice and you'll be making great beats in no time

settle down man, he's helping you out

last two comments helped... vaguely telling someone what they "would" do doesn't help is all I'm saying. That's like telling someone they would park a car by driving up to the spot and parking in it.

Thanks for the help.


uno.

it's cool!
i just got a sp-808 and after about an hour of playing around onit i'm starting to feel like i might need a step by step as well. the 808 is pretty deep

the sp-808 is a beast!! Big Juss(Company Flow) used it extensively on his projects...

There are still DVDs available on ProAudioDVDs.com for the SP-808 if I'm not mistaken. I can't quite stand the guy explaining the things on those DVDs, but it might be something for you.

Example; http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ASrS8RJHIEQ

http://www.proaudiodvds.com/ProductDeta ... e=SP%2D808

yeah i saw dude. he says he worked with michael jackson (that explains a lot). right now i'm RTFM, which getting back to the thread at hand, is what i reccomend for you wise guy. by the way, rtm means reading the manual

..er. Read the post again. I had no manual last night.

Anyway, got the manual today. Started making some patterns, sampling and chopping. Thanks for the tips on where to start last night, I'll come back with questions in the next week most likely when I get stuck.


uno

mikeB

Jbl how would you delete the presets on the 505?