An SP-303, a laptop and some headphones

[EarlGrey]

Hello SPeople,

I need some help here. I have my laptop and my SP-303 and I'm trying to figure out the best set up.

I make my beats in my laptop. Then I want to run samples/drums/beats through the 303 and add live FX and resample them in my laptop. I thought this should be possible without actually recording the samples into the 303 first.

But for now I don't get further then RECORDING stuff into the 303 - adding FX - resampling into the laptop.
It should be possible without recording into the 303 just sending signal through the ext. source and resampling back into FL Studio.

My laptop has a mini-jack headphone and line-in that's it.


Can anyone give me some advice on this? I believe it's possible.

[ellaguru]

yes this is possible.
in fact you can use the sp303 (and ALL the sp series) as a send/return fx box. if you read the manual at page 62 this is explained clearly well.
what i do whit my fast track pro and the 303 is:
-send the FTP outs to the 303 in, and the 303 out to the FTP ins
-add live fx and resample to ableton live
the same proceeding is valid for all fx boxes (kaoss pad for ex too)
correct me if i misanderstood your question

[EarlGrey]

Ait nice. I get the idea. As you say using the 303 as an send/return box is precisely what I want. But I want to do this without an external soundcard. I already have that in my home studio but not in my minimal portable set-up.

In this case I want to achieve this with just the laptop, the 303 and some headphones. Is it possible that I use the in and out of the laptop strictly for the 303 to send and receive?

And use the headphone out on the 303 to listen through my headphones by keeping the Ext Source active at all times??

It would be nice if I didn't have to keep pluggin cables in and out while i'm making beats.
Just a quick way to run and resample my samples/beats through the 303 and keeping the workflow going in my DAW.

[ellaguru]

In this case I want to achieve this with just the laptop, the 303 and some headphones. Is it possible that I use the in and out of the laptop strictly for the 303 to send and receive?

never tried this, this could be a mad ghetto ass trick for portable nomads
..but i'm afraid that it'll feedback like hell...

[yo-yo crunch]

did you try it yet? it should work as long as you have monitor off in the daw.

[EarlGrey]

Not yet! I will try it soon.

It would be great to use the FX channels in my DAW mixer and then send designated channels through the 303 and resample them back into my DAW.

[EarlGrey]

I've been messing around with it the whole evening. Nearly popped my eardrums once. I couldn't figure it out.. I still believe it should be possible. I was able to send the sound from FL through my headphones with the ext source. But after that it gets complex.

I had a lot of resonance coming through as well.. so I've been messing with the main volume on my 303, the sound level on my laptop and the mic in knob on the 303. I had to put all the knobs on a low setting. Whenever I turn them up a notch it's all resonance.

It's just a lot of things running through each other.. FL sound/ MIXER settings, Windows sound settings and the 303 settings.

[cartesia]

that's cos you're creating a feedback loop -


laptop->303->laptop->303->etc etc etc etc forever

You can do it but you wont be able to listen to the end result in the computer, u can put ur headphones into the 303 though to hear it at that point (which is ok.. just use visual to check the level coming back into the computer)

What you need to do is set the track that is receiving audio from the 303 so that it's output is not the master. (so the audio coming into the computer doesnt get sent out to the 303 again) set its output to another track and turn the volume all the way off on that track, or set it to none if you have that choice.

I dont know if u can do this in FL but you can definitely do it in the other DAWs

[EarlGrey]

Thanks Cartesia for sharing the knowledge.

I understand what you mean. I've tried it again but I still get a lot of resonance. I'm not shure if I have everything in it's best setting.

The way I have it set up right now is the following;

Cables:
Laptop line/mic in - 303 rca out
Laptop headphone out - 303 mic in (i got the xlr stereo jack in there)
303 headphone out - headphones hooked up

FL9 settings:
Master in: 'none'
Master out: 'speaker 1 speaker 2'

Channel 4 in: 'MicIn 1 - MicIn 2'
Channel 4 out: 'none'

I turned down the volume on my master. I've put the master out to none. I've put the outs on another channel the same way with the master on none as well. Still I get crazy resonance. What am I doing wrong?

Could it have something to do with my windows playback/recording settings?

[formal]

Does your laptop have an internal mic?

On my laptop I have to disable it to stop feedback when I'm not using a USB interface. It's a Mac.

[EarlGrey]

@Formal

I have a macbook as well.. but I'm running Windows 7 on it (next to OSX) through Boot Camp. I have 'line-in' set up as active default recording device.

This ish is really bugging me..

[cartesia]

i would recommend not using the mic input, but rather the line input on the back of the 303, since youre dealing with line level signals, they might be getting amplified too much if it thinks its a microphone signal. also when you say you have the computer set to line in , but here you said

"Channel 4 in: 'MicIn 1 - MicIn 2'
Channel 4 out: 'none'
"

shouldnt that be line in 1 - line in 2?

[EarlGrey]

@Cartesia

I'm gonna try that ASAP. I thought there was no real difference between the line and the mic in on the 303. Didn't think of it yet.

Yes, in FL Studio it says 'mic in' I'm not sure if the program makes a significant difference concerning the name of the input signals in the mixer.

[EarlGrey]

I'm getting a better signal now. What I've done is I've turned off the line in volume in the windows recording devices settings. I still get some resonance when I turn the volume knob further than 12 o clock in the 303. The signal in my mixer does not go all the way just beneath the red. That's still something Im trying to tackle. For now I use the 'normalize' function in FL to boost up the stuff I resample.

It's a start...

edit: It seems that I can't record the samples that I send through the 303 with FX's applied to them... bummer

[preqwal]

I don't think its actually possible with just 1 output and 1 input as the software is creating a feedback loop. You'll need an audio interface with another pair of outputs.

I don't understand how your monitoring either as you've used up the only output in sending it to the 303. Are you using the speakers as well as the mini jack out?