Im using Ableton on a 15inch macbook pro right now and have two sps that id like to incorporate into my setup(Im not very good at using them so they've just sat haha).Im not really sure what i need to accomplish getting the sps to hook up to my computer or what type of interface I may or may not need(I have a lexicon alpha).Right now Im just using Ableton and not even learning the sp because its kind of overwhelming trying to figure out how to incorporate the sps into my setup.Any advice on how to get the sp working with the computer would be awesome.thanks

Here's what I would do:

There's a lot of things you can do with two SP's and a computer - However, unless you know how to really use your SP's, it's kind of pointless. I would spend some time using one SP with your stereo outputs going into your inputs on your interface.

As someone who has just recently purchased Ableton Live (so not a lot of experience), one thing I find myself doing is using the SP's to sample into from vinyl or whatever, chop up or resample your sounds, and then record your live SP playback into an Ableton audio track.

You can continuously add and record new audio tracks and then loop/chop/arrange your audio tracks in the Ableton Live sequencer - since the SP sequencer is kind of limited.

I like to build the and organize the majority of my beat's sounds and samples in the SP, and then use it to playback, with or without effects, into Ableton for recording. This is handy because it's a quick dirty way to record your beats and you can always save them and then come back to them whenever you want.

But I would say right now, take some time learning one SP because they're really powerful. Experiment sampling audio (from vinyl or your phone or whatever), chopping audio with resample or copy function + start/mark button, resampling a melody while playing drums, whatever you feel like.

Once you get comfortable with your SP, you can always just daisy chain your SPs in series for even more sampling/resampling possibilities. Or you could do a sort of SP -> Ableton -> 2nd SP kind of thing.

Those are just some ideas of how I might use them - but I'm new at Ableton so I'm still trying to figure out how to use all this stuff together too.

^^^totally agree with this. I've gotten caught up in the same issue with other hardware I've owned, so I decided this time would be different. I'm an Ableton/Maschine user and have been for years. I got the 404 to get out of software for a while. So without worrying how I was going to integrate it (my mistake in the past) I decided to just take the 404 and sample shit with it and try to make something with just the machine. At first it was super frustrating and horrible, but slowly you start to realize the limitations make you think differently about what you are trying to do. The more you practice with it the better you get, and you start to figure out how the limitations are actually strengths. The 404 definitely has it's own unique sound, and I'm loving that. Once you sort that out it will become apparent to you how to then integrate it into your ableton setup. It can be super frustrating but it's worth it, trust me. I love this thing.

thanks y'all