ZOOM ST 224- A GOOD COP?

[KIYANI]

Considering one of these, seen a few around for fairly cheap. Youtube videos look and sound pretty good, nice dusty lofi steez.

I know i don't need it as i'm equipped with MPC1000 and two 404's at the moment but can anyone with experience on this thing give me some pros and cons and just let me know if it would be a worthy addition?

[HELLOPILLOW]

THAT KIND OF EFFECTS/JOYSTICK COMBO LOOKS/SOUNDS DOPE
NEVER USED THAT BUT LOOKS A GOOD SAMPLER...

[commercial]

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[ellaguru]

pro
sampling while playing sequences-patterns
resampling sequences-patterns
real pitch
pitch scale a la mpc
copy samples from card to pads without difficulty
live swing
3 grades of sampling-resampling
panning
very accurate bpm counter

cons
1minutes per song-project
8patterns max to do a song
seq a la sp303
no velocity pads support (it exists an hack-mod but until now i cannot confirm if it works)
external midied pads only in gate mode
it doesn't exists the loop mode like on SPs: you have to push a button to active-desactive it on the fly

[Headphones]

It's kinda a cousin to the SP202, with more fx, and a basic sequencer. You can get grit in your samples with the Lo-fi grade that your MPC/404's can't. Find a 16mb simm card on eBay and you're set. Do it if it's cheap, because some people know it's the poor man's SP1200, and it's worth it if you can get a decent deal on it.

[ellaguru]

@Headphones
man, i think a better comparison is between the sp303 and the st224, not the sp202, because the sp202 doesn't resample, cannot copy, doesn't sequence, panning etc etc and many other features...

[Headphones]

Yeah, guess you're right. A cousin to the SP303, but it also kind of has a few tricks up its sleeve none of the SP's do. Regardless, if you have some room in your studio for one, and you're willing to try the different workflow, you may want to add this in your setup.

[KIYANI]

Sounds dope, thanks a lot for the advice. I never use MIDI so that's all good. And I rarely do a complete song inside one machine. The sampletrak seems dope as something to just loop some drum breaks in conjunction with an SP for live shit.

Hopefully man will accept 140 ozzie dollars which is like 70 english pounds. Seems ok to me, couldn't even get a decent FX pedal for that

[MattCoops]

It's got a I'll lo pass filter. The compressor sucks.

[ellaguru]

[quote="The compressor sucks.[/quote]
Matt, man i tought thst too, but now i see better how to use it on this machine and its fact that is "less immediate" than the ones on SPs made me see it as something weak...the compressor on the st224 is something to work with, also beacuase it hasn't the same parameters (attack and sustain) the SPs have...try a kick 3/4 (and a bit more) than the sample to be sidechained, threshold MAX, ratio MAX and then you will see what i mean

[KIYANI]

Zoom should pay you Ellaguru

[janglesoul]

[quote="The compressor sucks.

Matt, man i tought thst too, but now i see better how to use it on this machine and its fact that is "less immediate" than the ones on SPs made me see it as something weak...the compressor on the st224 is something to work with, also beacuase it hasn't the same parameters (attack and sustain) the SPs have...try a kick 3/4 (and a bit more) than the sample to be sidechained, threshold MAX, ratio MAX and then you will see what i mean[/quote]

I got to look into this. I almost assumed mine was broken since I could hardly hear any compression at all. When getting the sidechained effect, on let's say a synth chord - do you mean that you resample a kick pattern and chord to a pad, and then add compression to that pad?

Thinking out loud. Because in order for the compression to start pumping you really need the sounds on the same pad right? If you have samples on multiple pads playing at the same time, and add compression you won't get the kick on one pad making another sample duck.

So, resampling to one pad is sort of like compressing a Master bus, or if you run the outputs of the Sampletrak into an external compressor.

[ellaguru]

for some reason i couldn't download from my PM message an audio example i made , comparing pumping compression on SP505 compressor and ST224 compressor...
by the way this is a new example i made now very quick.
it's only ST224 comp this time
first 10-15 sec are kick and synth alone, then compression is applied, with treshold and ratio at MAX. Note the 2 different volumes before and after compression.
experiment with that.
hope it's useful for you guys.
st224comp.mp3

Zoom should pay you Ellaguru

I got to look into this. I almost assumed mine was broken since I could hardly hear any compression at all. When getting the sidechained effect, on let's say a synth chord - do you mean that you resample a kick pattern and chord to a pad, and then add compression to that pad?

Thinking out loud. Because in order for the compression to start pumping you really need the sounds on the same pad right? If you have samples on multiple pads playing at the same time, and add compression you won't get the kick on one pad making another sample duck.

So, resampling to one pad is sort of like compressing a Master bus, or if you run the outputs of the Sampletrak into an external compressor.

on the ST224 try kick on a pad and a synth to another pad, set volumes as i said, do "pad enable" of both to apply compression on both samples; this is not technically a sidechain, but more a pumping effect "a la SPs", sorry if i made you misundertand that