Thinking of buying an SP-606

[joao orecchia]

When connected via USB, the SP makes a MIDI connection to your pc. In a soft sequencer, you can sequence the sounds of the sp's pads on the pc and when you're ready to go live, you can sample the tracks to the sp. The SP is one of the best samplers for long sample phrases, so it works pretty well. You can now mute/unmute the tracks by hitting the pad you want to mute.

So in this situation you end up with layered drum loops that you can mute and unmute instead of single drum hits that are sequenced?

[soundexp334]

I also have the 303 which I sample patterns into and back into the 606 on one pad, frees up tracks and polyphony

[METAFYZIKAL]

When connected via USB, the SP makes a MIDI connection to your pc. In a soft sequencer, you can sequence the sounds of the sp's pads on the pc and when you're ready to go live, you can sample the tracks to the sp. The SP is one of the best samplers for long sample phrases, so it works pretty well. You can now mute/unmute the tracks by hitting the pad you want to mute.

So in this situation you end up with layered drum loops that you can mute and unmute instead of single drum hits that are sequenced?

Depending on what you want to do, you can do either or. You can export the individual tracks (like hats only), a combination of a few tracks (like hats and kick), the entire pattern to a single pad, or a combination of any of the latter. You can then choose how you want to play your sounds with the 606's sampling options and effect chain; worlds are possible, you just need to know what you want to do.

[AUTOCHOPP]

do you know any online store that sell sp 606
and shipp worldwide

i think imma kop this baby
lemme know guys

[Twitch]

Check out musiciansfriend.com or guitarcenter.com

[enossified]

The main thing that worried me about the reviews was that a few people said the sequencer lagged and cut out at times. I'd be making patterns, switching between them, muting and unmuting tracks, and playing samples over the patterns. And using it as a clock master for other gear.

These angry posts were also quite old, from when the machine first came out so maybe the firmware's been updated since then?

Another new member interested in the 606.

Question #1: I have the same reservations as Joao...the reviews that mentioned the 606 couldn't stay in synch, would choke when BPM matching more than two samples, choking on lots of incoming MIDI, etc. I would be using it live and any timing issues would make it unusable.

Question #2: will long samples cut off at the end of a pattern or if the sequencer is stopped before a sample ends?

Question #3: Mike Acosta's videos suggest "everything" is saved to the CF card but I've also read that FX settings are not. Are the assignments of FX to pads (i.e. pad 1 to MFX1, pad 2 and 3 to MFX2) at least stored?

Question #4: If I set the sample BPM to SEQ ALWAYS the BPM will synch to the tempo of the current pattern even if the pattern is stopped?

Thx in advance!

[PHeMoX]

I don't think resampling should be mentioned at all when it comes to the number of tracks. Resampling's much more to do with the polyphony than the number of tracks.

P.S. My main gripe with the sequencer on the 606 is the lack of copy function.

What do you mean? You can copy patterns around all you want, using [ Ptn Play ] -> F2 [EDIT] -> this will get you into the pattern edit screen, then simply hold down [ func ] and press [ F2 Copy] to get to the pattern copy screen.

I use this all the time.

Question #1: I have the same reservations as Joao...the reviews that mentioned the 606 couldn't stay in synch, would choke when BPM matching more than two samples, choking on lots of incoming MIDI, etc. I would be using it live and any timing issues would make it unusable.

Can't quite comment on that as I haven't been able to connect my SP-606 to the P606 software on my own PC through MIDI and generally do not use MIDI syncing with other devices. I heard it can be complicated to set things up correctly, but I also heard that it will work fine once you've got it to work. Having said that I think that it's probably a matter of settings for the SP-606 to either 'choke' or not. I haven't had any latency issues with my SP-606 and the P606 software on a different PC that did work.

Question #2: will long samples cut off at the end of a pattern or if the sequencer is stopped before a sample ends?

That does depend a bit on what you'd want it to do. If you edit the sample parameter to play it for a couple of measures, then it should do exactly that. I don't usually use very long samples though.

Question #3: Mike Acosta's videos suggest "everything" is saved to the CF card but I've also read that FX settings are not. Are the assignments of FX to pads (i.e. pad 1 to MFX1, pad 2 and 3 to MFX2) at least stored?

FX settings are supposed to be saved using the [ MFX ASGN ] option. It definitely saves those settings of how you set up FXs for different pads. In my experience it won't save FX settings that you applied to an entire pattern without using [ MFX ASGN ].

Question #4: If I set the sample BPM to SEQ ALWAYS the BPM will synch to the tempo of the current pattern even if the pattern is stopped?

If you correctly set the tempo of the pattern in the [ sample param ] screen and made sure it's not a reversed sample or set to 'Single' in the [ sample param] screen. You also can't bpm match samples that are extremely short ( <200ms ).

Also, there's a range to how much you can speed up or slow down samples, which is where some of the issues come from with multiple samples bmp matching. If the bpm match is out of range, it may speed up the sample to twice it's speed instead of slowing it down even further.

It's a bit tricky to use, but at the same time very powerful when you know what you're doing.

[enossified]

Having said that I think that it's probably a matter of settings for the SP-606 to either 'choke' or not.

The specific choking complaint was the 606 could beat match two (stereo) samples fine but when a third sample was triggered, the loops drifted out of synch with each other or stuttered

I'm familiar of course with the problem of improperly looped samples drifting, that's not what I'm talking about. Can you have 4 BPM matched stereo samples (or 8 mono) going at once without time drift or not? If not, what is practical?

If you correctly set the tempo of the pattern in the [ sample param ] screen and made sure it's not a reversed sample or set to 'Single' in the [ sample param] screen.

So you can't BPM a sample if it's set for reverse or one shot? My main application is to have a long sample (essentially a backing track) BPM matched to shorter loops that I would be triggering. I suppose I could create the long sample with silence at the end and then save it as a loop. Then just stop it before it hits the loop point

[PHeMoX]

So you can't BPM a sample if it's set for reverse or one shot?

Not with the press of just one button. You can BPM match the sample the normal way, then resample that (speed up or slowed down) onto a new pad and reverse it. That way you still have a sample that's BPM matched and reversed. It just takes an extra step. You can make a one shot out of it (again) the same way, just resample the BPM matched sample. For BMP sync to work, the SP-606 has to know (manual input of BPM) or be able to estimate the speed of the sample.

My main application is to have a long sample (essentially a backing track) BPM matched to shorter loops that I would be triggering. I suppose I could create the long sample with silence at the end and then save it as a loop. Then just stop it before it hits the loop point

I don't think that's a problem, but you might have to adjust the shorter loops for it to really work.

The specific choking complaint was the 606 could beat match two (stereo) samples fine but when a third sample was triggered, the loops drifted out of synch with each other or stuttered

I did not have that problem yet, so I can't really comment on that.

As for 'stuttering' sounds though, in general the sound simply won't stay the same when stretching a sample to BPM sync it with other loops. That's a limitation we have to live with in general when it comes to BPM syncing (not only true for SP-606, also for other devices).

[enossified]

OK, one other question.

My full application is here:

An acoustic band using loops along with live players. Since precise tempo will vary from gig to gig I need BPM match. I would be triggering shorter loops and one-shots as the long loops play as well as playing bass off and on over the whole mess

I read somewhere that when you change patterns on the 606, the new pattern takes on it's own BPM (unlike the 404 which only has global tempo). I'm paranoid about switching patterns on the fly (needed because there is some improv involved so songs are not always the same number of bars) and getting unwanted tempo changes...that would require using some other box to be the master MIDI clock

I have looked into a beat detection device from RedSound (we have two percussionists so there is a strong beat) as an alternative to tap tempo. Drawback is one more box to hook up plus more $$$ to spend...than again having a reliable setup would be priceless 8)

[PHeMoX]

I think you should try it out, I'm afraid I can't give you solid guarantees on this. However...

An acoustic band using loops along with live players. Since precise tempo will vary from gig to gig I need BPM match.

...in my humble opinion, it would be wiser to adept to what's being played back on the sampler, instead of BPM matching 'on the fly' to what you are playing live. Because really I'm not sure if this BPM syncing would be easy to accomplish in any live situation (regardless of the hardware you are using).

It is like the world upside down in my opinion.

There's always a risk that what you play back goes faster or slower than what you play live, but you shouldn't compensate this with changing the speed of the backing part, but instead you should try to play the correct bpm live.

Also think of this, lets assume there exists hardware that instantaneously compensates the BPM on playback according to live players, that would probably cause pretty unwanted results if the live players can't keep the correct pace.

I think it's better to practice in keeping up with what you are playing back on the sampler instead. It's basically how I perform in a live situation also, pre-recorded drums are being played and I play along, not the other way around. (I do not (yet) use samplers for this.)

[enossified]

There's always a risk that what you play back goes faster or slower than what you play live, but you shouldn't compensate this with changing the speed of the backing part, but instead you should try to play the correct bpm live.

We have used a laptop running Acid a few times and had problems with the band being unable to hear enough of the track to stay in synch. When the track gets cranked in the monitors, then one by one each player says they need more of themselves in the monitors and we just chase our tail...if you have ever run sound for bands you may be familiar with this phenomenon

The need for BPM match is simply if the band gets so far out of time that the only way to salvage the song is to adjust the speed of the loops. In other words, an emergency workaround. Adjusting Acid on the fly from a laptop keyboard is not as easy as tapping in a new tempo

We have also had issues with the laptop power supply generating noise into the audio

I'm looking at alternatives, right now the 606 and 404 are the frontrunners. Except for the lower voice count and the larger size, the 606 seems to me to be preferable. I can only get the 606 by mail, I have no way to demo one before buying. I have spent some time in stores already with the 404.

Thanks for all your comments, lotsa food for thought here.

[PHeMoX]

We have used a laptop running Acid a few times and had problems with the band being unable to hear enough of the track to stay in synch. When the track gets cranked in the monitors, then one by one each player says they need more of themselves in the monitors and we just chase our tail...if you have ever run sound for bands you may be familiar with this phenomenon

Yes, it's definitely a phenomenon everybody is bound to run into, however a good mixer solved this for me. It's usually a bad idea to depend on the monitor output for bpm anyways, as I've performed in situations that had a bit of a echo / hall reverb kind of sound and it was pretty confusing at times!

In a lot of bands people use small head sets so they can hear themselves and some other part of the music to keep track of the bpm so to say. Obviously that kind of equipment tends to be expensive and you'll need one for everyone and a quite complex mixer.

I hope you'll achieve what you are looking for though, good luck!