Yo,
What a coincidence, since a month I've been trying to learn how to perform live sets with sps
So do you only have a sp 404 sx ? I have a og and a sx, and I found out that the best set up from smooth transition was 2 sp + a dj mixer.
Other than that you can organize your live set: -1 beat per pad, but it will be a bit boring
- separate your drum/bass/melody, 1 per pad, this set up will give you more flexibility but require more skill to perform transition
For transition, you can only fade in / out one pad at once using mfx23 (subsonic): knob 2 all the way to the right, knob 3 all the way to the left --> the more you go right the more it will fade. You can also use the delay/tape delay fx for your transitions, or have a turntable stop effect by using the knob 2 on djfx looper (for instance, with the djfx on the 2 beats you want to transition slowly knob 2 to zero on the last 2 beats of a bar --> start beat 2, knob 2 slowly to the right on the first 2 beats) . Another very useful tip is the ghost pad: you may have notice that you need the fx applied on a pad to change the setting (or it has to be the last fx that you used). So if you want to change the settings before applying the fx, have a ghost pad on every bank (with silence record, or volume set to 0). That way you can apply the fx on the pad, change the settings ,and then apply it on the playing pad.
Finally, I don't know if you've learned harmonic mixing, if you do you can set up your banks by compatible scales. So for instance on bank A you'll have 3 beats in 1A (Abm), 3 beats in 2A (Ebm) 3 beats in 3A(Bbm), then in bank b 3 breats in 4A etc... (the remaining pads in each banks are used for ghost pades/vocal sample/whatever you like).
At first it will be a bit hard to be fluid using those techniques, but trust me, with a bit of practice you'll use them without thinking !
Good luck and have fun !
