Hi everybody,

I've got the SP-555, like it so far, BUT: I'm not able to make really seamless loops with it. I mean, I can do it with percussive sounds and such, but other stuff like pads, piano sounds and more consistent sounds can't be looped seamlessly, as far as I tried it. There's always a little pop or click at the start/end points. When using LoopCapture, it's getting worse, when using the normal sampling method it's getting better, but all in all it's impossible to avoid it totally.

So the SP-555 is fine, but is there any hardware sampler out there which is able to do really seamless loops, anyway which kind of sound the samples are made of?

Maybe the MPC's?

Thanks for tips and hints.

The loops will be as good as you make them really, if your timing is right, the 15 second loop capture should make it possible to make proper loops.

You should realize that you can't just loop any sound for it to sound right. You should either stop playing right at the end of a loop or have a sound that the same both at the end and start of a loop, so it just makes a switch to the start with the same sound, making it nearly impossible to notice.

I've made plenty of loops on my SP-555, mainly playing live guitar into it. No popping problems as far as I can recall. A keyboard melody that has reverb effects on it will be difficult to loop, but that only makes sense as the effect usually goes on a bit after you've played. Hope this makes sense to you, but basically making loops for certain sounds can be quite tricky.

Sorry if I'm sounding a bit blunt now, but as far as I know the MPCs don't have a magical 'make perfect loop now' button either.

I make seamless loops with all kinds of sounds everytime I use my 555

me too, i use my sp-555 to make loops more easy and quickly than with my mv-8000 with autochop, i mean...im using LOOP CAPTURE 4 make all my loops without problems

Roland MC-09 has a simple little looper (and a good synth module) for cheapy-cheap. I've got one slaved to my SP-555. (Thx, Frantic!)

Frustratingly, you can't set the input level on the MC-09, though.

Yeah, I'm also playing the guitar into the 555 very often, and I'm able to loop it quite well and without noticeble pops, also my timing is quite good (playing guitar for almost 30 years now, the timing should be ok). So, for guitar, vocals and percussion it works good, but as soon as it comes to sounds as I mentioned above, keyboard, synth, pads etc., pops and clicks start to appear, no matter, which method I use or how careful I work.

My expectations could be a bit too high though. What I would like is: when I record a loop of a pad (one single note), there should be no noticeble click at all at the start/end point. That seems to be nearly impossible, as far as I understand the looping process and what Phemox says above, isn't it?

Could anybody, or especially DJFrantic, record a small loop of a pad or something, make a short mp3 of some 15 seconds and send it to me via email? So I could compare it to what my unit produces. Would be very nice, because I really would like to keep the 555, and a little comparison would give me a feeling for what is possible or if my unit is faulty. Thanks a lot.

Well, for sampled synths playing pads or strings can be tricky... to put in a loop ofcourse. Really short attack and release should make thing easyer... 4 looping pads & strings.

Otherwise I dont have problem with making loops for bass lines or arpeggios... pianos...guitars....

When I record guitar into the 555 I use Boss FS-5U footswitch to start/stop
recording - hands free... it is preety chep new... like 20 EUR or close and I almost never need to chop those loops because they just fit in the BPM no matter if the Loop capture lenght is set to FREE or 1,2,3,4 bars.

The key to a perfect loop is: play in time and set the beginning and the end
exactly. That pop you hear is probably the beginning of your loop that is doubled. You can have just a fraction of the first sound left on the end of your loop that is causing this click...

edit... now you sound like experienced musician

did you opened the recorded loops withs cracks in wave editor software to see what's that glitch?

maybe your monitoring system is so good and mine such crap I can't hear that pops

could it be w/ synths, etc., you are running the signal in too hot, so its actually a bit of clipping?

Thanks all for answering. I usually use a footswitch from bespeco, something like the appropriate BOSS footswitch. It works fine so far, and proper timing is easy to achieve with it.

Also I have noticed, that those pops are more noticeble the higher the Input level is set, although there is no clipping.

Currently I'm experimenting and analyzing the samples on the PC.

try this. get a waveform editor like soundforge or maybe audacity. highlight a random part of a sound and set playback on loop. i know you can do this on soundforge, not sure about audacity, you might have to just copy the random bit and paste it a few times into an empty wav. anyway if you listen to it you'll hear it usually doesn't automatically sound right. if you zoom into the "joined" part of the sound where the two pasted bits meet you'll often find that the end of the first sound isn't near the part of the spectrum where the second begins. this causes a popping sound no matter what, regardless of how you make the loop. that's why it's easier to leave a little silence at the end of the first loop. now i don't know if that's your problem, but it's something to be aware of. i think when people talk about having good timing for loops they mean being able to make the end point of the sound close to the same place on the spectrum as the beginning. just a thought.

Yes, I know what you mean, and currently I'm analyzing in Cubase, what's going on at the start/end points of the samples. I can see now, that there's a short period of silence both at the start and at the end. Something like o.1 second or less all together. That's with a sample that I recorded permanently, which means, that I played a pad-chord on the keyboard, then started 'REC' on the 555, then stopped 'REC', then released the chord. So the sample should contain nothing else than sound, no silence. But there is silence. That could mean, that my 555 doesn't stop 'REC' and 'Input' in the exact same moment, but records a tiny bit longer than Input is actually on.

Edit: actually the pops and clicks disappear, when moving the start/end points to similar 'places' in the waveform/spectrum. So that is one side of the problem, which can be solved by trying to play very similar start and end points of the sample.

But I still don't know how to avoid those little but noticeble gaps (visible in Cubase) when recording on the 555.

Yeah, iG9 is spot on here.

I also think the best way to make good loops is to end the actual sound input before the loop starts from the beginning again. I'm assuming the guitar stuff, even if you're playing chords will loop much better for you because the pattern of chords starts and ends within one loop and has a small silence in it (or like iG9 said the start and end are simply close enough to the same spectrum to not notice how the loop actually starts over again).

Anyways, I do not doubt your actual timing, but you'll have to play within a loop for most kinds of sound.. to really sound right.

It sounds like you've got it covered, and I only have a 404, so I'm not familiar with the 555, but I assume you can do this with the 555.. If you're trying to do this with loop capture only, you can stop reading now since the 404 doesn't have loop capture...

When I have some shit that I absolutley need to loop 100% perfectly, IE 2 synth parts or something, I set the threshhold volume to 1... (hold cancel, hit rec, turn far right knob until it says 1) then select which pad I want, then select the tempo ahead of time. Then I get it so it says "rdy" then I play my source, as soon as the volume spikes it starts recording and then it cuts the sample on it's own at the specified time based on BPM (it marks the sample with the mark button). That way you have a sample starting at exactly the same time and ending at exactly the same time. Now you just have to trigger them at exactly the same time...

Probably not helpful, but that's how I get shit to loop up perfectly when I need to and am struggling doing it by ear...

maybe an S950, it has crossfade looping and is my favorite sampler of all time

I have tried the Autostart-function, but didn't tried different settings, so I will do that today. Thanks for that.

The Akai S950 hasn't got enough memory, and that's one of the features I like a lot on the 555, it has plenty of memory.

I did some experimenting on the 555 yesterday, and my conclusion is, that a nearly perfect seamless looping is achievable on most of my records, say 70 percent, and fortunately on those instruments and sounds I usually need for my tracks (guitar, percussive keys and vocals, ambient sounds with clearly defined start/end points). The rest of about 30 percent are pads or reverbish keys and other stuff, that I don't use very often.

So I tend to keep it now, although I still feel the 'need' for 'THE perfect looping sampler', which doesn't seem to exist yet.