peace everyone,
I ordered an SP from ebay and should be getting it by the end of the week..I have never used one before and haven't ever used any kind of sampling or producing equipment before tho...

I'm wondering if there's some things I should try to do first upon receiving it to try to get accustomed to it...(flip thru the manual obviously, but besides that I guess)


just asking for some introductory tips/lessons from anyone..


(I already picked up an RCA cable and even a pair of speakers exclusively for use with the SP...and the one I'm getting comes with a 512 Flash card)



thanks in advance

Uhhhh, make sure you have a compact flask card reader.

yup, forgot to mention it's got one of those too...

Welcome man. I would suggest reading the manual and keeping the forum search engine at hand in case you want to get specific with something or have a question. That's how I did it. In fact I was so into it that I read every post ever posted here (at the time). It never gets boring. If you want some good tips/tricks the production technique archives are simply overflowing with them.

I'd just spend some time reading old posts and joining a battle in the arena.

thanks for the response guys..

i've been spending alotta time reading thru the forum over the past week or so but alotta times I get totally lost cuz there's so many references to things I have no idea about (since I don't have the machine yet)..

but yeah I see what u mean, I'll be on here with alotta questions once the piece arrives and I'll be studying the Production Techniques in the meantime...

Yeah, there's always a ton of stuff to read around here. Welcome to the site.

just a suggestion -

grab one of those cds from any computer music magazine and try loading the provided samples onto your flash card - make sure they are 8 or 16 bit files - some are popping up at 24 bit these days on those cds.

convert to mono if you want more pads to play simultaneously (though this can be done on 404 individually through resampling)

grab melody and bass samples from the cd as you will already have percussion presets loaded on the 404 you can use for this exercise

practice assigning your loaded samples to different pads and changing the characteristics (gate, one hit, loop) -

get one of the preset patterns going, change the bpm and start banging on the loaded samples -

this is to get you used to shifting from pattern to sample mode - a real wtf feature when you first turn this thing on.

start thinking of a structure already with what you got - what can you use to make an intro - then first verse - can you scrounge up a chorus etc...


if you confine the samples from the cd to the same bpm and same key it will always sound more comfortable - try sequencing those samples into yr first patterns and watch what happens when you change them from gate to one hit.

try all the effects knobs and see what happens - get used to being able to apply effects to one or more or all pads -

after a couple of days you will have gotten this out of yr system - it will sound like 'cheese' and you will be glad nobody was around listening

since you got all that junk loaded you could start on next phase -

cutting those samples and re-arranging, re-sampling to create remix.

keep the manual open and close by - it would have answers to everything that pops up for this task.

by the end of this you will be seeking to dump the factory presets and grab your own from your own records and stuff.

enjoy.

thanks for the feedback guys..







^^as for the samples you were sayin to load up upon first messing around with it----i downloaded some drum loops and other stuff from the library section on this forum, you think i could just use those?

(and you're sayin the 404 comes with some sounds already loaded onto it?)

bronze said -

^^as for the samples you were sayin to load up upon first messing around with it----i downloaded some drum loops and other stuff from the library section on this forum, you think i could just use those?

> yeppers - they should be excellent if folk here have worked on them - and grab any loops that are not drums - guitars, keyboards, strings, brass, woodwind, whatever

(and you're sayin the 404 comes with some sounds already loaded onto it?)

> yeppers - a basic percussion section - if I remember it is locked on bank a(?) - you see a lot of posts here about people trying to remove them and get tangled up unlocking them

ok, got it this afternoon and been fucking around with it ever since..

knowing absolutely nothing about it, it seems daunting at times trying to learn how to do basic shit but i'm sure i'll get it after a while...



main problem so far:

-i sampled some violin stuff from a song and when I try to play it and pay some drums along with it, the violin sound is WAAAAY louder.....why is that and how do i fix it?

-also, in trying to import stuff from the memory card i'm having some problems...alotta the stuff i'm trying to bring in (drum loops mostly) aren't supported...
and then when there was one that was supported, it came out fucked up somehow----the sound on the pad was fucked up compared to what i was trying to put on..

re: violin - the signal you recorded may have been a bit too loud. hit the pad, then hit Sample/End/Level then use Knob 3 to lower the sample's volume

you'll figure out the optimum volumes and levels as you get used to it

re: importing samples - check the second column of page 38 of the manual for the specifications of how samples should be formatted. if it has the wrong rates it can speed up/slow down when replayed out of the SP

been fuckin with this for hours and hours, made a little bit of progress...

I'm gettin use to cutting up a sample and placing it's diff parts on diff pads...


the roadblock now is that I can't get much of a rhythm going between them yet AND more importantly i pretty much gave up on trying to match any kinda drums with the sample sound for now.....the drums are always either way too low or just grimy-er sounding or just don't fit....(keep in mind all i have is drum LOOPS at the moment)..

i need some grimey drums i think, that's my next step...

also is there an easy way to restore a sample's regular sound after you've tweaked it with the different effects??

no, but you could save a copy of the sample before you resample it by 'Exporting" it to the card
if you don't like your resamples, Import it again

but Resampling doesn't replace a sample, it creates another version of it so you can always keep the original too