This may sound moronic but I've had the SP-555 for almost six months and I feel I still haven't been able to access its true potential. I'm a newbie and I bought the SP-555 because I am really into ambient/sound collage types of music (Brian Eno, Animal Collective, Black Dice, El Guincho, Boards of Canada) and I wanted to create music that I felt pushed the boundaries of the normative structure in popular music.

I would really like some advice/tips on how to put samples together to create polyrhythmic patterns. Where do you guys find your samples? Do you create your own using software or real instruments or do you sample little snippets of songs? I know of sites like CCMixter that have sample banks but does anyone know of other sites/compilations that can provide me with certain sounds (percussion, ambience, weird sfx) that I can use?

Answers to any of these questions would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks for your time,

N.

Usually I record live playing or groovebox sequence directly to 555, I use different hardware synths and drummachines plus electric bass and guitar... my own samples all the way. Even record from PC some VSTi's.
Someone will sample from forgotten records and flip the samples
to the point of no recognition... Sky is the limit... there are sample CD's...
You can make a song in Reason and transfer different parts to sampler and than trigger them live... It's your workflow, you got to find for yourself what you can do with the things you have by hand.

try just plugging in a walkman and see what you can do

record long samples so you can trigger them at random times for some chaos

for polyrhythms the roll button is key. try messing with the roll while changing the start time and record that in the looper. then also layer in the triplet rolls on top

something ive done to get those cool drone-y loops is find a bit in a song you like, assign it to a pad, then use the dj fx-looper with the first nob (for repeat rate) turned all the way down and just turning the third nob (to the "on" position) to loop it. it takes a little guess work/chance but ive gotten some pretty sweet stuff from it. if you dont like what you get the first time, just try looping it at a different point in the sample. after you find something you like save a measure or 2 to a pad and set it to "loop" and have fun with it.

ps
if my instructions on using the dj fx-looper werent clear just read the manual section on it and it should make better sense.

I found a very helpful video on youtube.com It shows you how to choop samples in 16ths but it was very useful for me and showed me the true potential this machine is capable of!! I hope this of some use to you....<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/YQ00HJA5EhU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/YQ00HJA5EhU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

yo, you gotta paste the webpage and not the embed code

Hi, i read a interview with panda bear (noah lennox from animal collective) that 90 % he takes sounds from royalty free sound effects and makes these weird sounds around the samples he uses. Just a hint, not shure what website hes talking about http://www.partnersinrhyme.com/pir/PIRsfx.shtml
Maybe this one? im trying to the same as you, love those bands, artists...
i would appreciat more help from you guys, great website. peace...