Probably a shot in the dark as I assume nobody from Roland is reading this but here’s a wish:
I’d love to be able to deactivate monitoring when sampling/resampling, for when I use the SP to record stuff from my mixing board while auditioning the SP through said mixing board (love how it works for other cases!)
Goal: avoid complicated operation to kill feedback loops.
Thanks everybody! Pretty much.
The track itself is all arranged and layered in the SP through a very complicated multistep process (which I now think I can refine). I wanted to try not sampling records/YouTube (except for the intro, of course), so I cobbled together some “fake breaks” in Logic and sampled those. Once those were in the SP I sorted out what drums worked well together.
After I figured out what drums I wanted to use, I sampled other stuff, and layered things on top of the drums using the resample method, and then I finally I made a bunch of patterns out of those resampled bits.
I then used the song mode/pattern chain to come up with the arrangement/sequencing, and once I had something I liked I resampled that into a single sample using live effects (and Bus 3-4). Then I went back and used resample again to do live overdubs on top of that to get the final track.
Finally I exported the final track to the computer and just used a limiter to boost the level.
I didn’t know what I was doing and had to come up with the workflow on the fly so I made a ton of mistakes along the way and had to change direction at times and also do a lot of different takes.
More than making a track though, this was about experimenting with things on the SP to learn all the functions. That mindset made it a lot easier to suck up all the work I lost along the way (and to come to terms with some of the less than perfect results).
Thanks for the in depth post on your process. I am playing the waiting game (as I’m sure many of us are) so every little bit of hands on experience is helpful. The track was pretty great as well-not too shabby for a first track on a new machine. So what are you going to refine about your process now that you’ve created a track? I am thinking I will employ the resample workflow but giving up The control over the final mix is still hanging me up. This is something I struggle with all the time with the Digitakt. I can never decide whether I want to individually track each element or just arrange and mix in the DT and live with the results Of the stereo track.
The first thing I plan to do (when mine comes in, est 45-90 days) is sample my Teenage Engineering PO collection. For those that have done it, how close is the sound mangling capabilities and sampling when using the PO samples on the SP? In other words, will it have that PO feel while being better at patterns and songs?
I ended up selling mine. I have too many samplers…too much gear and I was mainly using the 404 to process sounds and not to create tracks with. Decided I wanted something a little more portable and powerful so I sold mine so someone else can enjoy it. Made a slight profit, but didn’t list it for $800+ dollars like some people are doing.
Anyway, the device is great. I love the reverb on it a lot. It really did some nice things, but my combo of the MPC One and OT is working so well that I decided to stay focused on that.
Thanks very much!
A couple of things that come to mind are that I will make a lot more use of pattern mode now that I understand it better. Ultimately, it will be a combination of resampling and pattern mode, but in hindsight some of the things I did in resample mode would have been done a lot easier in pattern mode, and pattern mode can still be unquantized (or a combination of quantized and unquantized) if you like a loose feel.
Also, when sampling things like instruments, I’ll probably try not to use the “mix” record function so that I can adjust levels and processing later. I’m feeling a bit burned on a couple of things I lost or screwed up.
Here are a few specific things I learned during this track:
I think I’ll try a hip hop track next for fun, but I also really want to make an old-school sounding psychedelic guitar track sometime soon to dial in my guitar recording process (and redeem myself).
I mentioned it earlier, but what I find most inspiring about this is that it inspires audio recording. For instance, I want to do the old school recording technique where you keep recording and layering handclaps. I’ve seen people do it on a portastudio, but it’s a huge PITA bouncing those on a tape machine. It would be simple on this and I bet you could get some really cool, original results. I’ll probably record a lot of my own percussion.
(This is the technique done with snaps, for an old school soul kind of feel).
Come to think of it, I was bouncing tracks on my Fostex X15 and it degraded each time. And hitting the Record button simultaneously with the key was a pain. Resampling on the SP is similar, minus the degradation! But yeah, once you lock it in, hard to adjust anything.
The plan for that last track was to put it through the Portastudio, but last night when I went to record, the meters weren’t working and all I was getting was a really low volume. That’s when I said screw it and uploaded it pretty much straight off the machine.
Today, I reluctantly hooked everything up again and was having the same problem, and was thinking how much of a PITA it’s going to be to get this thing serviced. Finally, I unplugged it and that’s when I realized I stupidly had used the SP404 power adapter on the Portastudio! Doh!
When I plugged in the correct adapter everything works perfectly. Phew! I’ve been screwing around with a remix today using the Volante. I’ll probably spare everyone this one, but will definitely be bouncing to tape for future tracks.
(I just realized how weird it is that my two main machines now are the 404mkii and the 414mkii…perhaps I need a 424mkii next). 
what are the filters like on the mk2? The sx one is…weird. Extremely harsh, drive distorts very quickly and doesn’t close nearly all the way. It has its place but yeah. I’m in love with the isolator though. is the isolator the same
on the new ones?
It’s my first SP, so I’m not sure if the isolator is exactly the same, but it’s my favorite of the filters. There are a couple of other ones. The main one that comes in the first slot is sort of weird and harsh, like you say. Then there’s another one called something like the Super Filter or something. It’s got a few different modes low pass, high pass, and band pass, but a bit like the isolator. Not super smooth, that’s for sure, and probably wouldn’t be good for shaping synths, unfortunately (which is something I originally hoped).
You can hear the isolator in my reggae track (shameless plug)
Just got the machine a few days ago and it’s amazing. Only real workflow thing I’m struggling with is getting perfect loops when sampling/resampling, does anyone have any tips? A small bar marker in the start/end-point editor would be amazing. If you add the drums you can do probably do it by the kick I guess, or you can just use the pattern sequencer and restart the sample once it loops, but otherwise I feel like there is no way you can do it by ear and not have it drift out of sync if you just have the pad loop with Hold, unless you spend forever just nudging it back and forth to get it perfect.
That’s how I see it as well. The only way I found to play loops without them drifting is by sequencing them to relaunch. Its not bad actually, for me.
I’d still wish to be able to flip the “end” marker to “lemgth in beats” given de sample’s tempo. Optionally. But if this doesn’t come I’m still a happy camper.
Wait, can’t you just put that sample in a pattern and set the bars there? That works for me, assuming you can figure out the BPM.
Yes, that’s what I tried to say (poorly 
). That works and that’s the way I do it.
The wish is for an alternative, I like to play looped samples, simply, by pressing the pads, to jam (and resample maybe). Would I be able to set the length in beats time, I could do so without samples drifting.
Using the sequencer is fine, I’m happy with that but I suspect the other method would be fun as well and yield other happy accidents.
Why not resample the pattern then after it loops perfectly. Then you have it as a sample on a pad? I guess maybe I don’t understand the workflow you are talking about.
In every case, it’s about setting the sample end so that when it loops it’s exactly, say 2 bars. Not a hair more or a hair less.
Resampling the pattern is the same. As you end resampling by hand, you have to adjust the sample end for the resulting sample, and when you loop the resulting sample, it’s close to impossible that it’s exactly a 2 bars loop (for the given example)
Another way would be the ability to record/resample to a fixed amount of beats length (as on Push 2 or the Blackbox).
Again, I want to emphasize that I’m happy with the way it is and can live forever with how it is. This wish, I assume, could lead to fun mangling of looped samples and happy accidents
I also want to emphasize that I love the way looped samples get out of phase, in many cases, so the current way has its virtues.
Yep I can live with the current way as well, it’s just it would open up possibilities of playing stuff live and messing about if I knew I had say a bank of 16 pads and they all looped perfect, so I could just start and stop them in Hold mode outside of the pattern sequencer.
I think one thing I’ll try is having the sample in the pattern sequencer, then resampling it over say 8 or 16 bars, and then just using that longer resample. Probably a decent workaround actually, with the main limitation being that it’ll “waste” memory and the sample will be needlessly long (which shouldn’t be an issue on the SP).
Yeah, I’m not criticizing or anything, just honestly trying to understand how that works. So it’s like some kind of real time time stretch/pitch shift algorithm, so that if you play something in that’s not exactly a bar it will stretch it to the bar line, I guess?
The other alternative would be to prep your stuff with something like Serato Sampler. That would not only get everything in an exact BPM, but you could get your samples in the right key. I’m not a purist, so I’m happy to make use of any tools that make my life easier, especially for things like beat battles where you end up having to deal with huge varieties of source material. People like Cookin’ Soul use that method.
well I haven’t received mine yet but I can tell you that I’d still like the option to have it resample in fixed lengths, for a company that implemented skip back recording I don’t think that’s too much to ask
No problem, I’m also just trying to express an idea.
So no, nothing to do with time stretching. More simple than that.
Say I record a 2 bars loop from an app and the iPad. The wish is that I could either stop the recording after 2 bars exactly, or, set the end marker in the recorded sample to “2 bars”, given that I set the sample’s tempo to the right tempo. I know the tempo as I recorded from the iPad.
That way, I could play the looped sample and it wouldn’t drift.
This is possible by using the app on the computer I believe, or other software to cut the loop and load to the sp via the app or SD card. The wish would be to do that on the sp directly.
Hope it’s clearer!
