I want an SP 1200 but damn!!

Not trying to windup or troll here. OK I Don't own an sp12/1200 but I bet in a blind test you couldn't tell the difference between my mpc 2000 classic swing and the SP swing. I believe the 2000 has a swing magic of its own too.

Very true, the 2000 has a really unique swing too. And yes, i believe i could easily tell the difference.

I'm not trying to troll either... i don't usually believe that a certain machine will give you a certain sound/groove (i've tried many), but the SP1200 is not a myth, trust me.

I remember when somebody did a comparison on gearslutz between SP and Machine. He made the same beat on both machines, applied "SP1200 mode" on machine.
While the Machine emulation sounded pretty good (people still preferred the SP sound, but admitted Machine emulation sounds pretty close)... if i remember correctly, the main thing that most people noticed, was that the beat he did with the SP1200 had a MUCH nicer groove/swing.

What looks like an easy little mod that the guy who serviced my SP installed:


(the little brown square thing with the black screw in the middle)

With this i can adjust the contrast of the display.

Display with now working backlight...

(RT1 setting is correct again as well, couldn't set it to the correct value anymore, since the trimmer made the values jump like crazy before servicing)

Time for an SP musical interlude...

^ Ok, i'm giving my SP to charity...

Just kidding, but that shit's on a different level... nice!

Clint wrote:Anyone fancy an 'exclusive' SP1200 poster?

Being sold direct by the graphic designer responsible for producing it.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/E-mu-SP1200-E ... 41845d0423

To coincide with the release of the Lord Finesse 'SP 1200 Project', and in association with Slice Of Spice Records, is this exclusive A2 'E-mu Systems SP 1200 Sampling Percussion System' poster print, designed and illustrated by Mr Krum ©

High quality lithograph print on 130gsm stock.
Poster dimensions: A2 (594mm x 420mm)
Only 100 available! (at time of listing only 38 are left)

All posters are rolled and sent in professional mailing tubes.

Hurry only 22 out of 100 left.

5 or 6 still available, will look nice in the studio.

New link below.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/E-mu-SP1200-E ... 418674ee84

^ Would indeed look nice. Mmmmhhhh... *must stop spending money*

So here's a question for all you SP users out there:

How do you guys go about sampling a stereo source (records)?

In the beginning i've tried connecting a cable directly from the phono pre-amp and only use the left or right cable / channel. I didn't like this very much since i always fear i might be missing something from the other channel (some records that have hard panned stuff going on), call it a pet hate of mine, but i want to have both channels combined into mono.

As a result i've always connected the phono-pre to a mixer and from there use the master out (mono) to connect to the SP sample input.

If i remember correctly, it's possible to make a special cable that combines L / R into a mono signal / cable? I'd like to try this i think, as i'm not sure i like the sound of a mixer between the phono-pre and the SP when sampling.

What has been your method of sampling with the SP? Please share.

jibber wrote:What has been your method of sampling with the SP? Please share.

I just use a guitar lead direct from the headphone socket of the 4K or my mixer.

There's probably many many reasons why technically you shouldn't do this but it works fine so I don't give a shit whether it's the 'correct' way or not.

Edit: I'm guessing the cable is either summing the stereo signal to mono or just recording the one side and I haven't really noticed.

Edit 2: Yep, it just samples the left side.

Coz wrote:Edit: I'm guessing the cable is either summing the stereo signal to mono or just recording the one side and I haven't really noticed.

Edit 2: Yep, it just samples the left side.

Yes, just the left side, the right side of the headphone output connects to the sleeve on the TS instrument cable, and is therefore shorted to ground.

You can get simple adapters to sum both sides of a stereo signal to a mono signal.

SimonInAustralia wrote:You can get simple adapters to sum both sides of a stereo signal to a mono signal.

This sort of thing?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/35mm-mono-plu ... pter-fk14q

I remember reading somewhere that a simple adapter is not a good idea. I remember someting about the need of a resistor in the Y cable converting both signals to one mono signal.

Googled a bit and found this:
http://www.rane.com/note109.html

http://www.rane.com/n109fig2.gif

Most of this sounds like chinese to me, i just understood i should have a cable / adapter with resistors like in the picture?

Found the above link in a thread over at gearslutz by the way:
http://www.gearslutz.com/board/so-much-gear-so-little-time/738925-stereo-mono-cable-correct-resistors-does-anyone-make-sell-one.html

Coz wrote:

SimonInAustralia wrote:You can get simple adapters to sum both sides of a stereo signal to a mono signal.

This sort of thing?

http://www.maplin.co.uk/p/35mm-mono-plu ... pter-fk14q

Not quite, as per the info Jibber linked to, it should have the resistors in the circuit.

The Rane document is good info, as are a lot of those Rane reference documents.

In that case I think for the way I sample into the SP it'd be best to just centre the pan pots on my mixer.

The way i do it on my mpc 60 or eps is I use an unbalanced cable out of the headphone jack on my emu 1616M.

I pan what I want to either all on the left or all on the right. This way the playback doesn't have too much noise. I noticed when I merge a stereo channel into a mono channel I get the unwanted noise.

Very interesting about the noise v00d00ppl...

You guys think that would still be an issue when using a correct Y cable with the resistors?

I think i'll try only the left or right channel and pan things.