For discussion about setting up your studio and advice on the gear and equipment within it.
By mister_sosa74 Tue Mar 10, 2009 4:14 am
junekat you have to upload the pic to photobucket and then use the forum format for that pic....
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By xabiton Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:09 pm
Lordwillin90 wrote:Check IT!!!! Just got it in the mail today, The newest addition to the lab. **** is gonna be off the chain!!


Image

No hate or anything just curious. What's the hype behind the roland Sp series especially the 303 404 and 555. Imo they are terrible. No midi in, 1 midi track, it seems more like a digital recorder to me.
By Lordwillin90 Wed Mar 11, 2009 7:41 pm
It does have a midi in, and the effects its capable of are crazy, Flying Lotus, Madlib, and the late great Dilla have all used an SP at one point or another in their careers.I have an mpc so I'm not real worried as far as sampling goes.But yeah it is def. a dangerous little piece of equipment. But I hear what your saying Xabition if I was just using this and nothing else it would be tough.
By Deta!L Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:32 pm
you can make amazing music with just the 404! put away your MPC and just use the 404 for a month and you will find out, that machine is a beast! the sequencer is simple, but so is the SP1200's! learn the pattern copy, the resampling capabilities etc. and that machine is dope..I love mine if you can't tell

www.sp-forums.com
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By DeeSprm Wed Mar 11, 2009 10:44 pm
Yes, Madlib used one so you must have one too

its shitty but its so good cause Madlib has used it, after all ugly is the new beautifull and shitty is the new amazing

next dude in the podium will be using something else and then youll hop to his wagon and be all "wow yeah thats a good sampler, lemme get it"

shits ridiculous
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By EducatedHands Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:26 pm
DeeSprm wrote:Yes, Madlib used one so you must have one too

its **** but its so good cause Madlib has used it, after all ugly is the new beautifull and **** is the new amazing

next dude in the podium will be using something else and then youll hop to his wagon and be all "wow yeah thats a good sampler, lemme get it"

**** ridiculous

you sound real hurt. i think the dude was implying that it has a bit of credibility if someone of profession finds use with it. chill outtt 8)
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By kneebone77 Wed Mar 11, 2009 11:45 pm
EducatedHands wrote:
DeeSprm wrote:Yes, Madlib used one so you must have one too

its **** but its so good cause Madlib has used it, after all ugly is the new beautifull and **** is the new amazing

next dude in the podium will be using something else and then youll hop to his wagon and be all "wow yeah thats a good sampler, lemme get it"

**** ridiculous

you sound real hurt. i think the dude was implying that it has a bit of credibility if someone of profession finds use with it. chill outtt 8)


And to keep it real I've heard some Deta!L's Heat with the SP-404 as well as a couple of other cats on the forum.
I think the man has made enough of his own dope track on it to be able to say it a dope little machine. He ain't just whistlin Dixie! Fuq Madlib, I want an SP-404 because Deta!L's got one!
:lol: :lol:
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By J.Daniels Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:45 am
ive been using the 303/404 for years. and last week i finally picked up an mpc1k and i cant produce with that thing to save my life! ive learned all the features and functions but im pretty visually impaired and really dont adjust well to the menu diving and screen in general.

additionally, it seems like it takes 5 steps to do things that the 303 does in 1. and you dont even have to look at the 303 when playing with it, which is perfect for me! its all preference but i reckon im sp for life. but im glad i tried the mp, because ive been dreaming of one for ages!!

although i bought the 1k for live shows which i guess is what ill use it for mainly.

just another perspective...
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By condra Thu Mar 12, 2009 2:00 am
Lordwillin90 wrote:Check IT!!!! Just got it in the mail today


It is probably blasphemy to say this on an MPC forum, but I really llke a lot of those rubbery backlit drum pads.

I think Korg and Roland do better pads than AKAI. The pads on the PadKontrol are fantastic, and the pads on my old Fantom were great too.

The pads on my XL are ok. The pads on my old MPK and MPD were pretty bad.

/0.02
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By deck daddy Thu Mar 12, 2009 8:47 am
The 404 is a good fun piece to have, good usable effects, really fast to sample and trim with, an to get it to sound whatever you want to. It's a dope little travel mate for long holiday vacations, and I need pads, I can not do stuff with only a computer.

I had the 404 for a while but I always liked the sound, feel and looks of the 303 that all my friends has, so I switched it up and I'm glad. I like the 303 better, but it's also very much the same thing. 404 has more pads, battery operation, internal lo-fi mic and better storage option for 2009, but not much else is different. And that's a shame, they could have put a couple of useful features on it, like pitch and envelope (like the envelope option on the Korg Electribe ESX)

I made 3 beats on just the 303 the last couple of days, and found out more of how fast and fun it is. I get the 303 to work better than the 404 with the sequencing too, it's not as "stiff" and bad sounding anymore. I love the sound of all the three sampling rates on the 303 too, none of them get too harsh to my ear. I use the 303 to record all my SP1200 beats so that I don't have to load them from diskette all the time, and I can just loop the beat on the 303 and have it go forever when I practice my scratching.

Now I have the 303 hooked to my turntable permanent, and when I listen to records, whenever a dope drum sample or musical sample is playing, I'll just record it through either the isolator, eq or whatever, and keep on listening. All of the sudden I have a lot of good sounding samples ready when I want to make a beat on the MPC or SP, and I don't even have to put my MPC on. The 303 is less "serious" to me, so I play more with it, and sample whatever, and it gives me a more fun and careless attitude facing beatmaking.

So yes, I love the SP, especially the 303.
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By Doglamp Thu Mar 12, 2009 9:39 am
condra wrote:Image
Does filling up the whole back with padding have any negative effects? And if not, why is it that most studios don't cover a whole wall?
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By DJ Hellfire Thu Mar 12, 2009 12:36 pm
Doglamp wrote:
condra wrote:http://www.condraonline.com/files/condrastudio2.jpg
Does filling up the whole back with padding have any negative effects? And if not, why is it that most studios don't cover a whole wall?



Since his monitors are so close to the wall, I'd have to say that's why he put them there. When the monitors are that close to a wall, the bass get's really exaggerated. It can increase by up to around 6dB depending on how close they are.
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By deck daddy Thu Mar 12, 2009 1:22 pm
Doglamp wrote:Does filling up the whole back with padding have any negative effects? And if not, why is it that most studios don't cover a whole wall?


I'm no rocket scientist or professor in acoustic treatment, but I have read some, and I believe that:

Often you don't need every spot in the room to be "perfect", like only the listening position in a control room. The sound travels from your speaker, and hit certain spots that reflects the sound in another direction again, like your listening position. If you put the right treatment on those exact reflecting spots, you have a good listening position. You don't need good monitoring sound when you lie dead on the floor, unless you mix on the floor in that position... If you have a too dry/dead room, you would might add too much reverb on the tracks too.

The recording room or booth is different tho', and if they don't pad all the walls there I guess they want a little bit of acoustics in there. People are not used to perform in dead rooms, and it might be hard to perform right when their instruments act totally different from what they are used too.

DJ Hellfire wrote:Since his monitors are so close to the wall, I'd have to say that's why he put them there. When the monitors are that close to a wall, the bass get's really exaggerated. It can increase by up to around 6dB depending on how close they are.


But, thin titti-foam like that don't help too much when you want to stop bass-frequencies, they might just stop certain high frequencies.
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By condra Thu Mar 12, 2009 2:50 pm
My aim was to help deaden a room which is quite small and "echoey" in its natural state.

The 2" acoustic treatment you see there helps with the high freqs but I will also be needing some bass traps for the lows. I'm in a new room now and my monitors are a little further from the wall. I'm also planning on some home-made diffusion on the back wall.