s900 with mpc 1k (help please)

so ive been looking at the s900 because i want a 12 bit sampler in my setup.
the thing i dont like with alot of older gear is that the sample time is cut short because they use floppies.although i think i may have found a work around for this. could someone please confirm for me that my workaround would work?

i want to essentially just run my samples through the s900 (to give them the 12 bit sound) and sample the LR output of the s900 on my mpc 1k.
so my question is: is there a record screen on the s900 like there is on an mpc?

i am thinking that if the s900 has a record screen, i can just use it as a device to run my samples through without actually recording the sample onto the floppies.

more specifically, im thinking i can just open up the record screen on the s900, then play the sample through it, and run the stereo outs to the rec ins of my mpc 1k.
this would bypass actually having to record the sample onto a floppy disk, but it would still give me the 12 bit grit i want because the sample would be being played through the 12 bit machine in the first place.

i would still get the 12 bit sound i want even though im sampling it into the 1k after the fact woudent i?

basically i want my recording chain to look like this

sample source--------->rec in s900-------stereo out s900---------->rec in mpc 1000

in theory, at the end of the signal chain, i should be able to monitor the 12bit mega awesomeness through the headphones connected to my 1k.

would this work?

thanks

no.... but also no about one of the things you think is happening.

1) just sitting in the s900 record screen (similar to an mpc record screen) only monitors the sound. It doesn't go through the analog to digital converters, it doesn't go through the digital to analog converters... it doesn't go through any of the filters or other stuff.... it has a patch through for monitoring.

2) it doesn't record onto floppies just the same as your mpc doesn't record samples onto cf cards or floppies, or any of that.... it records into it's limited ram, and if you choose to save those samples you recorded.... you then save the sound(s) and programs onto the floppies.


so, you want to run the samples through the s900, record the samples.... play them back... record the output of the s900 while doing so. The s900 has a P.B. button for playing back samples.... so if you aren't playing the samples all together you dont need a midi controller.... you can change what midi note the PB button triggers... you can change what note a sample is assigned to... you can create keyboard style programs that way.

How about keeping the sounds in the s900, triggering via mpc over midi... finish your song in one sitting, switch off the 900, loose your samples, which won't matter.

Kind of a liberating way to work, but it's also nice to sometimes save drum sounds which are useful on other songs.. That's where hxc comes in. Supposed to work for the 900.. But if you go that route get in touch with this seller via email first, I think he needs to do a mod to the drive to work for the 900.. At least I know thats the case with the 950.

http://www.lotharek.pl/product.php?pid=42

like Debauch said, running it through the record screen and back out is only monitoring it, it will not add the 12 bit sound. As far a record time goes, the s900 has an option before you record to choose the frequency range you wanna sample at, lowering that will increase the memory space but will also dirty up the sample (great for making your drums a little dirty IMO). Since you already have the 1k just sample drums and bass lines with the 900 and the chops and lead sample with the 1k and trigger the 900 via midi.

I would not resample from the s900 into the 1k.

I did a similar thing with the s950 and the asr10. I sampled drums into the s950 and since the individual outs of it are broken atm, i resampled from the s950 into the asr... Let me just tell you this... it sounded better in the s950! Not that it sounded terrible in the asr after resampling, but the drums had more "dirt and punch" coming directly out of the s950.

Peace.

thanks for all your replies,

maybe i could get an hxc and install that on the s900, or even the s950, ive researched it a little though and even if i did install the hxc, i still wouldent get more sample time would i? i would just be able to load extra floppies without having to actually load extra floppies, it would also be easier to back up all my data to a computer if i got the hxc too wouldent it?

ive done a little research on the freq range thing you guys are were talking about, and have found the s950 (and mpc 60) can sample from 3000-1600hz (i assume that the s900 does the same freq ranges).

at the lowest freq range, how much sample time can you get on the s900? i have read its max sample time is 60 seconds,but wanted to confirm that.

does the s950 get more sample time than the s900, or is it the same for both units?

do you find sampling at the lowest freq range adequate for full melody samples? or do you just use the low one for drums?

about how much sample time can i get at the higher spectrum of the frequency range?

gonna keep on researching these units, thanks for your replies.

maybe i could get an hxc and install that on the s900, or even the s950, ive researched it a little though and even if i did install the hxc, i still wouldent get more sample time would i?

The floppy has nothing to do with your sample time.

at the lowest freq range, how much sample time can you get on the s900? i have read its max sample time is 60 seconds,but wanted to confirm that.

My stock s900 has a max time of 39.104 seconds at its lowest frequency

does the s950 get more sample time than the s900, or is it the same for both units?

The difference in memory is they both have 750kb of ram but the s950 can be expanded

do you find sampling at the lowest freq range adequate for full melody samples? or do you just use the low one for drums?

Depends on how gritty you want the melody, sometimes yes but on average no, I would do most melodies in your case in the 1k and like i stated before do drums and bass in the 900, Even when you cut the frequency in half on the 900 you still have over 14 seconds of sample time and that is plenty for drums, bass and some melodies (mind you I can do a whole beat on a mpc 60 with only 26 seconds of total time)

about how much sample time can i get at the higher spectrum of the frequency range?

at its highest range you get about 7 seconds, like a stated before half gets you over 14 seconds and so one.


If you can get a 900/950 for around 150-200 go for it, I got mine for basically 100 dollars, its not meant to be the studio work horse and be the main sampler, its more of complimentary tool to add more flavor to your current mpc, I don't always use mine but its handy to have and used often. Over driving vinyl drums to it sounds like magic in my opinion and a lot cheaper than getting a sp1200 (although they do not sound the same)

cool thanks for your breakdown ark, i was having a brain fart about the floppy and sample time i guess
i see that the s950 can have 2.25mb of RAM, but i gather that its not the same kind of RAM as my mpc has? wtf is a kword? what does 512kwords mean in the s950 listings on ebay? does this mean that it has the full 2.25mb of RAM?

or is there a ram upgrade as well as a 2.25mb RAM upgrade as well?

basically, if i want the full upgrades on it, do i just need one with the 512 kwords?

and there is a thing that has makes it so you can back it up to a hd via a scusi port, it seems to me like these might be kinda rare, but if i ended up adding the hxc to it, wouldent i not need this?

i assume you use this midid up to your 4k sometimes, after you sequence everything, do you just track the outs of the rack into your 4k then record the outs of your 4k into your DAW and mix it from there?

I dont think you need to worry about scsi drives.... the samples and pgms will be s small you wouldn't need any of that. The hxc emulator is just so you dont need to use floppies since those tend to be old and sometimes unreliable... plus they take up a lot of space. basically that creates hundreds of virtual floppy disks on the sd card... using the hxc screen you choose the virtual disk you need, and it makes it seem like it's a floppy drive with that floppy in it. Yeah that is cool, but not mandatory.

When you make a beat and you have samples sitting in the 900, you could either resample those samples into the mpc, or you could track out your beat as you would.... but also connect the 900 as well and those will get recorded... or hell, get a mixer, mix the levels... record the outputted 2 track from that into the computer. The options are endless.

mr_debauch wrote:I dont think you need to worry about scsi drives.... the samples and pgms will be s small you wouldn't need any of that. The hxc emulator is just so you dont need to use floppies since those tend to be old and sometimes unreliable... plus they take up a lot of space. basically that creates hundreds of virtual floppy disks on the sd card... using the hxc screen you choose the virtual disk you need, and it makes it seem like it's a floppy drive with that floppy in it. Yeah that is cool, but not mandatory.

yeah thats what i gathered with the hxc, it would be a pretty cool project to do sometime. there are some great looking ones that people have built in on youtube, i can see now that its not mandatory though.

its also good to know that i wont need a scsi drive,i wasnt too excited about that in the first place. ive never used older gear with the flopppy drive/scsi drive so this all seems alien to me. the main thing is the sample time though, i really wish you could stick 128mb ram, or even 64 or 32mb.

mr_debauch wrote:When you make a beat and you have samples sitting in the 900, you could either resample those samples into the mpc, or you could track out your beat as you would.... but also connect the 900 as well and those will get recorded... or hell, get a mixer, mix the levels... record the outputted 2 track from that into the computer. The options are endless.

when tracking out,i suppose i would either record the outs of the s-series to an audio track on the mp, then save that whole beat as a multitrck project within my mp and export it to my DAW after the fact.

the other thing i was thinking is: i would have my mpc beat in the DAW before the fact, then track the outs of the 900/950 to the computer to try and keep their sound, but with this i run into the problem of my song not being structured becuase its not going into the sequencer (my mpc) beforehand. so i guess i would have to have the mpc midid up to the 900/950, and record it through the mpc anyway? is that right?

@ ark: you know the speed up trick? when you sample in at 45 on your TT, then pitch down, i heard this adds more grainyness to your samples, than if you sampled it at 33rpm. i know its pretty subjective, but in your opinion, would the melody type samples be rendered useless most times? i know you were saying that usually you sample your melodys on something cleaner, but would this make that much difference from each other? i guess what im asking is, is it a night and day difference with samples that are recorded in at their normal 33rpm, or ones that are sampled at 45 and pitched down? do people usually do this with drums?

thanks for all your replies guys, this is helping me out alot.

Well let me be clear, I do sample melodies in the s900, but not always. I'm forced to speed everything up since all i have hear at the house anymore is a combined time of 60 seconds of sample time between the s900 and the 60.
I don't think the melody is rendered useless, its just depends on the vibe of the track, do I wanna dirty grimy feel or HD clean feel.

What kind of interface do you have running into your DAW? How many inputs do you have? The easiest and most used way to utilize the s series is once midi'd to the main sequence (mpc 1k in your case) just run the outs of the s900 to your mixer and/or interface to track in simultaneously with your mpc. You could do as audio tracks on the mpc but that just seems like an added unneeded step unless your interface is lacking multiple inputs and you have no mixer to compliment it.

cool, good to know about the speed up thing. i just didnt want to have it be useless if i got one and had to sample at 45 rpm because i cant try one out before i buy one.
also, how many semitones/cents do you pitch it down to get to 33 rpm from 45? ive never known this, but i would like to try it with my 1k just to try it.

ArKyve-31 wrote:What kind of interface do you have running into your DAW? How many inputs do you have? The easiest and most used way to utilize the s series is once midi'd to the main sequence (mpc 1k in your case) just run the outs of the s900 to your mixer and/or interface to track in simultaneously with your mpc. You could do as audio tracks on the mpc but that just seems like an added unneeded step unless your interface is lacking multiple inputs and you have no mixer to compliment it.

i have a tc electronic impact twin, it has 6 inputs, i suppose i could record my tracks on my mp and s series at the same time, but if i needed to re track to get all of them it would work just as well as it would with one piece of gear?
i dont think it will introduce sync issues just beause i have 2 pieces being tracked out at once, because they are both running through the mpc which is the master sequencer so it should follow that via midi and my DAW should just pick up on it like it does when im only tracking out my mpc correct?

thanks for the info.

I've been using the s900 a lot and to give you a hint of how much you can fit in there ill tell you what i can fit in there.

I always sample my stuff in 45 rpm + 8%, which gives it that dreamy feeling when you pitch it back down + saves a lot of memory time and it doenst mess your samples up. You can pitch it down to crazy levels so dont worry about that. (you can sample a loop at 45rpm and bring it down to way below its original speed at 33 rpm so its cool)

The prefered freq. range is all depending on what youre sampling, if its a kick i get it around 5000-6000hz, but a hh i do it around 10-12k, some cats do it higher but i like it being gritty. The snares i do around 8k. Also i sample the drums in 45 rpm to really gritty em up.
(Also the manual has some guidelines on freq. range for different instruments, but you'll figure it out as you go. "oh shit this sounds **** up!" = you gotta raise the range! )

I recently swapped my 2000xl for a Mpc60 so for about a week (when i knew i was gonna get rid of my xl) i made a few beats completely out of the s900 and i had:

kick, snare, hihat, ride
a 3 bar loop (i had to sample that first to have room for copies when chopping it)
2 backup samples of a total of 1 bar
a 4 bar bassline.
and that all fit in there, it depends on what freq you sample it at.

and i wouldnt resample my shit into the mpc, cus it really doesnt leave the warmth and grit of the sample, it kinda kills it id say. But if you really wanna sample everything through the s900 i used to sample my drums & bass and keep those in the s900, but sample the loops into the s900 and resample to the MPC.
this will leave you with hints of the s900s magic in the loop and the drums will still knock.

Also use the low-pass, it gives A LOT of nice color around 55-70. Its also deadly for basslines, you can really get all the mudd out and have a nice 90's muffled bassline, something the 2000XL was really incapable of doing.

Its a great machine and youre gonna enjoy it! (even tho i want a s950)

marrelarre, thanks for the detailed reply, although one thing i didnt really understand was:

you said you sample your stuff at 45rpm + 8%, do you mean up 8 on your turntable? doesnt that mess up the key of your sample because the +8% is in between key ranges? or does the +8 percent make up for the "in between key problem" because when you go from 33rpm to 45 it doesnt pitch up the sample perfectly in key anyway?

also, when you go into your s900, how many semitones do you drop down to get back to the original speed?

i guess its different with 45rpm +8% and just regular 45rpm, but i have been wondering this for awhile. i think it would be the same on all machines wouldent it?

thanks.

Yes the 8% is refering to my turntable. its just to get as much out of the memory as possible, you can always sample at 33 rpm if you prefer, but you wont fit as much much in there.

Well, keeping the original key is always a problem with pitching, and i usually tune different samples (from different songs) together with pitch and timestretch to make stuff fit in tempo and key (if i have samples from different songs) so i kinda work things by ear, starting with the main loop and tuning everything to it.

and the semitones im quite not sure, considering i mostly dont bother about the original tempo so i pitch it the way i want. But i think you sample as the sample was C60 and I usually bring it to 65, which usually bring it back close to normal, but exactly ? probably not.
Theres also a finer tune that can help you get the original key back, so with will and ear you can easily do it, and the answer is probably out there, just not in my head.