this is how to get the SP1200 sound on an MPC

my favorite producers are mainly sp users, so i am quite familiar with the sp sound. that's why i immediately recognized this trick's worth.

these producers are what i'm using as points of reference, and a brief sample of one of these songs is what i'd post up on the boards in the rare event that i would be motivated to prove a point which really needs no proving. This was simply an interesting trick i found and wished to share, because when it's done right, nobody needs to be the wiser for the methods used.

as for applying the hyperprism SD to drums, it's a little tedious and i have only started doing it recently. you'll need to track out each individual drum hit type as its own track (ie a track for hats, snares, kicks, etc) and apply different setttings to each. then merge, then compress. or you could apply it w/ different settings over the original samples prior to loading (easy way),

you definitely can go overboard on drums and end up with a hazy mess, especially with hats. this seems to be why you don't hear jel using machine gun hats (but that's an assumption, i also think it to be a stylistic decision). but if you're careful, it bears striking phonetic resemblance to the sp1200. my ears wouldn't lie to me like that, and i will not denouce my prior claim.

furthermore, and here's where it gets fun - pertaining to the semantics of describing something as "reminiscent of the SP1200" as opposed to "sounds like the sp1200" - i'm quite sorry i didn't specifically use the diction you personally would have preferred, and will keep it at the forefront of my mind to choose my words more wisely next time.

i mean no offense by being a smartass. satire is in my blood like similes in rap music.

i can tell you're a man who is loyal to the original instrument, and i respect that. are you also a vinyl purist? damn, you'd truly hate to see the rest of my studio and how i've bastardized a bunch of other stuff.

just remember, there are still drummers today who cry and whine about samplers as drum machines, hollering that no matter what it won't sound the same, or as good. however, we as samplists have obviously found the sounds we make to be passable, if not superb.

quite often without even having owned a drumset (!!).

peace. i hope this helped some people who don't want to shell out cash to have something that sounds REMINISCENT of the sp1200

I am far from a purist, I've always hated shades of grey.
I choose to see things for what they are.
I still say if you were familiar with the SP from usage you would hear the difference.

It's all love tho.
I never loose site of a person's recommendation being based on their perspective and focus.
In that I am saying that I can understand what you are hearing and why you are hearing it.
You have to understand also from the next man's perspective;
I got my first SP-12 turbo in the late 80's and have owned several SP-1200's (1 Grey and 3 Black). I have 2 SP's now.
So what I hear from the SP and what you hear are 2 different things.
I never said you don't hear what you associate to be the SP sound, I just pointed out it's not the SP sound.
The real is it works for you and you have shared it in hopes of helping others and that was your purpose.
So I won't be going on a Crusade storming your crib with the SP Police or anything, by the way can I get your address?

haha yes. george mason university, right outside of dc in fairfax. come on by, i've always wanted to play with an sp anyway.

have you heard of "toss and turn" by jel and pedestrian?

I have to agrtee with Ntalec, the Sound of the machine has many aspects, many of which can only be appreciated when you use the machine itself, sometimes after years of using it. That said, using bit crushers and all that is cool, but there is more to the sound than 12 bit, the emu processing and VCA's, analog filters, it adds a quality to your sound that is hard to put your finger on.

Not impossible, but for people with good ears it will be different, but also close enough not to spend the grand it would take to get an SP. Use your technique, I'd love to hear samples, you can get close with software.

For all others download it and try and check for yourself.

good lookin dogg!

Not impossible, but for people with good ears it will be different, but also close enough not to spend the grand it would take to get an SP. Use your technique, I'd love to hear samples, you can get close with software.

i'll do my best. i have a song linked up on the mpc 1k forum but here is not the place to post my beats. it's unmastered, i just recorded from the spdif but the hpsd sound is on a couple of the tracks in it. dunno how clear it is though.[/quote]

Antonym,
what's going to be really crazy is when you by accident come up with a sound you like even better by playing around with the software that you couldn't get with the SP.
Then again that's what creativity is all about.

sorry to ask but antonym are you saying in your sig that 256 MB ram will work in the 2000xl? because thats just amazing

no sorry man this is for the 1k only.

and yeah ntalec it is very exciting. so much of this stuff gets discovered by random...matching up different dx plugins is a fun art, albeit unstable...

That's one thing I miss about not using SF anymore; chaining the plug-ins together.
I'm about to get at Peak to see what it's all about as well as using PLuGGo just haven't had the time.

close is not close enough.

well it goes back to my old argument which is how many listeners really care if you sample off a first pressing, use strictly analogue synths and efx or use only 12-bit and vinyl?

none is the answer cos those who stress too much about it dont represent the people who just listen to music with an unconcious disregard for how it was made and its those people the music was made for not the very small percentage trying to do something similar and are therefore listening to how it was made....

close is close enough if none of your listeners care...

greg

Dub,
your statement is as true as it is false.
They care they just don't understand what the cause is.
Example lets say people were krazy about producer"x" because his basslines are just so sic.
His basslines are that way because he uses a synth "j", and that's the way that synth makes basslines sounds.
They do care they just don't understand the factors involved in what they are hearing.
Believe me they hear and care about the differences they just don't know or understand what is making the difference so they just go with it and assume that's just the producers sound.

**** listeners, I'm not making my music to please them, I make it to please me, and if it pleases them too, cool.

It's about how inspired your machine can make you and that it delivers what you need and want. I can tell the difference when I'm writing tracks of whether I am using an analog synth or a virtual synth, or a soft synth, and I use the one that I get the most enjoyment out of because that will keep inspiring me.

Ever notice that a lot of groups who make it, get new gear and their music starts kinda droppin in quality?