sp1200 extra time trick/myth...

I think I might have figured it out.

Rather than spoil it, by spelling it out....Im thinking it involves samplerates and Midi Sample Dump.

I'll have to try it on my boy's SP to confirm...

Rather than spoil it, by spelling it out....

How would that spoil it? Spill it!

let me verify it works before I spill it.

It sounds like it should work, mathematically.

Well then.. gimme the math. I'll tell you if it works mathematically.

BTW is the point of this trick to have more sample-time WITHOUT detune effects?

Im not sure.

Think of it like this: if you have an 8-second 44.1KHz audio file, when you back it up to a device that's capable of recording the data at 44.1 Kbits per second, it will take 8 seconds to store the whole file. If your receiving device can receive at 48 Kbits per second, it will take less than 8 seconds to store the whole file, as it's storing the data faster. The actual data remains the same in either case.

If the backup speed you select is different from the sample rate you recorded the audio at, what effectively happens is the audio is played faster or slower to the backup device, with a consequent drop or rise in pitch. For instance, if you are backing up a 44.1KHz project to DAT at 48KHz, if you monitor the audio during the backup process it will sound about 10 per cent faster (and higher in pitch) than the original (which is why it's a little faster to backup at 48KHz than 44.1KHz). On reload the data will be played at the original sample rate and will sound unchanged.

so, hypothetically....if you did a MIDI sampledump to the SP1200 with a samplerate lower than the SP's......a longer-than-2.5-second sample could fit into one of the four 2.5 second banks---it would have to be detuned also. But if it was already pitched up to 45 rpm..THEN dumped.....

so, hypothetically....if you did a MIDI sampledump to the SP1200 with a samplerate lower than the SP's......

OK, I'll finish the thought. If you do that, then the SP will playback the sample at a higher pitch than the sample was recorded at. However, to restore the pitch you would have to slow the sample down. How to do this on the SP? Well, you detune it, and in so doing, create all sorts of ringing noises.

Basically, this is the same as speeding a record up to 45rpm and detuning it.

So yes, in absolute terms you get more sample time, but your sample will have less high-end and since you detuned using the SP's crappy interpolation, you'll get ringing (ie. square-wave modulation). I like the ringing sound cause I'm capital-S-trange. But pragmatically speaking, you're not gaining good clean sample time using these methods on an SP.

I thought that only happened if you sampled into the SP as opposed to MIDI dumping.

I thought the actual data on playback would be the same, sound the same, etc.

Well, at this point, maybe you should try it. Just to see.

But the SP doesn't know how something is supposed to sound ahead of time. ie. it can only playback at 26Khz. If you sampled something at 8KHz, the SP will play it back at 26 khz and effectively speed it up (higher pitch).

To emulate the correct pitch, you have to detune which still plays the sample back at 26KHz but the data is read from memory slower (actually repeating every data point 2 or 3 times before fetching the next one) and the pitch is mostly restored. But the distortion from this is heard as ringing.

I have an EIII rack which (like the ESI-series or a PC) does some destructive editing and dumps back to the SP. However, if I record a sample at 44.1KHz on the EIII, edit the **** out of it, and dump it to the SP, then it will play back... any guesses?? ... much slower (lower pitch) since the SP can't play back at 44.1KHz, it just pumps out the sample at 26KHz.

shit.

Back to the drawing board.

I guess it really is just a myth....

Well, I still think you should try out your particular idea.

Just cause I have a lot of math under my belt doesn't mean I know EXACTLY what you were planning to do. I could be wrong, in fact, I'd like to be.

Why don't you try it out?

I'll give it a go and report back.

It was an original idea, at least, if nothing else.

It was an original idea, at least, if nothing else

No doubt. I'll check back for results. When I'm home tonight, I can try some sh1t too.

if there is such a trick which everyone knows about, why doesnt anyone know how? why the big secret...

its an urban legend...

If you have an older Mac and the vintage digital audio editing program called Alchemy, you can try this out. The achemy manual has an entire chapter devoted to exlaining how to work with the SP-1200.

The quick and nasty....

[from the manual]
"The SP-12000 is a 12 bit sampler and has a fixed sample rate of 26,040 Hz...."

Note: You can actually send a sound which is sampled at a rate other than 26,040 Hz to your SP-1200, but its pitch will be transposed u or down because of the SP-1200's fixed plyback rate. Zhis can be used to create some interesting effects."

Peace.