roland SP 808

does anyone know about this sampler? i found a deal for 300 bux. I'm new to samplers and i was just wondering if this sampler is good at chopping up record sounds (like drums) since i am going to connect it to my mixer and turntables. IF anyone can just tell me anything about this sampler like the pros and cons of it. please say.

thanks.,

I miss the SP808 so much!!!
You want to know the pro&con about the machine, here is
It's a phrase sampler and a recorder too
You can record your inside stuffs and external too,
The pads are like the other sp series and like the pads of my fantom x6
The pads doesn't send any MIDI message, The pads have NO DINAMICS,but you can use an external controller (SP808 and MPD16 are not good friends).
According my personal taste, the effects are AMAZING!!!
SP808 can be use as external effect processor too...
You can tweak the effect parameters in real time with the 3 knobs and record your performances inside the machine.
Long sample time.
And now my favorite features: it calculates the BPM for you, and when you change the pitch of a sample the new BPM is visualised while you scroll the jog. (I Hope the MV has the same feature)
The manual is a pain
Someone think that the SP808 cannot change the pitch of each pad:WRONG, this feature is in one of the hidden pages of the screen.
Sampling is very easy
you have 2 sample rate: 44000hz or 33000 (if i remember good)
when you set at 33000 the machine will give to you a delicious grimmy sound.
The learning curve was a little bit hard for me.
That's all for now, if you have other questions don't worry to ask

The effects- superb. Everything else to me was a great disappointment. Like DW2ZLL stated, it's a phrase sampler. meaning it is best used for sampling phrases and not one shots. You can sample a one shot but if you try banging out a beat in real time using a lot of 16th and higher drum shots you will get a "Drive Busy" error because it's too fast for the machine to read. It runs off of a Zip disk. I would have to manually program all the drum patterns by step editing them and sometimes even in playback you would still get the error. I had to resort to programming a drum pattern on my DR-202 in 4 - 8 bar increments and then sample that as a phrase in the SP808 just to get the drums in there which defeated the purpose of me buying the machine. No pad sensitivity. You also cannot see the wave form of your samples (not a bad thing though). Bouncing is also going to become your best friend as there are only 4 tracks to record to and no sequencing (if I remember correctly). Paid like $1400 when it first came out. Less than 5 months later I couldn't get anyone to buy it for more than $400.

SHAMMMMMMMMUUUUUU

DW2ZLL wrote:The pads are like the other sp series and like the pads of my fantom x6. The pads doesn't send any MIDI message, The pads have NO DINAMICS,but you can use an external controller.

You must have a Fantom x6 a

Projectvet wrote:

DW2ZLL wrote:The pads are like the other sp series and like the pads of my fantom x6. The pads doesn't send any MIDI message, The pads have NO DINAMICS,but you can use an external controller.

You must have a Fantom x6 a

I got a Fantom X6... Not the "Xa"...