sp-808

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Roll Tide Roll
ill o.g.
the sp-808 what would u rate this sampler for somebody who is just starting out, cause i been checking out the mpc and they are kinda of expensive,(i know u get what u pay for and it has one of the best sequencers out there) i might want to start out on the sp-808 then as i get more experienced and more money coming in get the mpc-2000xl. i have been doing research on it and it has a sequencer, on board effects, ect. so just let me know if its worthy enough to be my first real peice of hardware peace.

here is the site
http://www.vintagesynth.org/roland/sp808.shtml
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
AW yeah the 808 is great man if you are on a budget.....you can load and save samples via disk...the processors and effects are VERy good, I have had flashbacks of getting this piece again too, you can put together very hi quality sounding tracks....there is one down side, it only allows you to do 4 tracks....but you can start bouncing after that....meaning you can combine those 4 and move them to one then you have 3 tracks available to keep bouncing but as you know the sound quality might suffer some....you can download a patch and upgrade it to the 250 MB zip capacity so you have more recording time....you can record a whole song to a 100 mB disk...plus you can record vocals into it too because it is a digital multitrack recorder from....ROLAND...I recommend it if you are on a budget though......they even had an application that you could get off the net that allow loading of samples from your computer via midi........I think a lot of producers have overlooked this piece.....I know that if Madlib could use a stinkin sp303...to put together tracks the 808 should be more than enuff to make dope beats......I never really touched that but I had the sp505 and mc505 too and I think all of those pieces borrowed something from the 808...also the pad section & D-Beam on the Fantoms have been completely snatched from the design on the 808 so it was ahead of its time.
 

Chisel

ILLIEN
ill o.g.
I've been using the SP-808 for several years. I use it mainly to add vocals to a mix. It works great as a phrase sampler. But where the MPC excels, the SP-808 falls flat on it's face. The problem is since it saves everything directly to ZIP drive as apposed to the MPC which has internal RAM, it is notorious for getting "disk busy" messages when too much is going on. In other words, I wouldn't use it as a drum sampler. But if you plan on sampling phrases, then it's a hot piece of gear! Strangely enough, if you trigger the samples from a MIDI keyboard or sequencer, it doesn't have this problem. It only happens when you use the built-in pads. Also, the pads aren't pressure sensitive, so you wouldn't be able to get that "real" drum sound even if you didn't get "drive busy" messages. Hope this helps.
 

bigdmakintrax

BeatKreatoR
ill o.g.
Battle Points: 123
Yeah disk busy does happen....when i upgraded it 250 zip that went away....that comes from filling up the 100mb disk or not cleaning up the disk....like when you make a beat......and erase it or delete shidd it sort of does like a normal hard disk....it get fragmented....but if you can do save the few extra weeks or months and pick the mpc up then....
 
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