Advertisement
trigger the sample at the downbeat of each measure. If you vary the tempo up slightly the sample
will cut off early, likewise if you slow things down the sample will go silent briefly. But the start will
always be in sync.
- If all you are doing is trying to trigger loops from an external sequencer then the easiest way of all
is to ignore syncing and just insert the appropriate MIDI notes in the external sequencer track(s) to
trigger the samples on the pads that you want to loop.
_____________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
1.) On track one - program a simple hi-hat rhythm in step record (realtime if you want.)
Cut and paste a few times and let it repeat.
2.) On track two - record your kick and snare in realtime, and set your quantize however you want
to. I find it easier to use the Vari-Pitch at about 50% for fast beats, rather than recording them at
normal speed.
3.) Now, cut and paste this a few times. Play back your two tracks now... Damn!
"Drive too Busy" error message again.
4.) Now here's the good part!!! Turn your Vari-Pitch down to about 25%.
Bounce tracks 1 and 2 to track 3. As you'll notice, you don't get the error message! The Zip drive is
reading the disk at a much slower speed and therefore it gives itself time in between snippets to
"catch up." If 25% doesn't work, go lower... 18%. If that doesn't work then your beat is really
complex! After you get over the initial shock and awe, copy your 3rd track to the Clipboard, and
then to a pad of your choice! The best way to get around a "Drive Too Busy" message, is to enter
your sequence into the step programmer. Select the track to record, then hit Shift+Stop to enter
into this mode. It will say something about "Multi" or "Single" or "Auto". Select Single. What this
will do, is transform your intricate pattern into a single sample, and place this on the track, rather
than a million individual triggers.
_____________________________________________________________________
Also, another tip related to the "disk too busy" message. The problem: When I encounter the
message, most times it is because I have sliced and diced my original loops too much (cut and
pasted little parts of loops in various places) until there is several measures of 8th or 16th note
data. At most useful BPM's the SP-808 simply CANNOT keep up.
The solution: Resample. Bounce to one new sample that comprises the many little pieces. Then the
SP-808 can read it. Obviously if the SP-808 can't even read the data at a specific BPM, it certainly
wouldn't be able to read and write it, right? Right. So to sneak around this limitation, resample the
pieces with the Vari-Pitch feature turned on and turned WAY DOWN, to around half or even less of
the original BPM. You could turn Vari-Pitch ALL THE WAY DOWN, but that makes for a time
consuming resampling process. Give it a shot!
_____________________________________________________________________
Obviously, the reason it gives you that message, is because it is attempting to retrigger the sample
too many times, too fast... The way I get around this, is when you go into step-record mode, it
prompts you as to whether you'd like to record the sequence in Single, Multi, or Auto mode. Select
Single, and the sequence will be one big "step" rather than a ton of little ones.
Therefore, the SP-808 only has to trigger one step, so it won't give you the disk busy message.
Drive too Busy Workarounds
Advertisement
