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Q.) Also, being new to the SP-808, I have mostly concentrated on trying to "remix" tracks from my
CD collection. Can anyone provide some high level tips on how they approach a remix project. I'd
be grateful, I've got some great old school vinyl screaming for an update?
A.) Firstly always prepare "story board" for a remix. Sometimes you have DA'BESTEST idea, just
write it down, song position, loop length etc. GET THE BPM RIGHT!!!!!! Record the stuff to tracks,
use lots of bouncing. Keep all your bits and pieces at the beginning of tracks, and start your work at
about 100th bar, that way you can always jump to the front, pick up a sample and paste it where it
should be. Remember, there are only 4 tracks, but they are loooong, so parts of them can be used
as "sample pool". Before you do any time stretching etc. you must decide what tempo your entire
song is going to be and set it. This is called a "Tempo Map" you can find it under the [Song/Track]
button menu. Next you must trim your samples to be the length you want them.
Also you must choose how the sample is going to play as a note, such as a quarter note or eighth
note or sixteenth note. A whole note sounds an entire measure.
A quarter note would sound on 1,2,3,4 in a bar/measure an eighth note would be
one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and. This is important in the layout of different types of
samples. Hard to explain on the computer - READ YOUR MANUAL.
Most of the time the SP-808 sets this correctly for you if you trim it right. Next you stretch to the
length you want the sample to be (usually the same as the tempo map) so a drum loop that you
want to loop every measure in a song that is a tempo map at 120 BPM would need to be whole
note = 120 BPM. This is not the rock solid rule to make it work.
Really you stretch whatever until it sounds the way you want it to sound.
You can't cut and paste samples to start and stop wherever or make them sound only a percentage
of their length to make it work as well. There's a million ways to do it.
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Well, until recently, the only thing I could do on the SP-808 is time-stretch the sample.
If you have tried to change a sample, especially a beat, from 97 to 135 it's gonna come out kind of
funny sounding with a lot of unwanted chorus effect. Well, NO MORE!
Step 1 is to figure out a sample's BPM by sampling it first, trimming it and
seeing what the tempo is.(70 BPM in this case)
Step 2 is making sure you are currently working in a song that has the desired
tempo (135 in this case).
Step 3 is setting your Vari-Pitch down to get the BPM as close to 70 as possible.
Make your sample, then turn off the Vari-Pitch and trim it. Voila!
You have now successfully raised the pitch and tempo of the sample without the nasty sound of
timestretching. You can time-stretch them to the desired tempo if need be, because it's not by too
much and it'll turn out fine.
Remixing
Smoother Timestretch
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