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Now as the sample is being looped, slowly turn the dial into the sample (clockwise) and you will
notice the sample after a while gets shorter and shorter, and the "Length(>End)" number gets
lower and lower, after a while it will get so short it will make that buzzing noise. Then the shortest
you can go with the sample is when the length is 11, if it goes to 10, it will say that the drive is too
busy. Then if you want to turn it back, just put the dial counter clockwise and the sample will get
larger. I hope you guys understood this. It's just a fun little SP-808 trick.
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If you put the loop point right after the "g" sound in the sample then send it through the synth
using a square wave to modulate the VCA. This is awesome to slowly turn the LFO oscillator speed
up and change the sound "ggggg_gggg_ggg_gg_g_g_g_groovy".
Make sure the depth of the LFO/VCA is at 100%. You get the "roovy" part of the sound when you
let up on the pad (be sure to use pad trigger). BTW this works really well on the MC-505 too.
This is also quite easy using Sonic Foundry Acid with the snap-to-grid turned on. Zoom way in on
the view and just paint down the bit of the sample. You can tempo sync the stutters.
Then save the track as a WAV file and use the SP-808 disk utility.
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To do this, bust out a calculator. Get the sample you want to cut up looping seamlessly. Now go
into Sample Properties, and look at the sample length. For this, we'll say it's 52600 bytes. Now,
divide that by 8 (or however many beats you want to isolate) to get 6575. Now what you've done is
figured out that your sample is divided up into 8 6575 byte sections.
Eg: 6575|6575|6575|6575|6575|6575|6575|6575 Let's say you want to isolate this beat. (Assuming
this is a 4 beat measure, these would be eighth-note pieces, and therefore, this would be the
second beat of the measure.) Now copy the sample to another pad (press Shift-sourcepad-
Clipboard then Clipboard-targetpad). Now go into the Sample properties, and make the Start of the
sample 13150 bytes (which is 6575*2. This places the start at the beginning of the third piece of
the sample). Finally make the Sample Length 6575 bytes.
You have now *PERFECTLY* isolated the third eighth-note of a 4 beat measure. This same process
can be used for any sample of any length. Once you do this for all 8 pieces, (Or as many pieces as
you need to isolate the snare, kick, hi-hat, etc...) you'll have the individual components of the
sample, on separate pads. Now you can sequence them in whatever order you like, and it will be
exactly the same tempo as the original! One thing to keep in mind with this method, although it
generally works out ok, you should realize that if you're sampling a live drum loop, the drummer is
rarely dead on, so it may be necessary to move you trim points forward or backward a little to get
the entire hit. If you go by the exact numbers your calculations give you, you may lose the attack of
the drum sound, or the tail (important in the case of open high hats or crashes). Other wise this
method works well. Another tip. When you sample a drum loop you want to cut up, copy it to 8
different pads. That way you can cut up each one to get the 1/8th notes from the beat without
having to worry about accidentally losing the rest of your loops.
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To quickly match a WAV file to a certain BPM, bust out the calculator that comes with Windows,
and put in 240/x where x is the desired beats per minute. The answer will tell you how many
seconds 4 beats is. This way, you can time stretch accurately. Example: if you have a 4 beat loop
that is 2 seconds long, and you want it to be 140 BPM, put into the calculator, 240/140. You get
1.71428. Next, you go into CoolEdit, or something like it, and timestretch from your 2 seconds to
1.71428. The more decimal points you provide, the more accurate it will be for you.
Chopping up Loops
BPM Matching
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