Getting that 'old school' 12Bit Sound!?

jonathanpduffy · Post by **jonathanpduffy** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:17 am

I don't have an MPC60II, or an Akai s950...or a bunch of outboard gear...

I do have Live 5 & Guru...

But I want that 12 Bit sampled drum sound...the Kruntch of the golden age of Hip hop.

Got the Vinyl
Got the turntable

...What's the best way to sample into my computer and get that sound?
Mashing the sounds with bitcrusher and the ilk, just doesn't cut it it my opinion.

I'd like an old school sampler, or a software equivalent. Is there a good drum sampler that'll let me sample at lower bit rate or even replicate the algorthyms of these classic machines?

Or do I have to buy an s950?

...or a good sampler/rompler with a stack of 12 Bit drum samples...?

Help.

J

bensuthers · Post by **bensuthers** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:20 am

http://www.vintagesynth.com/emu/sp12.shtml

jonathanpduffy · Post by **jonathanpduffy** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:24 am

Well Yes...But I'll never be able to get one of those

...but with all my heart YES, that's the sound...

Is it just going to be impossible to replicate the sp 1200, mpc60II sound...anyone...!

sqook · Post by **sqook** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:27 am

Live's vinyl distortion effect, perhaps?

blastique · Post by **blastique** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:38 am

Hyperprism

Not sure if it's still being sold though... It's got a KILLER bitcrusher.

Louis · Post by **Louis** » Fri May 05, 2006 9:58 am

ummm... redux??? It is a bit reducer plug that's built into live after all. Decimator is free, does the same thing. My advice if you want dirty lofi drums is sequence a kit, play it from your comp into something like a crap old mixer or amplifier to colour the sound, resample back into live, but record the signal path at a lower volume (so that when you turn up the amplitude in the mix you raise the noise floor with the signal), then run it through redux at 12 bit and render to wave. Chop it up and toss in a sampler- bam nasty lo fi drum samples, nice and full of grit and life (fuck 192 khz pristine pretty shit). Another good thing to do is take the dry drum kit and run it through different reverbs and out board gear (i'm not talking about expensive rackmount stuff, but rather beat up guitar amps with a buzz, old tape players from the thrift store, crappy stereo amps, vcr's- shit like that), so that all the different drums have their own individual character- much like old sampled drum kits that have been composed from record dips from different records- you want the tails intakt and sometimes the attack of other instruments that were in the mix, so try adding different elements from other processed samples in layers. It can be a meticulous process, but your stuff will be so much better. It won't suffer from cold drum machine syndrome (I kind of like that sometimes though). Hope that helps!

hoffman2k · Post by **hoffman2k** » Fri May 05, 2006 10:02 am

And the 4/8-bit waveforms on the operator

You can make a whole nintendo-ish soundbank on it

ILTK · Post by **ILTK** » Fri May 05, 2006 11:24 am

Get a used EMAX I it's 12bit, you can get them for peanuts and the filters are nicer than the akai.

That, and it has bird run!!!

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Fri May 05, 2006 11:27 am

Louis wrote:ummm... redux??? It is a bit reducer plug that's built into live after all. Decimator is free, does the same thing. My advice if you want dirty lofi drums is sequence a kit, play it from your comp into something like a crap old mixer or amplifier to colour the sound, resample back into live, but record the signal path at a lower volume (so that when you turn up the amplitude in the mix you raise the noise floor with the signal), then run it through redux at 12 bit and render to wave. Chop it up and toss in a sampler- bam nasty lo fi drum samples, nice and full of grit and life (fuck 192 khz pristine pretty shit). Another good thing to do is take the dry drum kit and run it through different reverbs and out board gear (i'm not talking about expensive rackmount stuff, but rather beat up guitar amps with a buzz, old tape players from the thrift store, crappy stereo amps, vcr's- shit like that), so that all the different drums have their own individual character- much like old sampled drum kits that have been composed from record dips from different records- you want the tails intakt and sometimes the attack of other instruments that were in the mix, so try adding different elements from other processed samples in layers. It can be a meticulous process, but your stuff will be so much better. It won't suffer from cold drum machine syndrome (I kind of like that sometimes though). Hope that helps!

ya. get creative with your signal man, bring it to the outside and run it through anything you can put a signal through, record everything along the way and you should have a decent collection of beat-up drum shots recorded to wav. which you can of course further mangle with computer effects, till you find what you like.

Benno · Post by **Benno** » Fri May 05, 2006 11:36 am

Get a Machinedrum SP1-UW. Check out the video on Sonicstate to see what it can do. Very pricey, but it will do everything you want and more

mr-e · Post by **mr-e** » Fri May 05, 2006 1:19 pm

Just go for the old Akai , you can find them real cheap in 2e-hand shops these days.
The only problem are the old 1.4 mb discs , they're really unreliable and scsi harddisks/cdroms cost almost as much as the samplers themselves.

marky · Post by **marky** » Fri May 05, 2006 1:34 pm

CamelPhat has some good noise-inducing, harmonic-creating bit-reducing features.

Tarekith · Post by **Tarekith** » Fri May 05, 2006 2:36 pm

Benno wrote:Get a Machinedrum SP1-UW. Check out the video on Sonicstate to see what it can do. Very pricey, but it will do everything you want and more

Oh yeah! Expensive, but oh yeah! Love my MD-uw....

Machinate · Post by **Machinate** » Fri May 05, 2006 3:07 pm

I have an S-950 - the sound is sooo unbe-friggin-lievable! If you need to grunge something up load it on a floppy, trigger it from the sampler and record it back into the computer as one-shots or whatever - no need for hard-disks or floppy libs.

b0unce · Post by **b0unce** » Fri May 05, 2006 3:50 pm

hey machinate, any chance you could post an mp3 with some wet/dry examples ?