Ableton Forum

Ok, without getting into massive workflow arguments (because I know that a laptop/iPad is the 'best' tool for this job, but not the most creative IMO) I'm looking for an old-skool hardware sampler.

I kind of miss the old days of sitting with just a sampler and some sound sources and putting together a beat on my sofa. My studio is a place where I 'work on stuff' but for whatever reason, doesn't seem a great place for me to actually 'create stuff'. Plus if my gf is watching TV, it's quite cool to be able to sit on the sofa with headphones on and get on with stuff without having to exile myself to a different room.

So, I have this idea. I think I would like a phrase/drum sampler so I can sit with it plus maybe an iPhone (to capture things off Youtube etc) and put together ideas that I can then port across to the computer if they work for me. I think I've narrowed it down to a choice of 3 as I reckon I want battery power for maximum portability:

1) SP404sx - This appeals for loads of reasons. I had a 202 aaaaaaages ago and it was greta fun. Ultimately pretty useless in the sense that all I did was mess about making little hip hop beats in my bedroom but with a pattern sequencer and an SD card, they seem to have upped their game a bit. My thinking here being that I can use the massive capacity to bang loads of drum sounds off my Mac onto the card, and then once arranged, I can resample a pattern to a pad and copy that back into Ableton for more work. Also, I have seen a lot of live performers using just one of these. There is so much space you can sample a complete track (or say Live scene) to a pad and then have loads of one-shots and FX to mess it around with. That kind of appeals.

2) MPC500 - I kind of know this is one of the worst of the MPCs in some ways, but it's the only portable option. I've never tried the MPC way before but think it might suit. I guess it isn't hugely different in the sense that it has pads and doesn't have waveform editing but the main things are that I would gain chromatic sampling and pitch shift but lose loads of FX and memory (maximum 128mb in the sampler at one time). Hard to test out as I would need to go second hand.

3) New Electribe Sampler - leftfield choice. I like Gadget on the iPad and this integrates pretty neatly with Live (but no MIDI export, why??). It seems to tick loads of boxes - built in synths/drums/pads, chromatic sampling, good KAOSS FX but weirdly seems to be hamstrung by 4 bar max patterns, really poor sampling time (despite an SD card!) and some OS bugs (which I assume will be patched eventually). Weirdly, 'the community' seems to have received these in a very lukewarm way, and I watched Tarekith's in-depth review of the EMX2 and he seemed happy but not blown away by it. I'm wondering if this is just missing that X factor that makes people love a piece of gear??

So where does that leave me?

I'm pretty sure I will like the 404, as I loved the 202, for it's immediacy and fun factor (and I suspect this is what I'm after). My only worry is that it won't lend itself well to making proper beats and loops and I will struggle to get these into Live in a meaningful way to let me continue with them.

The MPC I suspect/know is far stronger as a 'production tool' but do I need that with Live already in the game (plus an old RM1x knocking about!)?? That's not a reason not to buy it but if it is a pain to use then I just won't bother with it.

The Electribe ought to be ideal but the low sample memory and reported issues make me worry.

Basically, I want the SP404sx to be perfect but not sure it will do.

Has anyone used one, two or even all three of these and has an opinion on which is going to be most fun to play with? Fundamentally, I want quick and dirty but not a toy. I want to get results quickly and get back to the immediacy of just grabbing a loop here and there but I want it to leave me with something I can then take further, rather than just a closed Groovebox toy.

Phew, massive post! Apologies and congrats to anyone still reading...

Thnaks!

SP404sx

Plus: battery operated, light weight, nice bright buttons
Minus: Irrational key combinations for common tasks, kinda big, no velocity sensitivity.

If anyone's interested, I thought I'd post my experiences with this search:

So I went with the 404sx. The music shop near me is pretty good about excahnges and after playing for an hour in the shop, I was none the wiser over which was best for me so on the basis that I'd had a 202 years ago and it was good fun, went with the 404. The guy said I could take it back with 14 days and swap if I wanted so that wa cool.

I spent the next fortnight doing nothing but playing the 404. Honestly, it's a brilliant machine. So expressive and immediate and it feels as though you are genuinely playing am instrument. Sampling is a cinch and it's really nice setting loop points by ear and just not giving a shit if it's sample accurate or not. There's no way to check anyway without loading it into the computer and this enforced sloppiness really gave me a kick in the creativity. Loved it.

It has two issues which I couldn't get over.

1). The pattern sequencer. I knew it was pretty bad before I bought it, but fine for sketching out loops or ideas I thought. What I hadn't realised is that the pattern BPM is set globally for the whole machine. In practice this means that if you ever want more than one idea going on at a time, you need to remember what BPM each pattern should play at to make your loops trigger correctly. A bit of a showstopper for me as I wanted this thing to be a musical sketchpad as well as a performance instrument.

2). There is no pitching of samples. There's a pitch effect, but it time stretches (really badly) as well so there is no means to quickly pitch up a sample and have it play back more quickly, albeit cleanly. The workaround is bouncing out to a digital recorder or app or whatever but it sucks the immediacy that is the genius of this machine out the game.

I'm actually a bit gutted about it, as I can't tell you how much I enjoyed the machine. I think if you see it purely s a means to playback samples with FX live, you are laughing but it's really not got enough behind the scenes to use as any sort of production tool (unless you ONLY want to do lofi hip hop, which is cool, but I found myself doing only that with that).

So I swapped it for the Electribe sampler yesterday.

First impressions are that I actually don't like it as much as the 404. It's bigger, so more unwieldy. It's a lot more menu driven so less immediate. The manual is dreadful and it has loads of really shit quirks about it (how it handles loading samples for one) that I at least read about before hand so am not surprised by.

I barely looked at the manual for the 404 but this unit is a lot harder to suss intuitively.

That said, it's definitely a more complete groove box. Plus is has Ableton export. And the synth engine is pretty good too. I occasionally found myself coming up with something on the 404 and wanting to just play in a bass line alongside it. And then realising it would mean hooking it up to my setup next door, loading up a synth etc etc and just not bothering. This at least lets you do that quickly and easily.

I suspect it will be a machine of workarounds. Already, the lack of option to switch off quantize was annoying me but there is a pretty handy swing function and groove templates that just about make up for it.

Ultimately, I saw the 404 becoming an expensive novelty toy that I loved playing on but sort of existed in a bit of bubble on it's own, whereas I can already see how I can start to get ideas down with the 'tribe and then transfer them across to the computer for completion.

So not the most satisfying journey all round. I suspect the problem is really that there is nothing out there that hits all my needs so it's about finding the right compromise. I can see me buying a 404 again when I'm feeling flush though - love that thing! Has a charm or magic about it like an old MPC I think.

As an aside, I haven't checked this yet but if anyone has read this far (well done!) then you can reality check an idea for me:

My Arturia Microbrute has a bug (well they all do, it's not just mine!) whereby if you trigger the internal sequencer with a note on command, it will play back in time but a 16th behind Ableton. It's annoying as you have to then shift the audio after recording. I'm told this problem is avoided by using CV to trigger it so I'm wondering if I slave the 'tribe to Ableton and then use the sync from the 'tribe to trigger the 'brute, if I might be in business...

Will keep you posted.