There are 4 things that will affect a drum machine's grooviness.

1. How tight it stays to perfect, i.e. how much jitter is happening.

2. What ppq does it resolve to.

3. Any built in swing algo.

4. The sonic imprint. Yes,the sound! If you don't believe that, just eq the output of your mpc 3000 to sound thinner and pointier up top and put a 2000 through some cuddly processing and see how it alters your perception.

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i agree with 1,2,3... not so much about 4..

amen

5. How "perfect" the user chop the samples start and endpoint (if its a sampling drummachine).
6. The amp envelope of the samples.
7. The dynamic of the pattern (accent, velocity)

peace

8.the grade of the grass and other consumables avail;able at swingpoint!!!!!

edit-this is of paramount importance.Not the usage but the quality if you do partake.Listening to some raw sheets of jazz wax from the pre bop era prior to swing adjustment essential imo()

Get your weight up.....SP 505<OP 1

For lo-fi?? The SP-505 takes a giant **** on the OP-1....believe that.

But the OP-1 is a dope little unit indeed.

I dont need a lo fi button. Get your engineering skill up.heh

What do you think the "digital tape" in the OP-1 is??

A glorified Lo-Fi button....

YOU FAIL

hahahaha dont get mad. I see you like to stretch things. All tape isnt lo fi, champ.

lol nah... but you're right all tape is not lo-fi...but the OP-1 definitely caters to the minimalist and lo-fi crowd.

That tape is definitely not meant to emulate 2" reel to reel.... more like a tascam 244.

Just listen to all the tracks people made on YouTube with it.... says it all.

SP-505 > OP-1.

I know I'm very late to the game, but this thread just makes me smile. The SP-505 is basically a toy, but oh boy, what a fun toy it is. Even though I now have a studio filled fairly with good gear, I still find myself returning to the little plastic box with its two rows of blinking lights. I love to twiddle with beats in its grid sequencer, which is absolutely brilliant in its minimalism. It sounds nice too, especially when running the outputs through a tube preamp.

Ayo, bros and siss, its really about the groove and sound selectionand arrangement. I just saw today a 1.5 year old bad-bad boy of my close friend shaking his body to some melodic\rhytmic stuff. It is just fkking inherent apriori stuff/ It has NOTHING to do with the fancy sjmanzy SOUND. If it GROOVES it GROOVES

Simply put,most of the Roland sp's are like an sp-1200 on steroids. Not toys in the least. If these machines would have been possible back in the day,people woulda flipped the **** out. There's really no limits to what you can do w these machines. Mad effects,unlimited sample time,etc...and YES,you can create a lo fi sound very comprable to the 1200 . You're average listener would never no a difference( even a lot of producers) and that's all that matters. As for a Lo fi button..I don't see how using it means anyone needs to step up their "engineering" wtf? We're not all engineers here. A lot of us work basically w a sampler and records. If I gotta use a Lo fi button,there's really no difference between that and sampling w a sp1200. And I'd much rather do that than use some plug in. By the way,with sp's there's more than just a button. You can also adjust sample rate,bit rate,and filter w a Lo fi effect. That's basically all that goes into "engineering" Lo fi samples.

SM7B

I fell you 100% Hobbs! I owned and used both boxes a few years ago and noticed the similarities immediately. The small LED screen and the sequencer on the 505 felt identical to the SP-12 turbo. I ended up selling the SP and keeping the 505 because people like spending dumb money on SP's. I've always called the 505 an SP-12 on steroids..most people disagree, but their usually the same kinda people that get all moist and excited from just hearing the SP name or they use the 505 only for the effects and the SP only for its sampler. From that aspect their totally different; one is the holy grail and the other is a novelty toy.

HEy Hobbs Won.

How's the filter on that 505? I loves me some juicy grimey @ss filterz.

I love my SP-505!! It's such a dope, dope sampler. And yes...for the price point? it's the sp-1200 that is the novelty!

How is the slicing on a 505, I always been interested in one but it looked so plastic and the pads looked like they're not too particularly sensitive.

Is it for example like chopping on a mpc?, is it non destructive too?.

yes...chopping on the 505 is non destructive...different workflow than the mpc tho...the pads arent meant for finger drumming

Non destructive as in resampling to several pads and using the mark button?

Im curious cause I have a 303 and thats how you do it on that machine. Isn't the 505 pretty much the same machine with more pads?

Pretty much yes.

No...well...yes ut does have more pads.

But the biggest differences are

Led display for.waveform editing and sequencing

the 505 has a four track sequencer with song mode and can scroll thru patterns in real time.

16 levels (pitch)

The 505 and the 303 have the exact same effects engine. And same sample modes/rates. Im not sure if the converters are exactly the same. But they are nearly indistinguishable by ear.

Ah, cool. Didn't know that.

How do they compare in data writing speed? 303 is pretty slow, which is my only gripe against it.

Also, Ive noticed that 505s are basically given away whereas 303s can be pricey due to the cult following.

Same thing...they use the same media.

The price difference is because you see Madlib with the 303 and Dilla also used it..That's it...other than that...the 505 is a 303 with better functionality.

Some say the vinyl compressor is warmer on the 303 or the outs sound a lil hissier...the latter I def find to be true. But I really can't the the difference on the finished product.

I have heard beat tapes where I actually liked the 202 better than the 303/505.

Cheers guys I got it wrong I was talking about the 606 not 505

Really tempted to hunt one down now after watching some videos

Quick question

Does it have mute groups?

How easy is the workflow?

Effects any good?.compare to 404sx or 606

Is it a case of dumping wav files to the card or would I need to rename them

Compared to my mpc jjos chopping is it similar , worst or better?.

You can mute tracks. But you can't use the pads as mutes. You CAN use the effects to actually do this, though. It's a quick and dirty way to do it MPC style. But it is a workaround.

Dumb easy.

Both the 404 and 606 have more effects...not exactly sure what the 606 has/doesn't over the 303 or 505 but the 404 I believe has a couple extra loopers and a voice transformer effect.

That being said... the 404/sx's and the 606's don't sound anywhere near as good as the 303/505.

It will truncate the file names automatically. Some you might have to edit because it doesn't support certain characters if I remember correctly...they just won't show up on the card.

It's been a minute since I used the card. I just sample into mine.

It's.....worse..But really, it's just less involved or featured than chopping on jjos. For example, you cannot edit your chops (i.e attack, decay etc.).

I mean, if you're looking for something that is going to mimic an MPC...this is not it. Just use your MPC. This is actually a great compliment to an MPC, really.

There's a couple ways to make beats on the SP's...some people hate the sequencer but then it grows on them or they just use the resample method to make beats...which is my favorite method. The units workflow will definitely give your arrangement a different dimension.

When I work within different samplers framework, my beats have very different qualities. And I really like working on the cheap ass Roland SP's!

well said dutches.

easiest workflow EVAR. and the workarounds become new dimensions you wouldnt arrive at on other machines.

They don't feel the same thats for damn sure

the sp-505 is a dope machine and a lot of fun, ****s on the 303 by far IMO. i had to sell mine but made 80 bucks out of the deal, i needed money and didn't need 4 samplers at the moment. right now rockin the sampletrak, microsampler, and mpc 1000 for samplers, at the moment combining the sampletrak and microsampler (sample into the sampletrak for grit and artifacts from sampling at 45 and tuning down and chop by ear on it, send it over to the microsampler to make tracks) as i need a break from the mpc from time to time because it gets old naming every sample and all that sometimes. i highly recommend the sp-505 if you can get it around 150 or so. it combos well with a new-era mpc (1000, 2500 etc.) due to much better effects and a little more grit.

btw if you are using a 505 a it will run about 4 times faster, if not more, with a 16mb smart media rather than a 128. it is unusable with the 128 IMO due to insane, ridiculously slow processing time.