writers connection

"No One Could Speak More Authoritatively for Blacks"
Do the James Brown!

By ROCK and RAP CONFIDENTIAL

    "James Brown had figured out a way to orchestrate a drum set, and make everything in the band work around a groove, rather than a melody."
— Rickey Vincent in "Funk: The Music, the People, and the Rhythm of the One"

The Godfather of Soul’s good timing extended to the era he was born in. He came of age when the isolated South was integrating with America through massive migration and through the struggle against segregation. In 1977, Brown told Cliff White that his mid-60s masterpieces depended upon being exposed to the North: "My eyes started opening … my brain started to intercept the new ideas and thoughts. I became a big city thinker. And I started tying that in". His epochal record "Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag" was recorded in February 1965, the same month Malcolm X was assassinated, and was released in July 1965, three weeks before the Watts Rebellion.

Brown also saw that for most blacks the poverty he’d experienced in the South was also rampant in the North. And James knew poverty intimately–he was often dismissed from school for "insufficient clothes" and was sent to prison at fifteen for stealing a coat. He was essentially homeless from the age of four until future sideman Bobby Byrd’s mother took him in at age eighteen.

Because Brown didn’t cross over like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, and the Motown artists, his core audience -North and South- remained poor. He continued to speak for them and to them. This was so much true that in 1975 a white man in New York City took hostages at a New York City restaurant to protest the plight of blacks in America and demanded an audience with James Brown. According to Jet Magazine, the gunman felt "that no one could speak more authoritatively for blacks than James Brown". The hostage taker was captured after he fell asleep. Rickey Vincent wrote: "Absurd as the event was, the idea that James Brown carried more weight than any black politician, and still carried the moral authority of the Black nation, was right on target".

Brown endorsed Hubert Humphrey in the 1968 Presidential election and Richard Nixon in 1972. Both times he was damned as a sellout. But Brown’s social and political agenda went far beyond the politics of Humphrey or Nixon. After James Meredith was shot in Mississippi in 1966, James flew to his side and he did benefits for both SNCC and the NAACP. James Brown was anti-nuke. His early tours featured an implicit critique of a criminal justice system he knew all too well.

In Living in America: The Soul Saga of James Brown, Cynthia Rose describes the suitcase prop used by George Haines, the prosecutor who sent a teenaged JB to prison in 1949 ("Your honor, here’s my suitcase! If you let this man go free, I’ll pack up and flee this town!"). "That suitcase became a signature in the paroled entertainer’s late 1950s show," Rose writes, "a red prop emblazoned on one side with Please Please Please and on the other with Baby Take My Hand. Brown would use it to close a set". Later, when he was doing six years in prison for traffic violations, more time than William Calley did for the My Lai massacre, James told the New York Times: "I think there’s a lot of money spent on housing people away from home that should be spent on building them a home so they won’t ever have to leave". On 1972’s "Funky President", Brown was an early proponent of reparations ("Let’s get together, get some land") and even called for people to own their own factories.

According to road manager Alan Leeds, James held court on this agenda in his dressing room every night. He did the same in rib joints, hair salons, and private homes (RRC staffer Black Rose was at one such session in Oklahoma City in the 1970s). A meeting that Brown described as "cordial but direct" took place with SNCC’s H. Rap Brown to discuss strategies for black liberation. They disagreed over the use of violence and, when Rap Brown accused him of being a big star who was out of touch with the masses, James took exception, pointing out: "I probably come from a much poorer background than you do".

Certainly, James was working from personal memory when he produced a 1973 Maceo Parker track, "The Soul of a Black Man" and added lyrics such as "It’s so hard! It’s so baaaaaaaad! When you got three meals a day: oatmeal, no meal, and missed meal!"

In 1968, James had a massive hit with "Say It Loud (I’m Black and I’m Proud)" featuring the key line: "We’d rather die on our feet than be livin’ on our knees". "Say It Loud" is actually an even more powerful statement today, now that the more or less automatic unity of 1968 has been replaced with the hatred of poor blacks expressed by Bill Cosby, Chris Rock, and many others.

Brown said it was clear from the shrinking number of white faces at his shows that "Say It Loud" cost him much of the crossover audience his mid-60s hits had built. Yet the overwhelming power of Brown’s music and message kept leaping racial boundaries (even on "Say It Loud" the children’s chorus was made up entirely of whites and Asians). Later, country stars such as Barbara Mandrell and Porter Wagoner waged a lengthy and ultimately successful campaign to bring James Brown to the Grand Ol Opry. James got up on that hallowed stage and did a couple of country songs and spoke about the impact of the Grand Ol Opry on his work. He was greeted warmly by most Opry fans who, in addition to enjoying the music, may have felt a kinship with Brown based on a common background of Southern poverty.

To impose his will upon the world, James Brown constructed a byzantine business empire and rehearsed and punished his band members to the point of mutiny. "If I had to fight James Brown, right away I would have a gun", Brown’s former bandleader Fred Wesley said. "Because his determination to win isjust more powerful than anyone else’s I’ve ever seen".

Brown ignored record contracts when they got in his way. For instance, in 1959 he went to Dade Records when his label, King Records, wouldn’t allow him to record instrumentals. The result was "Do The Mashed Potatoes, Parts 1 and 2", a Top 10 R&B hit issued under the name of Nat Kendrick and the Swans. Brown did it again later when he recorded a brilliant jazz organ album for Smash. He built a business empire of radio stations and real estate in pursuit of not just wealth but his own vision of freedom. As he put it: "You need power to get freedomYou need freedom to create." And create he did. Not just his own monumental catalog (including the number one 1962 pop album Live at the Apollo, which James had to pay for himself because his record company said it wouldn’t sell), but a torrent of albums by sidemen and singers alike. Brown’s own People Records issued message records by some of his female vocalists, such as Vicki Anderson’s "Message From the Soul Sisters" and Lyn Collins’ "Take Me Just as I Am".

Today we are once again sliding into the abyss that James Brown described in the liner notes to his 1974 album, Hell. "It’s hell down here and we’ve got to make a change. It’s hell when you don’t have a job and you can’t eat. Drugs are hell. War is hell. Prison is hell". And, most important of all: "It’s hell tryin’ to do it by yourself". James Brown had a monumental ego but he spared no effort to involve other people in the realization of his personal and artistic vision. He reached out relentlessly to find the hundreds of musicians and singers who helped him to create his music. He built a vast nationwide network of DJs, record stores, small businesses, and fans. He made sure that he stayed connected to his core audience.

Midway through the epic version of "There Was a Time" from Live at the Apollo, Volume 2 James Brown is leading the crowd through a chant. He calls out how many "unh!"s to bellow out to follow the refrain of "Hey, hey, I feel allright". The band is unbelievable-a thousand subtleties coalescing into a mighty rhythmic river. But there’s a guy in the audience who’s messing up the ritual by following a separate count. James chides him gently, speculating that the man is in a hurry to take the power of the show back home to the bedroom ("He’s got something else on his mind!"). It continues and James pleads with him: "Come on brother, don’t take all this groove away!"

James is laughing because he knows that a nuclear warhead couldn’t take that groove away. But he’s also dead serious, because he knows what it took to create the James Brown groove and bring it to the people. He knows that the groove contains more than music, that it’s a train with a destination of the greatest importance. James Brown died before his groove got to the end of its journey. He left it for us to do with what we will, what we can, what we should. We’ll know we’ve completed that mission when every man, woman, and child on earth can survey their lives and loudly proclaim: "Hey, hey, I feel allright-unh! unh! unh!"

Rock and Rap Confidential, one of the few newsletters both editors of CounterPunch read from front to back the moment it arrives, is edited by Lee Ballinger and Dave Marsh and now it’s available to you for FREE simply by sending an email to: rockrap@aol.com.

rest in peace Mister Dynamite 

your friendly neighborhood… THX 1138 

immagine di una drum machine E-mu SP 12 dall’ SP 1200 forum

link

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-mu_SP-1200 

http://sp1200.myfastforum.org/ 

http://members.iinet.net.au/~jake2/base/love/faq.html 

UOCHI TOKI live

10/09/2009 h 22.00

presso Exfila – Via Mons. Leto Casini, 11, Firenze, Firenze
"Be Young, Be Wrong" Festival

ultimo disco:

Uochi Toki – Libro Audio — http://www.rockit.it/album/9912/uochi-toki-libro-audio

Uochi Toki live a Settignano (foto: THX 1138) 

Ennesima figura di merda del Cavaliere anche negli States…

fonte: http://www.repubblica.it/2006/05/gallerie/politica/new-york-berlusconi/1.html 

"L’Intoccabile" ti guarda dai muri di New York: nelle strade di Soho,
il quartiere alla moda, nei vicoli di Little Italy, nei vialoni del
Lower East Side, l’ex ghetto di ebrei, italiani e banditi che oggi è
tutto localini e botteghe chic. "L’Intoccabile" naturalmente è lui,
Silvio Berlusconi, Quello-Che-Comanda-Tutto che anche gli americani
stanno imparando a conoscere: grazie ai reportage del settimanale
radical The Nation, agli speciali della conservatrice Fox tv, alle
cronache dell’allarmato Wall Street Journal e, ieri mattina, del
compassato New York Times, che ha portato in prima pagina lo scandaloso
"licenziamento" di Dino Boffo. Ma da un paio di giorni il premier che
alle domande dei giornalisti risponde chiamando la magistratura è
finito anche al muro, a New York. Una serie di manifesti – avvistati da
un giornalista che da anni vive e lavora negli States, Alberto Baudo,
che li ha subito fotografati – ispirata agli "Intoccabili", il
capolavoro di Brian De Palma dedicato, guarda un po’, ad Al Capone, con
il faccione del primo ministro e la scritta: "L’intoccabile". Sotto, un
gioco di parole tra "Untouchable" e "Unimpeachable", cioè che in Italia
sfugge all’impeachment che pure in America sfiorò perfino Clinton. E
ancora: "Nessuno può toccarlo, nessuno può fermarlo". Il mistero dei
poster potrebbe essere presto risolto: dietro all’iniziativa ci sarebbe
un gruppo di studenti e professionisti, da tempo negli Usa, che si
definiscono "I nuovi carbonari". L’operazione sarebbe costata 4
migliaia di dollari ("Autotassazione…") ma i manifesti sarebbero solo
l’inizio e nuovi blitz sono allo studio. Per la cronaca, tra un paio di
settimane Berlusconi l’Intoccabile qui dovrà sbarcare, atteso con gli
altri leader mondiali per il vertice Onu (dal nostro inviato ANGELO
AQUARO)

grphx = thx 

Equipment list 

L to R (up): Akai MPD24 usb/midi controller, M-audio Studiophile BX5a monitors (2), E-mu SP 1200 drumachine/sampler (1994 reissue model 7030 with analog filters chip SSM2044), Akai s950 sampler (1988), Korg Mini KP dynamic fx processor, Toshiba laptop PC Satellite (XP os),  Lacie HD 1tb, M-audio Uno usb/midi interface.

L to R (down): Technics SL-1210 MKII turntables (2), Vestax Samurai PMC-05 pro D professional mixing controller, Dual hi-fi amplifier (class A), record crates, Sennheiser headphones, Montarbo bass amplifier, Yamaha natural bass subwoofer,  KORG microKORG analog modeling synth/vocoder.

Pedals (L to R): Boss digital delay, Boss RC-20xl loop station, Boss super chorus, Vox valve tone overdrive, Dunlop fuzz unit (Jimi Hendrix system), Dunlop crybaby wha-wha. 

click to enlarge 

"Club Policy" a short movie by Distrakt 

Distrakt youtube channel — http://www.youtube.com/user/Distrakt 

mididump

ne-view.int

synth-re.vie

music samples url.doc

samplers.txt

album testi (text files)

fonte: http://www.textfiles.com/music/samplers.txt 

(The following article is reprinted with permission of the 
publishers from the December 1986 issue of Electronic Musician 
magazine. For more information on Electronic Musician, or for on-
line subscriptions, check out the "magazines" area of PAN's Synth 
& MIDI section.) 

Getting the Most out of the Akai S900
BY STEVEN COX

The arrival of affordable samplers has opened up previously 
unavailable sound textures to musicians, and Akai's recent 
offering--the S900 Professional MIDI Digital Sampler--is a cost-
effective rack-mount expander module (retail $2999.95) for the 
musician who wants to jump on the sampling bandwagon without 
blowing the budget.
The S900 is a beautifully designed machine; its level of 
sophistication demands spending a little time in study and 
experimentation in order to get the most out of your investment. 
Good habits, in the form of proper computer and recording 
procedures, will make it easier to develop a library of samples 
that are as personal as your own fingerprints.
This article assumes you already own an S900 and have started to 
understand its possibilities via the operations guide disk and 
practical examples in the manual. However, those who don't own 
S900s can nonetheless apply some of these tips to any sampler. If 
you are already familiar with personal computers in general, so 
much the better; to a certain extent, all computers are similar 
in concept and design. The S900 is simply a *dedicated computer* 
designed to perform the task of digital manipulation of sound 
(and related tasking). Like all computers, the S900 has an 
*operating system* that ties together all the system elements, 
and understanding how this operating system works will give you 
maximum control of the instrument.

THE VERSION GAME
After power-up, the S900 dutifully identifies itself and gives 
the version number of the operating system ROMs (read only 
memory) installed within. When this article was written, 1.2 was 
the current version; there's a revised manual to go along with 
this version.
If you do not have version 1.2 software, then by all means obtain 
it from your dealer. The earlier version, 1.0, is missing some 
vital features (such as being able to turn MIDI program changes 
on or off). Version 1.2 also displays the audio bandwidth of 
existing samples in memory, something you had no way of knowing 
before; and when switching from program to program, version 1.2 
can sustain one program while switching to another (up to the 
limits of the 8 voices). After having to put up with the "klunk" 
that many synthesizers make when you change patches, it is 
wonderful to hear one program gently fade into (or sustain under) 
the next without "glitches."
By far the biggest new feature is the S900's newly acquired 
ability to be played from drum machines. The note duration of 
most, if not all, drum machines is much too short to allow the 
attack, sustain, decay, release (ADSR) curve of the S900's 
envelopes to "kick in." The new One Shot Mode, on page 14 of the 
edit program section, insures that the sampler will respond to a 
trigger of *any* duration by playing the entire length of the 
sample (including ADSR, filter, warp, and so on). Thus, the S900 
can now be triggered from virtually any MIDI device.

SAMPLING SAFARI (OR, BAGGING THE BIG SOUNDS)
Of all the electronic instruments you will ever play, the sampler 
alone offers a grip on reality. It can not only sound like a 
string section but in a very real sense it *is* those strings. It 
is a near-perfect aural imitator and modifier--the ultimate 
parrot. 
The ability to recognize a good potential sample when you hear it 
is a technique that improves rapidly with practice. Take the time 
to experiment with gathering new samples; this will teach you 
more about the nature and structure of sound as well as expand 
your library.
When on a sampling safari, always try to capture more sound 
length than you need, then edit later by using the S900's ability 
to discard unwanted portions of a sample. It is also a good idea 
to *save your memory to disk* before making drastic or 
irreversible changes to programs and samples. As you forge ahead 
and experiment, you don't want to burn your bridges behind you.
One way to get started is to take samples from existing 
recordings. This may not be the most original route, but it 
provides excellent training in the art of sampling. While the CD 
player is the medium of choice due to both sound quality and ease 
of cueing, phonograph records or even high quality cassette tapes 
will do almost as well. The libraries of most colleges and large 
metropolitan areas carry a selection of classical music CDs and 
phonograph records that are available for rental at very modest 
fees. (Note: the copyright implications of sampling from existing 
recordings are not clear; *EM* does not endorse sampling or 
recording any copyrighted material. You should consider the moral 
and ethical implications of taking sounds from others' recordings 
regardless of whether or not you apply creative input to them.)
When sampling complex sounds such as loud, full orchestral 
textures from pre-recorded material, the quality of the playback 
medium is not so important. However, delicate textures (such as 
light strings, oboes, etc.) almost *require* that the actual 
instruments be played directly to the sampler, or sampled from a 
CD, due to the inherent noise levels of tape and vinyl.
When it's time to hook your system's stereo output to the S900's 
mono line input, adjust your mixer or balance controls for a 3 dB 
(or greater) difference between the left and right channels. This 
prevents phase cancellation from messing around with your high 
end and/or hollowing out the bottom. Also, watch your recording 
level very closely. If your meter reaches those six dots at the 
far right of the LCD record display, you have introduced digital 
distortion into the signal. You may not notice anything amiss at 
first; however, if you listen to the sample played an octave or 
more below its original frequency, the "garbage" will become 
evident.
I've found the best single instruments to sample are those with a 
fairly linear and consistent attack and decay envelope. The 
amplitude envelope for a flute or piano doesn't have to change 
with every note to still sound natural to the ear, even in a 
solo. But guitars or saxes exhibit a high degree of fluctuation 
in sound, especially in their attack, and they tend to sound much 
less natural when played from a sampler--especially when used "up 
front" in a mix. It can be amazing how much a perfectly sampled 
recording of a sax can sound just like an accordion when you try 
to work with it on some ranges of the keyboard. That effect could 
be good, but only if you're after an accordion sound! (What works 
for me is to record the guitar or sax sound as "straight" as 
possible--no pitch bend or vibrato--then add modulation and 
pitch-bending with real time controls such as wheels--Ed.)
For great orchestral samples, check the point of climax in a 
phrase or section of music. Endings are also excellent places to 
find chords and "hits." Besides classical selections, soundtrack 
recordings are often ripe with musical textures that sample well 
and loop easily. And keep in mind that students of traditional 
instruments at nearby colleges and universities are often 
available for sampling sessions; sometimes all you need to do is 
put a notice on a music department bulletin board. There are no 
rules on where to look, only suggestions.
Drums and related percussion samples are everywhere! Beyond the 
obvious capability of sampling traditional drum sounds, 
practically *anything* can be used percussively if handled 
creatively. For example, sampling the sound of a screwdriver 
tapping a table with gated reverb produces an incredible 
explosive punch. Played an octave or so below the sampled pitch, 
the effect sounds huge! Coughs, chair squeaks, firecrackers, door 
slams, grunts, animal noises and even laughter can effectively 
"dress up" an otherwise routine drum kit. (Incidentally, a gated 
reverb effect is simplicity itself: sample the drum sound with 
reverb, then truncate the end to suit--Ed.)
With the 11.878 seconds of memory available at its maximum 
bandwidth of 16 kHz, the S900 can even be used for simple 
manipulation of vocal or instrumental parts within a song. Just 
sing or play that difficult phrase into memory and "presto," from 
then on you perform the entire phrase at the press of a single 
key whenever you need it in the song. Totally acceptable guitar 
samples can also be made with the bandwidth narrowed to around 9 
or 10 kHz, thus providing over 21 seconds of sampling time.

CONCERNING THE DISK DRIVE AND RELATED COMMANDS
First and foremost, *be very careful!* The S900 (version 1.2) has 
no "double checking" to see if you really want to erase that 
file, memory, or disk, and that could spell trouble if you push 
buttons first and ask questions later. The advantage, of course, 
is that veteran samplers can save time by not having to answer 
those "Are You Sure?"-type questions. But always think before you 
act, since many pages in the S900 put you just one keystroke away 
from some form of annihilation.
You *can* avoid most serious mishaps by getting into the practice 
of consistently making backup disks of your most treasured 
samples, and write-protecting your "keeper" disks. Remember, a 
disk never fails until the most important session or performance 
of your life--so keep backups handy.
Another S900 disk operation quirk concerns the "return to home" 
error response. For example, if an error occurs when trying to 
save to a write-protected disk, the machine "locks up," blinks 
all its LEDs, and tells you the problem (and its solution) with a 
cute little message "OOPS! Disk is write protected. Take it out 
and close the switch in the corner." What the LCD *doesn't* 
mention is that upon recovering from the error by pressing the 
Disk button to unfreeze the machine, you are now in the Load From 
Disk option on page 1 (the exact opposite of what you wanted). 
Pressing the enter key at this point would cause the unit to 
*erase its memory* and attempt to load from the disk, thus 
throwing your hard work from memory into data oblivion! Always 
check that you have selected the right function before attempting 
to re-save.
Also note that in version 1.2, the S900 does not verify data 
after writing to the disk. If by chance you do save to a 
defective disk, you have no way of knowing that until you try 
unsuccessfully to load it back into memory at some later time. 
Hopefully, a verify feature will be available as a later upgrade 
(hint, hint), but meanwhile, once again the solution is to make a 
backup any time you dump memory to disk. The odds against two bad 
disks in a row are pretty great, unless you spilled coke on them 
or something equally as devastating!
Speaking of devastating, I recommend that you don't even think 
about using Single Sided/Double Density (SS/DD) disks! They mess 
up regularly--and when you least expect it--when used in a 
double-sided disk drive like the S900. You are not saving money 
by buying SS/DD disks, you are buying aggravation and 
frustration. Use *only* Double Sided/Double Density disks 
(DS/DD).
The S900 allows up to ten characters for program and sample 
filenames. Take advantage of this and give your samples 
descriptive names; this will make it much easier to locate them 
and swap sounds around from disk to disk. Naming the original 
sample pitch within the filename (e.g. FLUTE D3, TAH DAH C1, 
etc.) can also be a big help, especially when constructing 
multiple samples of the same instrument. It makes it much easier 
to assign the split points later when working within the program 
edit section, and also gives the sample an identity independent 
of the program that plays it.

LEARNING FROM THE COMPETITION
Akai was faced with the traditional "cart before the horse" 
quandry when they made the big decision to release the S900 
*before* developing their own extensive library of sampled 
sounds. However, the factory collection already has some 
breathtaking selections and it is still growing. Get in touch 
with your dealer every now and then, because new factory disks 
are expected to be released periodically. 
I feel software support is very important. In fact, I attribute 
much of the staying power of E-mu's famous Emulator line of 
samplers to the vast amount of user-generated samples generated 
by the factory, and also by their very active users group. E-mu's 
support of their users goes so far as sponsoring sound swap 
parties. In my opinion, if the Akai S900 Digital Sampler is to 
thrive in today's hyper-competitive "here today and gone 
tommorrow" electronic music marketplace, it will need the support 
of its own users group actively backed by none other than Akai 
itself. Meanwhile, the S900 is quite a machine--especially once 
you learn its operating system well enough for it to do your 
bidding.

[end of phile]

 immagine da: 

http://sp1200.myfastforum.org/..._tips_about5.html

links: 

Akai S900 resource page -- http://www.xfader.com/akai/ 

video how-to:
AKAI S900 VIDEO MAN.zip - 486.69MB -- http://www.zshare.net/download/562917677ccbf54e/
s950 video tutorial -- http://writers-connection.noblogs.org/...eo-manual 

Akai S-series samplers website -- http://akai.brothelowner.com/jules/

La notte scorsa è scomparso uno dei più grandi protagonisti della pop music degli ultimi 40 anni: Michael Jackson. Le cause della morte non sono ancora certe; l’autopsia verrà eseguita in giornata. Voglio ricordare questa grandissima stella dello spettacolo con uno dei suoi videoclip più belli: "Thriller" diretto da John Landis.

Riposa In Pace. 

link:

Michael Jackson video tribute by Peanut Butter Wolf — http://www.stonesthrow.com/news/2009/06/pbw-mj-video-tribute 

Michael Jackson Looper — http://www.autistici.org/2000-maniax/looper/MJ%20Looper%20-%201958-2009.exe 

This informations works not only for the SP 1200 sampler but also for all the
other samplers: replace "SP-1200" with the name of your favorite sampler.

your friendly neighborhood… THX

source: SP 1200 user manual; appendix A – fonte: manuale utente della drumachine E-mu SP 1200 (pp.67 e seguenti) 

[…] 

APPENDIX A: THE ART OF SAMPLING

Recording good samples is not always easy; creating a really super set of sounds requires patience, practice, and skill. Sure, you can get musically useful results within a few days after working with the SP-1200, but as you learn your craft the quality of your samples will improve dramatically.
Sampling involves two major processes:
1. Taking the best possible sample.
2. Manipulating the sample within the SP-1200 (truncating and looping).

PART 1: TAKING THE BEST POSSIBLE SAMPLE
What comes out of the SP-1200 can only be as good as what you put in. Strive for maximum fidelity when sampling. Here are some ways to increase sample quality.

GENERAL TIPS
• Live sampling: Sample “live” whenever possible, rather than recording a sound on tape then sampling from the tape.
• Beware of overloads: The SP-1200 is a digital recording device. Unlike analog recording devices, distortion does not increase slowly past a certain level; rather, it increases rapidly above the overload point, and produces a “non-musical”, splattering type of distortion. Monitor your levels carefully.
• Sampling direct vs. sampling via microphone: Whenever possible, sample electronic instruments directly into the SP-1200. Avoid using a recording console, direct box, or other device in between the instrument and SP-1200.
• Maintain the instrument to be sampled: Tune your instrument if applicable, and check that the instrument doesn’t have any loose parts that rattle, squeak, or make other noises.
• Sampling acoustic instruments: Choose the microphone and mic placement as carefully as you would for any recording project. Musicians sometimes note how hard it is to get a good “sound” in the studio, but that’s what sampling is all about…getting a good sound, and once you’ve got that sound, keeping it.
• Play naturally: Sometimes it’s a lot harder to play one note than several hundred. Unless you’re trying for a special effect, play the sample as you would normally play the instrument. It’s often a good idea to play several notes, and use truncation to zero in on the best of the bunch.
• Avoid ground loops: Ground loops occur when electricity can take two different paths to ground. If there is a resistance difference between the two paths, this can generate a signal (consisting mostly of digital “hash”) that can work its way into the recording chain. With all the instruments patched in place and connected to each other, turn off the SP-1200 and insert a ground lift adapter between the SP-1200 plug and the wall. CAUTION: Removing the ground connection defeats the safety advantage of using a three-wire plug. Make sure the SP-1200 chassis has some other path to ground (usually via the audio input and output cables). Having two paths to ground can cause ground loops, but having no paths to ground can cause a potential shock hazard if there’s an equipment malfunction in the studio.
WARNING: E-MU cannot be responsible for the use of ground lifters in improperly or inadequately wired environments.
• Using signal processing while recording: Just as with regular recording, there are no absolutes about recording signals with or without signal processing. Some engineers feel that tracks should always be recorded flat to allow for the maximum number of options during mixdown; others prefer to record with a bit of processing, especially if the processor might be needed on another track when mixing.
Here are some thoughts about the use of various types of signal processors when recording samples.
• External Preamp: If you need to preamplify the signal being sampled, set the Sample section GAIN SET to 00 dB and use an external, high-quality preamp to increase the signal level going into the SP-1200. The SP-1200 preamp noise level, while acceptable, is sometimes not as quiet as an external mic preamp.
• Limiting Dynamic Range: Limiting the signal being sampled can put a higher average signal level into the SP-1200, thus improving the already excellent signal-tonoise ratio. Also, the limit point can be set just under the SP-1200 overload point, which makes level setting less critical.
• Equalization: If using EQ gives a better instrument sound, then use it. You want the best possible sound going into the SP-1200, so if a little EQ is indicated, it’s usually better to add it while recording rather than having to think about it during playback.
• Compression: Compression can be helpful when looping sounds since it evens out level changes, thus reducing any tendency towards loop “glitching” due to abrupt level changes between the beginning and end points of the loop. If appropriate, use the SP-1200’s decay option to shorten the overall decay time and restore the original signal dynamics.
• Audio “exciters”: To brighten up a sampled signal, use a device such as an Aphex Aural Exciter or EXR Projector. Both of these devices add a high-end “sheen” without adding the stridency encountered with excessive high-frequency equalization.
• Using noise reduction: A number of single-ended noise reduction units (such as the MicMix Dynafex or Rocktron Hush) are now available; these do not require that the noisy signal have been previously encoded, as is the case with Dolby and dbx. If your source signal is noisy, one of these devices can help to greatly clean up the overall sound quality as you sample.
Maintaining sample quality when sampling from tape recordings:
Follow common-sense recording practice — be extremely careful about mic placement, use noise reduction when recording samples on to tape, limit the signal going on to tape rather than limiting the signal coming off the tape into the SP-1200, and add aural enhancement if desired.
Sampling from Compact Discs: This is a great way to get high quality drum sounds, especially with so many records having solo drum intros and breaks.
Creative use of multi-tracking: Try multi-tracking sounds on a conventional recorder, then sampling the combination sound into the SP-1200. For example, combining electronic and acoustic percussion sounds can produce some very useful results.

PART 2: MANIPULATING THE SAMPLE
Proper use of truncation and looping can conserve memory and create novel effects; let’s show how it’s done with an example. Suppose you want to sample a long, sustaining sound such as a gong. Although this will eat up a fair amount of memory, here are some suggestions.
• Compress the gong sound when sampling to even out level variations. This will help create the smoothest looping effect.
• Set a loop after the initial attack of the gong, and loop as short a section of the sound as possible to conserve memory (see Fig. Appendix-1).
• Truncate that portion of the sound after the loop end point.
• With looping, the sound will have infinite sustain. For a more realistic effect, use SET-UP function 18 (DECAY/TUNE SELECT) to set the gong for decay. Use the slider to set an appropriate decay time. Looping can also provide echo and DDL effects. Loop a complete sound so that it continually repeats. Then, use SET-UP function 18 to set a decay time; the repeats will fade out over the decay time. The effect is very similar to echo.

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