S2400 Much Needed Features

S2400
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#1. 960 PPQ resolution!

For those of you that don’t know. Most beat machines, hit at a 96ppq. So turning quantize off means that your notes are set to a 1/96 resolution. Basically a 1/96 quantize. A 960ppq. Would be considered a 1/960 quantize. BIG DIFFERENCE!

#2. Sample stacking! 4 samples per pad? With adjustable envelopes. All the bells and whistles!

#3. If we added sample stacking! Bounce / merge pad ect. This would be just amazing for sound design vs resampling. Another famous peace of gear did this. :arrow_down:

#4. The Ensoniq ASR-10 and EPS looping features, find loop and synthesize loop ect. There was a bunch of different settings to help you find the loop points. If you haven’t used either of those. :flushed: You can loop anything. An I’m not talking a break or loop. I’m talking seamless loops on a one shot sample. You can literally sample anything and turn it into a instrument. It’s so amazing. Why people don’t talk about this feature astonishes me. But hey, there’s mad threads and long winded discussions on turning of the quantize on a drum machine that only had a ppq resolution of 96ppq. SO go figure.

#5. After that it’s just a beast of a machine, and your prolly gonna’ need to start working on the editor. Lol

:rofl:

Just turn the damn thing into a sample based lofi synthesizer / drum synth, beat box, you should defiantly with out a doubt, be able to synthesize drum sounds on it and be able to resample and stack them with samples.

IMVHO!

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Never tried an asr-10 but I’m interested in what the looping features you’re talking about are?

For me I would love if there was a feature to have the envelopes locked timing wise, so they work more like envelopes on a synth. The percentaged based envelopes are nice when working with one shots but for making synth sounds of waveforms or other samples they can be pretty limiting. They can also really get on your nerves when you adjust release time and it accidentally screws up your attack time and you have to go back redo that for example.

That together with some more polyphony and the ability to play one sample polyphonically would come a long way for melodic/chord stuff for me. Just want to sample some mellotron and piano and stuff like that I can play polyphonically from one track. The dream would be some kind of mpc-keygroup thing with multisamples.

Layering of samples would also be great!

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Those features would be cool for sure. Esp looping and stacking.

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The ASR-10’s looping features are insane man.

The ASR- is kinda pricey, but if you come across a OG EPS, they can be had for under $500 easy. Like $350 or so. GRAB IT.

Seriously the seamless looping is insane. You could sample a obscure horror movie string sound that has all sorts of modulation and envelopes. An with a few tweaks, in a manner of SECONDS. Have a perfectly seamless loop.

There is NO OTHER GEAR that does this.

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Cool! I will set some money aside for when come across one.

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How about them Kurzweils?

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Ok you got me! I only played with a k2600 in collage, and it was very brief. I didn’t dig that deep into it.

Does it actually do it? Does it have all of the looping algorithms like the ASR-10 or EPS? Synthesize Loop?

Like the Akai Z and 4K have auto looping, The e-4 and ultras do to, but it’s a straight shot loop start and end. The Ensoniq stuff like literally rearranges the samples and loops it.

I’ll have to read the Kurzweil manual.

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Just skimmed the looping section in the K2500 manual. It’s not same brother! It pretty much does what any other sampler does.

The Auto Find Loop points and zero crossing work with a lot of stuff. But when that doesn’t work, the Ensoniq gear has other tricks up it’s sleeve.

Also, the Ensoniq asr-x doesn’t do this stuff either. Just the ASR-10 and EPS.

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the problem is with only 8 voices you are going to run out of sustaining voices very quickly. My studio 440 can do that trick ( become an 8 voice poly sampler ) but in practice you cant do much with it if you are trying to create a full track on the unit. That said it would be sweet to have the option, but I think would be more handy in the case of for example poly drum samples in multi mode. A dynamic allocation function (where you set the output to ‘dyn’ and then they get sent to the mix out from whatever free output is available in that moment) would be pretty sweet.

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960 ppq in theory is cool, but I had an MPC4000 and honesty I never used the quantize off mode, there was a mode called ‘off 96’ that emulated 96ppq. but fully off meant that you really had to have superior finger drumming skills to get things exactly where you wanted them.

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You might be right. I have never used a Kurzweil, nor an Ensoniq. My waverex actually does what you describe. Waverex is a pcm card for my Korg M1R EX, so there is at least one other brand…

Sorry for the OT.

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I use it all the time on my 5k and MPC Ren.

An I don’t think you need to be a superior drummer to use it. You just need to have a little bit of rhythm, and creativity! An 96ppq, will not allow you to have your own feel and rhythm.

IMO 96ppq doesn’t even come close. It will totally through off the groove. For example if I need a hihat, to hit on the 1/128 it can’t do it.

I was working on a beat one time with quantize off on a 1k. An shyt was dope. But there was this one spot I wanted a hi hat. I spent over a hour trying to get that damn hi hat in place. An every time I would hit it, right where it needed to be, but on play back. Bam it got shifted. That’s when I started researching the ppq. Then I sold my 1k bought 5k.

This is how I do it. With out being a superior finger drummer.

Start with a 1 bar loop, sequence two snares.

Copy and paste that to a two bar loop, then add the hi hats.

Then copy and paste that, to a 4 bar loop, add the kicks,

Then copy and pastor to a 8 bar loop, and add the rolls.

Blam!

So you don’t need to be a superior finger drummer. Just work on one sound at a time. The point or object, is to give your samples and beat, or more natural organic feel. 96ppq really can’t fudge with the 960ppq but hen your trying to get that feel.

If you have something that does it, TRY IT. It’s fun! Most daws can do it, if you don’t have a peace of hardware that can.

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Been trying to google but can’t find the formula to calculate.

How much time in milliseconds would the smallest ”grid” step be for 96ppq in say a tempo of 100bpm? Just trying to get an idea of the difference in resolution.

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Hahahah I tried that trick with the 1k. My gripe with doing it that way. Is the click track starts going so fast it just throws your hole vibe off. The. Then you got the accent click with normal click, I spent less than five minutes trying that shyt, and was like nobody makes beats this way.

Then since your like doubling tripling or quadruple the tempo. You have to re-figure out the bar and beats, like you could have 2 bars inside 1 bar or worse 4-1.

That hole thing is IMO, is some crap from work around, by the companies. Because they don’t want to do the work on 960ppq. To not have 960ppq, is almost insulting. It’s like a company saying, your so garbage, that putting 960ppq in this machine is a waist of time. Lol

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number of millisecs of 1 pulse:
60000 / (BPM * PPQ) =
60000 / (100 * 96) =
60000 / 9600 =
6.25 ms

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Actually the best way to record drums with no quantize on the s2400, would be to just record them on the looper tracks.

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Isn’t this kind of pointless knowledge.

No one is going to make a beat with a 60,000 BPM! They can try, but it’s one prolly not going to sound very good, and or they will quit, quickly into the attempt.

An this so called “trick” isn’t even going to give the user the actual experience of recording at 960ppq.

A click track going 60,000 bpm, is not the same as a 80bpm beat with a 960ppq.

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lol… 100 BPM and 96 PPQ → 6.25 ms grid
100 BPM and 960 PPQ → 0.625ms grid
I just answered a question @Melkerpetterson. He wanted to get a sense of the gridsize we were discussing

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I get that.

I just don’t want the discussion of using a 960ppq vs 96ppq to turn into just use the Asinine bpm work around. :rofl::man_facepalming:t2: Like NO! That’s not the goal bro! :rofl:

Because we asking for a feature in some gear that is still in development. IMVHO the s2400 could end up being a amazing peace of gear, or could end up another ASR-X Pro.

Or even worse a Beat Thang. Which ironically has a 960ppq. :rofl: But absolutely no loop features.

An I hope I didn’t or don’t come off as a dick! That’s not my intention.

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This ain’t about workarounds. Most synth players, live pad drummers know what they accept to be irrelevant for latency.

6.25ms is not irrelevant to most, to me neither. A grid of 6.25 is as bad as 6.25 ms latency. The max error while quantizing is half of that, but this error can go in either direction, so it is just as bad.

So I am on your side. Relax dude!