S2400 Production Tips n Tricks

S2400
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A thread in which to share your production tips using the S2400. Be as detailed as you need to be.

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I’ll start.

Sampling in dedicated effects hits.

  1. Route out a snare hit (could be any sample in fact but a snare is a good place to start) into an external effects unit. I used a reverb on an iPad and routed in to the iPad via usb.
  2. Import or record in the pure wet mix of the reverb/effect
  3. Put the reverb hit on its own track.
  4. Now you have a ton of control over how to place the reverb in the mix.
  5. I experimented with filtering, displacing the reverb hit in the seq edit page for slight delays but also found it was interesting to pull the reverb slightly ahead of the snare hit by a couple of ticks.
  6. With this particular sound I got some really interesting results putting a pitch envelope on the reverb hit! and using the attack portion of the envelope in combination with the pitch amount. Wild results through to subtle effects are possible.
  7. Last tip for playing around with this idea is - get the tail of the reverb hit as long as possible and then control the timing/length with the hi-if amp envelope.
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Can you trigger the snare hit from the 2400 while sampling the wet fx mix back into the 2400?

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You can’t trigger and record under the sample menu but you can via live loops. After recording your effected snare as a live loop you can save as sample.

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The only concern that I have is resampling wet signal from snare reverb because lining it up in the machine once the reverb is sampled will be a pain in the butt.

Although, this can result in something very interesting

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What I did in this case was record the snare into the iPad and then used that recording to trigger the reverb. I used AUM running an instance of Fab Filters Reverb on one of AUM’s channels, then I routed the audio back into the S2400 via usb. Then trimmed the reverb hit and assigned it.

I would prefer to do it all with a hardware reverb unit TBH but don’t have one at the moment. resample to live loops if you have hardware reverb.

Edit - I probably should have just put the reverb on the input channel and not bothered recording the snare.

@ cfd2

I don’t get why lining it up with the original snare hit would be an issue for you? I just played the reverb in on the snare hits then mucked around micro editing the timing of the reverb hit. This time I didn’t add any pre-delay to the reverb when i created the sample but thinking about it should have done cos it could always be adjusted with the sample start time afterwards.

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Yes, live loops. Thanks for contributing.

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My second production tip following on from sampling reverb hits is -

  1. Experiment with different reverbs to sample in, the smoother the better I think because sampling the reverb seems to add texture/grit even at 48khz 16 bit.
  2. Resample the reverb hit at 26khz 12bit and you get that early digital hardware reverb sound…nice and grainy does it!
  3. Sample in a delay hit and loop up one of the delays somewhere in the tail then control the looping delay time with the loop time and overall decay with the amp envelope. (I haven’t tried this yet)
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Got another one thanks to @DJLKEY -

Note repeat rate change on the fly for recording or playback.

  1. Get someone to hold down the quantize button.
  2. Thumb on the note repeat button.
  3. Index and middle fingers on the left/right arrow buttons change quantize value.
  4. Left hand is free to tap any pad.

Alternative to the high labour cost of step 1 - get something just heavy enough but not too heavy and just the right size to hold down the quantize button. I can picture I nice weighted, wooden internally weighted, small round cornered block with a perfect button fitting dimple on the bottom.

EDIT - Mickey put me straight on this and so a single click on the quantize button opens the quantize menu and then, shift click note repeat and then nudge buttons change quant value of whatever pad is being triggered.

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Simple but amazing shortcut for me is Shift+F2, which inserts into song mode. So heres my workflow for building out the fundamentals of a house arrangement

Setup;

  1. Make a 4 bar pattern with everything u need (e.g. bass, kick, snare, hi hate, clap, lead, chord, etc)
  2. Copy to a new pattern, and duplicate to make 8 bars
  3. Copy a 3rd pattern, dupe to make this one 16 bars

Now you have a phrase, half a phrase and 4 bars to play with to insert different mute/solo variations into a song mode using shift + F2. This can be done to build core arrangement ideas super quick!

Intro example;

  1. Go into Song mode and rename song 0 to be ‘Intro’
  2. Go back to pattern mode.
  3. Solo bass and kick only in 8 bar pattern, shift + F2
  4. Solo bass, kick, close hi hat from 4 bar pattern, press shift+F2
  5. Solo bass and close hi hat from 4 bar pattern, press shift+F2

Drop example:

  1. Navigate to song 1, and rename to ‘Drop’ and go back to pattern mode
  2. Solo bass, kick, hi hat, clap from 16 bar pattern, shift +F2
  3. Solo bass, kick, hi hat, clap and melody from 16 bar pattern, shift + F2
  4. Navigate back to song 0, scroll to end and change setting to play ‘Drop’ at end of song 0. In this example, Song 0 will automatically play Song 1.

Continue building more song sections using similar workflow for breakdown, buildup, next drop and outro. i try and keep each section between 16 and 32 bars max, but no more.

Detailed editing:

  1. Once u have all desired song sections, then convert each song section to a new pattern (press ‘Copy’ in song mode to get to this feature).
  2. Then you can move onto fine editing and adding unique moments in each of these converted patterns. As noted above keep these less than 32 bars to make the exercise manageable.

Final arrangement:

  1. Go back to song mode, and create a new song called ‘Final’
  2. Add each song section pattern to this song. Shortcut is F2 in song mode will add the last pattern you are in. Pressing F2 will add the proceeding one, so u can keep tapping F2 untill all your sections are there.
  3. Press play and record your work to your DAW or equivalent solution via USB .

Now I’ve done the above once, I can almost reuse the workflow. I.e. replace all the track samples as desired, fix up my initial 4 bar, repeat above steps. Naming of song sections, final arrangement etc doesn’t have to be repeated! Obviously fine editing section does, but you get the idea.

I’m still perfecting this but it’s a killer workflow for me. The basics can be constructed really quick and then fine editing takes more time but is section focused, so seems to result in better editing decisions compared to my old DAW workflow.

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Use this method myself, really helps get a composition brewing!

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Great tip! Thanks

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I Feed the outputs of the 2400 into a DAW, and the incoming signal runs through a VST setup as an insert etc… The VST is “Mixed In Key SE”.
This allows me to visually see key signatures and/determine what the chords in question are. as long as the loop or sample points contain only one chord within it. It’s a very accurate detection method.

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That looks like a very handy plugin so thanks for the tip. Bit pricey though.

I think I could get in the ball park with Ableton 11 alone, it’s pitch detection is pretty good as long as the signal isn’t too bass heavy (its no good on a standard 4 string bass in its lower registers), but with cleanish chords it seems to get the essential information then it’s just basic music theory after that.

Also I would highly recommend to anyone to try to get at least to the point where you can detect a simple minor from a major chord (simple being triads and minor or major 7 chords), and that will start the process of eventually learning key detection by ear.

Having said all that a tool like ‘mixed in key’ could also be an ear tutor.

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This one is for any iPad owners/users.

So I hooked up the iPad and opened up all the needed channels for audio and midi communication between the S2400 and the iPad.

Now using AUM and the midi LFO in Bram bros Rozeta I hooked up the LFO’s to some of the Pan channels and viola….swirly, panning pads! and or any other sound that could benefit from some auto pan.

I haven’t tried syncing the Rozeta LFO to midi clock (from the S2400) yet but in theory that would open up synced pan sweeps.

Unfortunately I cannot see a way to cc the sample pitch! If anyone reading this can solve that riddle I would appreciate it!

The Rozeta LFO has three distinct LFOs in it so a combination of cc’ing pan, pitch (for chorusy effects) and maybe filter could get very fruity.

NOTE - I was also sequencing 8 samples in the 2400 from Patterning 2 whilst running the 3 LFOs and the S2400 got a bit touchy/unstable….so those amounts of midi data coming in at once might be the limit of what the S2400 can handle, whilst running all the above just opening the pan screen caused serious hiccups in playback which corrected after getting out of the pan screen.

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Awesome breakdown. I’ve been doing a basic version of this and have been thinking I need a better workflow for the finer edits, but this takes it to another level! Def going to try this :+1:t2:

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Bumping this thread, as I found it via google search, so might be handy if anyone else missed it or has anything to add!

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I recommend visiting the Tips And Tricks wiki instead of reviving this old thread.

The wiki is available at: S2400 Tips And Tricks Wiki

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