Yes it sounds fantastic and has a very nice character, something you don't hear much today in modern music. sometimes i think low bit rate beats especially from old hardware can sound better that high fi beats. they add a lot of colour and character which goes well with drum beats. the tune by uptown dope on plastic was sampled on one of these. i have sampled the original kool and the gang beat on modern programs and DAW etc etc i found it impossible to recreate that sound that the old hip hop and rap guys got from one of these.
@@Boujonzu The Great E-mu Systems War never happened because Md2802 made fun of the name of the company and one of the stupidest wars ever, The Great Emu War of 1932, which came about because of the public concern of these tall brown flightless birds running amok in the Campion district of Western Australia, eating the crops that the farmers were growing during the Great Depression. That’s the joke.
For nearly a year I had a borrowed SP-1200 (in the early 2000s). The sound is that great, gritty 12-bit crunch that's still popular today, but it wasn't that big of deal for me as I already had 8-bit and 12-bit samplers in my studio. The greatest thing for me was the workflow. That's the most underrated feature IMO. The panel graphics are essentially a manual that's always in front of you and using the sliders for all parameter input is pure genius. It's a very simple and intuitive machine. I wish more devices would have copied that aspect.
Thanks for your story. Yes, that is indeed very true, gives you a simple sound engine that has a character to it and then a selection of choice options for control of your sounds and that's basically it! There is something to be said for simplicity. A Juno synthesizer is another such example.
In the late 90 's I finally got the sp1200 I sat in a room full of records , I was intimidated at first but 5 hours later I was making beats I fell in love with that drum machine super dope
I can only imagine the joy of doing that. I don't have the room full of vinyl, I just have about 20 or so that I used for this video, but I can imagine a lifetime of exploring that.
Phil Collins loved this machine (and the SP12 before it) so much he used it for nearly a decade. Listen to his own "But Seriously" and Genesis' "We Can't Dance" for SP1200 galore, then sometime later in the late 90s (circa 1995) he'd switch from using the SP1200 as his main rhythm machine to using drum sounds from his Korg keyboards for his Dance into the Light and subsequent albums.
@@jaibhimadevi5805 Well the Roland CR-78 happened to play a big part in his 1st hit which you already know which one i'm talking about. He once introduced Roland the Bisexual drum machine on stage as he said he didn't mind who he played with.
@@jaibhimadevi5805 when sampling drum machines came in some drummers embraced it and adapted, while others basically hated on them and many got left behind.
I wonder if there is an Amiga software that it can turn it into E-mu SP1200. On standard 6800 CPU you can use 4 channels, but on expanded CPU you can mix channels and have more.
Oh, nice to see Barry Beats . Love his videos as much as I love yours :) something special about those lo-fi aliased samples coming out from older gear. Then I am one of those now old people who was raised with Amiga 500 8bit ProTracker sample-songs and still like the sound of many of them :)
This is honestly one of my favorite videos Alex, I was telling my livestream how you literally made the SP1200 something I’d be interested looking at more. After years of being told how revolutionary it was, and never getting it, in this short video you laid out everything perfectly. Thank you!
Hey Stephen! Ah, I'm glad to be able to get that across. I've fallen for it hard, especially the quite extreme limitations which are weirdly liberating. "That's all I can do? OK great, let's go with it". I've been sampling bits of my old tracks and throwing them up on Instagram if you're interested. instagram.com/tv/CRr7X2yBRF2/?
@@Ancaja123 I had a friend who owned a Mirage in the 80s. Get a couple of drinks in him and he'd be guaranteed to start waxing lyrical about his "Ensoneek" :D
One of my favorite aspects of the *Chicago 18* LP from 1986 is that it supposedly includes start to finish sounds from the predecessor, the SP 12. Chicago’s founding drummer, Danny Seraphine, had taken such a big issue with the usage of the drum machine in the previous album and took on the attitude of “if you can’t beat them join them”. His intention was to try elevating the usage of the machine i towards something that was more humanistic and not just someone who didn’t know what a drummer really did programming stuff for their own amusement. The 12 was his tool.
This was my second drum machine which I got back in 1988. It is awesome. I hope Behringer clones it, gives it more memory, a large OLED screen, 12 and 16-bit options, on board effects, resampling and looping/chopping tools. Please Behringer, after you clone the linndrum, clone the SP 1200
I never actually coveted the SP1200 back in the day. I was much keener on the Emax 2, which had a similar sound engine, but a lot more in the way of melodic tweak available for the chord merchants. And Jaz drives, more ram, a mod wheel, and ADSR. Woot! I'd love to hear a 1200 grinding out a lo-fi groove full of crunchy funk samples, with an Emax 2 doing some sophisticated riffing on top. We only ever managed to get one of each in the same studio a couple of times, and the combo sounded huge.
The SP-1200 was essential to the sound of Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust (Alan Braxe + Thomas of Daft Punk + Benjamin Diamond). The "nyquist ring" the 1200 added to the Chaka Khan Fate sample complemented it perfectly. It added that perfect amount of "shimmering glitter" to its top end. The same can be said for One More Time, which also had a lot of nyquist aliasing added to its original sample of Eddie Johns' More Spell On You. Decimort 2 has a preset (designed by professional engineers) that mimics circuit behavior of the SP-1200 perfectly. I can't compare it to an SP-1200 since I don't have one, but the sample rate cutoff is correct down to the single digits. Apparently the SP-1200 isn't ACTUALLY a constant 26Khz, but it "jitters" slightly... if the engineers in charge of matching the presets are to be believed.
It is indeed. I hadn't heard that about clock, I'll have to check with some techy people on that front. When you pitch down the clock goes down of course, so maximum stretch is probably something like 8khz. I'll have to look that up too.
@@AlexBallMusic The jitter effect in Decimort seems to be used to some degree in almost every vintage sampler preset that Decimort has. I don't understand HOW a digital sampler might have a non static sample rate that changes (jitters), but my guess is that the engineers knew what they were doing. Fingers crossed that your contact understands it better than we do. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's emulating some sort of imperfect power delivery system on the complex circuit boards of these older samplers. They were insanely complex back then. When I use the jitter feature, my brain doesn't say "that's the sample rate being modulated". Instead, it just sounds like extra bit reduction, except it follows the amplitude of the sample more closely than regular bit reduction does.
@@SiliconPrairie So the answer (from an engineer and SP 1200 expert) is... When it's sampling, all other functions are switched off. The Z80 uses a crystal for timing that may be a tiny bit off, but that doesn't fluctuate. When they did analysis of the SP 1200 there wasn't any sample rate jitter. So this could be a red herring?
@@AlexBallMusic Very interesting! Either the engineer in charge of Decimort's preset programming made a mistake, or its jitter feature is not correctly named/described? I have no doubt in my mind that your source is correct. D16's engineers likely just did A/B testing using a spectrograph and educated ear. As per Decimort's manual: "Jitter - Controlling the intensity of random, short-period Resampler’s deviations... Jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumed periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock source" Now that I watch your end clip with those intense nyquist rings, I can tell there's little to no "jitter" as the manual describes it. I know based on many hours of using this plugin what jitter sounds like, and clear, harmonic sounding nyquist aliases cannot exist when jitter is anywhere north of 5%. The shimmering ring sound becomes more of a sickly groan... If I could get my hands on a few samples of a sine wave pre and post SP-1200, I bet I'd find that the amount of jitter used in Decimort 2 was a mistake. D16 is very serious about the authenticity of their vintage sample machine emulations, so they'd probably be interested to learn of these findings as well.
@Snake Plissken I once disliked a video whose title claimed Elvis was racist, with very little evidence to back it up. (even if he was, this tawdry TH-cam shit-pedlar didn't deserve clicks from it) Think that's the only time I've done it.
Thank You for an indepth on the SP1200 for those of us who have never seen one in person & it's functions, I now want one more then ever especially the new reissue (Rossum) as of 2022, hopefully I can cop b4 they're back out of production. Props to Barry Beats on the audio example treats. Nice1's.
@@AlexBallMusic I will never forget that Eno quote that speaks about how we'll emulate the imperfections of old gear as soon as we're able to surpass those limitations. No surprise you find software these days that intricately recreates old analog/digital gear.
@@carlosserrano3985 I find it hard to believe that we won't have that exact same mindset with today's gear in 10 or 20 years. I find people in online circles who are absolutely infatuated with stuff that came out in the mid 2000's, whether it be analog, digital or even virtual. Personally, I do believe it all boils down to nostalgia ultimately, although it is hard to deny that vintage gear was designed with a lot of care and attention.
I am seriously considering running a lot of the samples I use a lot through something like this just to get that lovely crunch, it's such a delightful sound
I'm lucky enough to own one of these wonderful machines. This video is a brilliant overview. The SP1200 somehow manages to be more than the sum of it's parts. I read Neil Landstrum describe his as "Like Fisher Price had designed a sampler". I absolutely get that - the charming immediacy and the chunky sound.
This is the kind of instrument that didn't even appear to be an instrument at the time, and seemed somewhat limited and expensive, while also somehow allowing for some great music to be made by those who happened to dive into it. No doubt plenty of people wrote it off when it was new and yet some dug down and explored all it was capable of, and made it famous. That really doesn't happen anymore today thanks to the power of VSTs and the ability to recreate almost any sound, but these types of machines are still in high demand because they do it so effortlessly.
I'd love to know if it caught on quickly, or if that happened slowly as the tricks were discovered. I guess the Emulator / Drumulator / SP-12 run had set it up to be a success?
Great explanation of why it's so loved & great examples. The last 30 seconds sounds exactly like half of my record collection (Barry Beats LP included). Nice.
Hi Barry. Glad to hear you're still around. Your Rythm Roulette was Phenomenal, and I followed your work for a while after. Very inspiring and learned a lot! Gonna go and see whatever is going on on your channel, or with Si Spex! Cheers
Mate this is the first video I have seen of yours and I’m blown away!! I love arturia’s recreation of the EMU II, I have created many songs using it. Great video Jake Ps I’ve subbed!
Restrictions are usually seen as negative, but are sometimes the key to ingenuity and inspiration. For those familiar with video games, this was Nintendo's approach in the early and mid years (late 80's - 2010's?). By forcing their in house developers to work with hardware 1 or more generations behind, they had to find ways to work around limitations and focus on solid and tight game mechanics. The original PS1 also had a bit of this to an extend since it had a relatively long life span.
Wow, I really had no idea how important this drum machine/sampler was in context to the progression of modern music, and hip hop. Great educational video! Thanks Alex, you are THE MAN when it comes to electronic instruments education!!!
Great video as always! Isn't it funny that eight voice polyphony in a drum machine seems limited? Considering a real drummer can never produce more than four notes at a time it's actually quite a lot to work with.
I've been using an Emu Emax lately, I've read the sample engine is remarkably similar to the SP1200, which wouldn't surprise me. As a heavy user of early Akai samplers, and the Ensoniq Mirage, I was realllly struck by how strange and limited the transposing is on the Emax. It gets crunchy FAST as you transpose down. Haven't made hip hop beats in years but it was very easy to make some SP1200 style jams, it really is incredibly similar to my ears.
I have the SP-1200 along with an Emax and although they sound very similar the SP sound just can’t be replicated … But the Emax can manipulate sound in ways that the SP can’t do either way they both sound amazing 👍🏼👍🏼
Hey Alex - love all your retro gear retrospectives. I remember most of them as gear I would have liked but couldn't afford. Still can't afford the 2nd hand prices 😀 but wouldn't want any now, with potential associated headaches 😱 Very happyy with more affordable and reliable modern tech. But love watching these 😍
Thanks Ian. Yeah, retro gear comes with its baggage. I'm lucky to be able to borrow a lot of stuff because my channel would otherwise be massively out of my price range. ;)
Excellent- I’d never heard of this bit of kit - but now I have, I’ll be playing ‘spot the SP1200’ whenever I play anything sample based from the nineties and noughties!
Fascinating! I wonder how difficult it would be to build something "like it sortof" using a raspberry Pi and an A/D D/A board.... Wonderful instrument. Want one!
@@6581punk yep I.like the idea of fpga but one would still have to interface the a/d+d/a converters as well as the RAM. It would be.blindingly quick though. The Pi thought has going for it COTS hardware as well as in built networking which offers the really weird possibility of a distributed analogue modelling synthesizer across multiple Pi modules. A pity the latency across the Internet is so high else one could have a real-time'ish modular Pi instrument distributed around the planet lol
the character of the internal clock is a real thing for sure. one of those machines who's technical flaws make it good somehow. SP12s were dirt cheap at one point, I traded one for a copy of reason 1.0
That's why I love.....SP crunch!
(Kicking myself for thinking of that _after_ making the video)
Helloooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
nice video buddy : )
Do one on the Boss/Roland SP series.
Yes it sounds fantastic and has a very nice character, something you don't hear
much today in modern music. sometimes i think low bit rate beats especially
from old hardware can sound better that high fi beats. they add a lot of colour
and character which goes well with drum beats. the tune by uptown dope on
plastic was sampled on one of these. i have sampled the original kool and the
gang beat on modern programs and DAW etc etc i found it impossible to recreate
that sound that the old hip hop and rap guys got from one of these.
mate I am nodding my head 3 seconds in
I can't believe Australia went to war against these beautiful machines.
😂
hahahaha yes
The Great Emu Systems war. Never forget ;'(
poor emus : (
HAHAHAHAHAH
@@Boujonzu The Great E-mu Systems War never happened because Md2802 made fun of the name of the company and one of the stupidest wars ever, The Great Emu War of 1932, which came about because of the public concern of these tall brown flightless birds running amok in the Campion district of Western Australia, eating the crops that the farmers were growing during the Great Depression. That’s the joke.
“EMU’s history is a story for another time”
a story for another documentary mayhaps???
There is a great interview with Dave Rossum and other emu-people on youtube somewhere, where he talks about digital filters and so on :)
..leaving my options open...
Yes yes yes yes
@@AlexBallMusic please do it! :)
This is the video I was thinking about with Dave th-cam.com/video/pDS2sDg0eP0/w-d-xo.html
I can't understand why I want this, it's clunky, it looks like a cash register and I believe I now understand what love feels like.
It actually is a cash register for any seller
If u do get one buy the new Rossum one
For nearly a year I had a borrowed SP-1200 (in the early 2000s). The sound is that great, gritty 12-bit crunch that's still popular today, but it wasn't that big of deal for me as I already had 8-bit and 12-bit samplers in my studio. The greatest thing for me was the workflow. That's the most underrated feature IMO. The panel graphics are essentially a manual that's always in front of you and using the sliders for all parameter input is pure genius. It's a very simple and intuitive machine. I wish more devices would have copied that aspect.
Thanks for your story. Yes, that is indeed very true, gives you a simple sound engine that has a character to it and then a selection of choice options for control of your sounds and that's basically it!
There is something to be said for simplicity. A Juno synthesizer is another such example.
I usched thisch on Schack to the Future.
In the late 90 's I finally got the sp1200 I sat in a room full of records , I was intimidated at first but 5 hours later I was making beats I fell in love with that drum machine super dope
I can only imagine the joy of doing that. I don't have the room full of vinyl, I just have about 20 or so that I used for this video, but I can imagine a lifetime of exploring that.
Still like the sound of that Machine.
Basically timeless by this point!
This machine sounds like the feeling of a good blanket in winter, I love it.
Phil Collins loved this machine (and the SP12 before it) so much he used it for nearly a decade. Listen to his own "But Seriously" and Genesis' "We Can't Dance" for SP1200 galore, then sometime later in the late 90s (circa 1995) he'd switch from using the SP1200 as his main rhythm machine to using drum sounds from his Korg keyboards for his Dance into the Light and subsequent albums.
I always thought to myself re: Phil Collins "Wow... a drummer who doesn't despise drum machines!"
@@jaibhimadevi5805 Well the Roland CR-78 happened to play a big part in his 1st hit which you already know which one i'm talking about. He once introduced Roland the Bisexual drum machine on stage as he said he didn't mind who he played with.
@@jaibhimadevi5805 when sampling drum machines came in some drummers embraced it and adapted, while others basically hated on them and many got left behind.
@@jaggass The Bisexual drum machine?
The feel of the sequencer is what makes the sp 1200 so legendary. Its so loose and swingy and spacious, its awesome
The little house ditty around 8:00 gave me major Amiga vibes. It has that same CRONCH the Paula chip has. That lo-fi sound is just so damn charming.
Thanks! Yes, both fizzy and soupy. Just somehow all works as a whole.
I wonder if there is an Amiga software that it can turn it into E-mu SP1200. On standard 6800 CPU you can use 4 channels, but on expanded CPU you can mix channels and have more.
@@dvuemedia Octamed.
@@benanderson89 - I know about Octamed tracker.
*opens other tab with BasoonTracker and keeps jamming*
Oh cheers Alex 🙏🏼 thanks very much for the plug 🤓🍿
Thanks for the very useful tutorial!
Oh, nice to see Barry Beats . Love his videos as much as I love yours :) something special about those lo-fi aliased samples coming out from older gear. Then I am one of those now old people who was raised with Amiga 500 8bit ProTracker sample-songs and still like the sound of many of them :)
Yeah, the sound that takes you back. :)
Barry - what a gem, yes!
This is honestly one of my favorite videos Alex, I was telling my livestream how you literally made the SP1200 something I’d be interested looking at more. After years of being told how revolutionary it was, and never getting it, in this short video you laid out everything perfectly. Thank you!
Hey Stephen!
Ah, I'm glad to be able to get that across. I've fallen for it hard, especially the quite extreme limitations which are weirdly liberating. "That's all I can do? OK great, let's go with it".
I've been sampling bits of my old tracks and throwing them up on Instagram if you're interested.
instagram.com/tv/CRr7X2yBRF2/?
@@AlexBallMusic this is rad dude! I think we need to link up on something creatively…👀👀
My favorite example of the SP12 (not SP1200), is its use by Terry Lewis & Jimmy Jam on Janet Jacksons Rhythm Nation. It's god damn perfect.
Coupled with the ever grittier Ensoniq Mirage.
@@rommix0 yes!!! I own 3, beautifully underrated sampler.
@@Ancaja123 I had a friend who owned a Mirage in the 80s. Get a couple of drinks in him and he'd be guaranteed to start waxing lyrical about his "Ensoneek" :D
😮WOOOOWWW!!!!!!!
One of my favorite aspects of the *Chicago 18* LP from 1986 is that it supposedly includes start to finish sounds from the predecessor, the SP 12. Chicago’s founding drummer, Danny Seraphine, had taken such a big issue with the usage of the drum machine in the previous album and took on the attitude of “if you can’t beat them join them”. His intention was to try elevating the usage of the machine i towards something that was more humanistic and not just someone who didn’t know what a drummer really did programming stuff for their own amusement. The 12 was his tool.
This was my second drum machine which I got back in 1988. It is awesome. I hope Behringer clones it, gives it more memory, a large OLED screen, 12 and 16-bit options, on board effects, resampling and looping/chopping tools. Please Behringer, after you clone the linndrum, clone the SP 1200
I never actually coveted the SP1200 back in the day. I was much keener on the Emax 2, which had a similar sound engine, but a lot more in the way of melodic tweak available for the chord merchants. And Jaz drives, more ram, a mod wheel, and ADSR. Woot!
I'd love to hear a 1200 grinding out a lo-fi groove full of crunchy funk samples, with an Emax 2 doing some sophisticated riffing on top. We only ever managed to get one of each in the same studio a couple of times, and the combo sounded huge.
The SP-1200 was essential to the sound of Music Sounds Better With You by Stardust (Alan Braxe + Thomas of Daft Punk + Benjamin Diamond). The "nyquist ring" the 1200 added to the Chaka Khan Fate sample complemented it perfectly. It added that perfect amount of "shimmering glitter" to its top end. The same can be said for One More Time, which also had a lot of nyquist aliasing added to its original sample of Eddie Johns' More Spell On You. Decimort 2 has a preset (designed by professional engineers) that mimics circuit behavior of the SP-1200 perfectly.
I can't compare it to an SP-1200 since I don't have one, but the sample rate cutoff is correct down to the single digits. Apparently the SP-1200 isn't ACTUALLY a constant 26Khz, but it "jitters" slightly... if the engineers in charge of matching the presets are to be believed.
It is indeed. I hadn't heard that about clock, I'll have to check with some techy people on that front.
When you pitch down the clock goes down of course, so maximum stretch is probably something like 8khz. I'll have to look that up too.
@@AlexBallMusic The jitter effect in Decimort seems to be used to some degree in almost every vintage sampler preset that Decimort has. I don't understand HOW a digital sampler might have a non static sample rate that changes (jitters), but my guess is that the engineers knew what they were doing. Fingers crossed that your contact understands it better than we do. If I had to guess, I'd say that it's emulating some sort of imperfect power delivery system on the complex circuit boards of these older samplers. They were insanely complex back then. When I use the jitter feature, my brain doesn't say "that's the sample rate being modulated". Instead, it just sounds like extra bit reduction, except it follows the amplitude of the sample more closely than regular bit reduction does.
@@SiliconPrairie So the answer (from an engineer and SP 1200 expert) is...
When it's sampling, all other functions are switched off. The Z80 uses a crystal for timing that may be a tiny bit off, but that doesn't fluctuate.
When they did analysis of the SP 1200 there wasn't any sample rate jitter.
So this could be a red herring?
@@AlexBallMusic Very interesting! Either the engineer in charge of Decimort's preset programming made a mistake, or its jitter feature is not correctly named/described? I have no doubt in my mind that your source is correct. D16's engineers likely just did A/B testing using a spectrograph and educated ear.
As per Decimort's manual: "Jitter - Controlling the intensity of random, short-period Resampler’s deviations... Jitter is the deviation from true periodicity of a presumed periodic signal, often in relation to a reference clock source"
Now that I watch your end clip with those intense nyquist rings, I can tell there's little to no "jitter" as the manual describes it. I know based on many hours of using this plugin what jitter sounds like, and clear, harmonic sounding nyquist aliases cannot exist when jitter is anywhere north of 5%. The shimmering ring sound becomes more of a sickly groan...
If I could get my hands on a few samples of a sine wave pre and post SP-1200, I bet I'd find that the amount of jitter used in Decimort 2 was a mistake. D16 is very serious about the authenticity of their vintage sample machine emulations, so they'd probably be interested to learn of these findings as well.
And just like that, the beat SP1200 video on the information superhighway was uploaded...
🤜🤛
You never let us down. This is quality. You're such a great teacher. The attention to detail is the best !
🤜🤛
The 'thank you for watching this far' bit made me realize that I never skip a bit in your videos, because all the content is so great 😍
Ah, thank you. :)
Alex is the most fun. Thanks, amigo! Loved the MS-20 patch near the start of the video.
Who's disliking this content? I don't get it, it's an interesting video, and hardly controversial.
As they channel has grown I've collected some "fans". I guess we all need hobbies. ;)
It's always the same in a lot of big channels. I honestly think most of them are automated by Google.
@@AlexBallMusic strange how some people get their kicks, isn't it?
@Snake Plissken I once disliked a video whose title claimed Elvis was racist, with very little evidence to back it up. (even if he was, this tawdry TH-cam shit-pedlar didn't deserve clicks from it) Think that's the only time I've done it.
It cóuld be to let the almighty algorithm know this recommendation is not something they're interested in.
Thank You for an indepth on the SP1200 for those of us who have never seen one in person & it's functions, I now want one more then ever especially the new reissue (Rossum) as of 2022, hopefully I can cop b4 they're back out of production. Props to Barry Beats on the audio example treats. Nice1's.
Very disappointed that this mention of Emu had no mention of Rod Hull at all.
I'm American and I get this joke. Cultured? 🤔
Actual lolz 😆
Rod invented the ladder filter.
@@AlexBallMusic Dayum. LOL
I always wondered if Rod couldn't grab hold of the gutter, 'cos Emu was being stroppy again.
@@AlexBallMusic too soon
This showcases beautifully how artistic intent is not always aligned with technical perfection
Alex's satisfied expression when playing the 8 tuned pads is priceless. Well worth the price of admission if the video wasn't great already.
Sickest riff ever played on an SP? 😉
Such a classic, and possibly the GOAT was the master of this machine, J Dilla
I have always associated Dilla with the MPC. When was he using this?
@@JasonBrouwers the whole time he had been using the 3000. He never got rid of the SP1200
This is fun to watch, considering I'm writing a master's paper on '80s music production. :D
Ah cool! Hope this helps.
Can you post a link here when you’re done
I've really grown to appreciate the grainy, noisy qualities of old samplers. So much magic, so much character.
Yep, funny how the soul disappeared once the desired fidelity was achieved. The early ones are so much better.
@@AlexBallMusic I will never forget that Eno quote that speaks about how we'll emulate the imperfections of old gear as soon as we're able to surpass those limitations. No surprise you find software these days that intricately recreates old analog/digital gear.
I think that today's gear are fantastic but the vintage has that charming and that vibe that the new ones will never have.
@@carlosserrano3985 I find it hard to believe that we won't have that exact same mindset with today's gear in 10 or 20 years. I find people in online circles who are absolutely infatuated with stuff that came out in the mid 2000's, whether it be analog, digital or even virtual. Personally, I do believe it all boils down to nostalgia ultimately, although it is hard to deny that vintage gear was designed with a lot of care and attention.
Great video and great sounds! Was looking for an excuse to get into vintage samplers but couldn’t figure out what folks love about them - this helps!
I'll expect to see them on your channel soon. ;)
I am seriously considering running a lot of the samples I use a lot through something like this just to get that lovely crunch, it's such a delightful sound
Yep! When you pitch down and it fizzes and rings, it's just gorgeous.
by far the best sp1200 videoo i have seen, subbed
Seeing a shout-out to Barry beats really warms the heart 👍✊
Gotta love Cornwall's finest.
I'm lucky enough to own one of these wonderful machines. This video is a brilliant overview. The SP1200 somehow manages to be more than the sum of it's parts. I read Neil Landstrum describe his as "Like Fisher Price had designed a sampler". I absolutely get that - the charming immediacy and the chunky sound.
This is the kind of instrument that didn't even appear to be an instrument at the time, and seemed somewhat limited and expensive, while also somehow allowing for some great music to be made by those who happened to dive into it. No doubt plenty of people wrote it off when it was new and yet some dug down and explored all it was capable of, and made it famous.
That really doesn't happen anymore today thanks to the power of VSTs and the ability to recreate almost any sound, but these types of machines are still in high demand because they do it so effortlessly.
I'd love to know if it caught on quickly, or if that happened slowly as the tricks were discovered.
I guess the Emulator / Drumulator / SP-12 run had set it up to be a success?
Excellent overview as always, Alex, really enjoyed this!
Thanks Kira
Great explanation of why it's so loved & great examples.
The last 30 seconds sounds exactly like half of my record collection (Barry Beats LP included). Nice.
The sound is impeccable!!!
Hi Barry. Glad to hear you're still around. Your Rythm Roulette was Phenomenal, and I followed your work for a while after. Very inspiring and learned a lot! Gonna go and see whatever is going on on your channel, or with Si Spex! Cheers
Best vintage synth channel !!
Mate this is the first video I have seen of yours and I’m blown away!! I love arturia’s recreation of the EMU II, I have created many songs using it.
Great video
Jake
Ps I’ve subbed!
Restrictions are usually seen as negative, but are sometimes the key to ingenuity and inspiration. For those familiar with video games, this was Nintendo's approach in the early and mid years (late 80's - 2010's?).
By forcing their in house developers to work with hardware 1 or more generations behind, they had to find ways to work around limitations and focus on solid and tight game mechanics. The original PS1 also had a bit of this to an extend since it had a relatively long life span.
That filter was the secret sauce of the SP-1200, another great video from Mr. Ball.
What an amazing video! It was so nice to hear the sound of this thing, I didn't realize how nice it actually sounded. Lovely demos as well!
Thanks. Glad to be able to show it.
"What's that?"
"It's a f***in EMU!"
Wow, I really had no idea how important this drum machine/sampler was in context to the progression of modern music, and hip hop. Great educational video! Thanks Alex, you are THE MAN when it comes to electronic instruments education!!!
Omg ...BARRY BEATS .aka Si Spex.... it's my favourite beat by him .
Great video as always! Isn't it funny that eight voice polyphony in a drum machine seems limited? Considering a real drummer can never produce more than four notes at a time it's actually quite a lot to work with.
Yeah, that's a good point.
I've been using an Emu Emax lately, I've read the sample engine is remarkably similar to the SP1200, which wouldn't surprise me. As a heavy user of early Akai samplers, and the Ensoniq Mirage, I was realllly struck by how strange and limited the transposing is on the Emax. It gets crunchy FAST as you transpose down. Haven't made hip hop beats in years but it was very easy to make some SP1200 style jams, it really is incredibly similar to my ears.
I have the SP-1200 along with an Emax and although they sound very similar the SP sound just can’t be replicated … But the Emax can manipulate sound in ways that the SP can’t do either way they both sound amazing 👍🏼👍🏼
another fabulously informative and entertaining presentation
You didn't run it through an HM-2 once mate.
Very interesting, thanks for making a video about it in your known good style and quality. Nice loop at the end!
Yo! Big ups for using Si Spex (Barry) music. I recognized it immediately.
Great video too. Subscribed
The finest beats in Cornwall.
@@AlexBallMusic Great job mate. Have a banana
Hey Alex - love all your retro gear retrospectives. I remember most of them as gear I would have liked but couldn't afford. Still can't afford the 2nd hand prices 😀 but wouldn't want any now, with potential associated headaches 😱 Very happyy with more affordable and reliable modern tech. But love watching these 😍
Thanks Ian. Yeah, retro gear comes with its baggage. I'm lucky to be able to borrow a lot of stuff because my channel would otherwise be massively out of my price range. ;)
i love the typography and font that it has.
well designed ✌️ a true classic
I just love the sound from this beast!
I am mad about your videos, mate. Absolutely great!
Thanks!
Excellent- I’d never heard of this bit of kit - but now I have, I’ll be playing ‘spot the SP1200’ whenever I play anything sample based from the nineties and noughties!
Yeah, I'm now listening out too!
I love your groove Alex Ball
I really love this old technology, and the current prices prove that it really is an incredible achievement.
Fantastic video! Thank you
Best sounding music on this channel so far...
Thanks!
Gotta love those crispy Barry Beats Drum loops!
Hell yeah!
Wonderful, as always! Thanks loads, Alex!
Cheers Andrew!
Great video 👍
Cheers!
I hear a Barry Beats track in the background. Wicked.
My local studio had the sp12 back in the day. I tried to buy it but the owner would not sell to me. So I saved up and got an ASR-10 instead hahah
Man what a sound! Incredible.
Awesome video. Thanks!
Fantastic - thanks for keeping the history alive! Would love to see a series on the ensoniq mirage or sequential six trak line
If I can get hold of any of those I'll cover them. Yep.
You just gotta love those lovely big 80s buttons
Nice and clicky!
@@AlexBallMusic hmmmmmm... its a tactile experience... 😜
Nice! really like it, Great demo of it
Excellent as always.
Excellent job, thank you for explaining it fully, I also enjoy the bad asx musik!!!!!
What a GROOVE !!!! 😍
This thing sounds incredible, wow
Fascinating! I wonder how difficult it would be to build something "like it sortof" using a raspberry Pi and an A/D D/A board.... Wonderful instrument. Want one!
An FPGA would let you do pretty much all of it. With the benefit of being more accurate in terms of actual sound.
Good question. I imagine you could do a DIY lo-fi sampler, I've got a DigDugDIY Lo-Fi Dreams that is that kind of idea.
What you describe IS the isla 2400!
There are thousands of hours of work involved.
@@6581punk yep I.like the idea of fpga but one would still have to interface the a/d+d/a converters as well as the RAM. It would be.blindingly quick though. The Pi thought has going for it COTS hardware as well as in built networking which offers the really weird possibility of a distributed analogue modelling synthesizer across multiple Pi modules. A pity the latency across the Internet is so high else one could have a real-time'ish modular Pi instrument distributed around the planet lol
Great video. I was just reading about Rza using these last night. Nice timing.
Small world. :)
Easy Moe Bee's "Flava In Ya Ear" beat one of my fav from an SP1200 but could name hundreds more.
shout out to Barry Beats what a legend!!
That warm, grainy 12-bit sound...
🔥🔥🔥🔥 LORD that intro demo is FAT and HOT!!! Killer work mate 🔥🔥🔥🔥
Thanks!
Oh please do an Emu story...
Salute Dave Rossum!!🫡
I sold mine (a model 7030) in 2018 for 260,000 Yen. Still slightly regretting it but I'm gonna keep my MPC 3000, promised!
Very interesting the sound of the outputs good to know
I have just found out yer channel and I am absolutely loving it! Amazing videos... Btw, amazing track played around 8'20".
Thanks Marcel!
thanks, now i finally learned what "SP1200 (ring)" simulation means in MPC settings :D
Ah right! There you go!
Congratulations, Alex. That's a nice score!
On loan, but definitely a good one to try out!
@@AlexBallMusic Thanks for the full walk-through, and for that link to Rossum Electro! I'd had no idea he's still making brilliant gear.
the character of the internal clock is a real thing for sure. one of those machines who's technical flaws make it good somehow. SP12s were dirt cheap at one point, I traded one for a copy of reason 1.0
The Intro hit so hard 🔥
The SP 1200, the machine I always wanted & never could get my hands on one.😧
And probably never will.
12-bit sampling drum machines is the work of gods.
this drum computer shouldn't go for 10k, 20k would be more appropriate. Nicest piece of audio gear ever.
I wouldn't be suprised if in 10 years or more that's what they go for.
Great video! I had an opportunity to grab one of these in about 2005 for $600 and of course I didn't buy it , boy don't I feel stupid ! Lol
Damn! Was that the going rate only 16 years ago?
@@AlexBallMusic They were still about $1,200 but it was at a pawn shop, They didn't know what they had and just wanted to get rid of it.
@@AlexBallMusic I love the sp 1200 but I would not pay $4000, to $5,000 for one today.
Don't feel guilty I was offered a Jupiter 8 for $1500 in 1998 in excellent condition, one owner and I rejected, now you know much it's today.
@@MachineCityAudio True, I'll rather go with the Isla Instrument SP-2400.
will like to see the path for that KORG MS bass sound
Another great video