Talk:E-mu SP-1200

Talk:E-mu SP1200
Hello, I'm interested in adding some facts about the drum machine SP1200 plus some additional information about what Hip Hop Producers say about the Machine and how they used it and why it was so instrumental to the evolution of HIP HOP.

What Do you think? The SP1200 was actually a drum machine and sampler combined. Was originally created for dance music producers. "The machine rose to such prominence that its strengths and weaknesses sculpted an entire era of music: The crunchy digitized drums, choppy segmented samples, and murky filtered basslines that characterize the vintage New York sound are all mechanisms of the machine."Ben Detrick November 13th, 2007 What some of Hip Hop's best producers say about the SP1200

Ski-Hip Hop Producer Produced for artists such as Jay-Z,Camp Lo etc.) The strength of the SP was definitely the way the 12-bit sounded when you threw the sample or the snare or the kick in there—it just sounded so dirty. It was a definite, definite fucking plus with the machine. The limited sampling time made you become more creative. That's how a lot of producers learned how to chop the samples: We didn't have no time, so we had to figure out ways to stretch the sounds and make it all mesh together. We basically made musical collages just by chopping little bits and notes. Hank Shocklee-( Producer for Public Enemy) There's little tricks that were developed on it. For example, you got 12 seconds [10.07, according to the manufacturer] of sample time to divide amongst eight pads. So depending on how much you use on each pad, you decrease the amount of sample time that you have. You take a 33 1/3 record and play it on 45, and you cheat the system. [Another] aspect that we created is out of a mistake—one day I was playing "Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" and it came out real muffled. I couldn't hear any of the high-end part of it. I found out that if you put the phono or quarter-inch jack halfway in, it filters the high frequency. Now I just got the bass part of the sample. I was like, "Oh, shit, this is the craziest thing on the planet!" The Machine and the Masters

Lord Finesse( East Coast Rapper/ Producer member of East Coast Hip Hop group DITC )They had me as a special guest on Stretch and Bobbito, one of the popular radio shows of the '90s. I thought it would be slick if I brought my 1200 down. A lot of producers did total beats with their 1200, and I think I did two or three, and one specifically was when I chopped up Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get It On." I chopped all around his voice using the 1200 and put an instrumental in the back. I played it over the air, and me and KRS-One freestyled over it. It was real slick.

Ski- People said they never saw anyone work the SP as fast as me and Large Professor— not that it means anything. It's crazy. I can't explain it—it's like the shit is programmed in my brain. I worked with Jay-Z and did all of Reasonable Doubt on the SP-1200. For "Dead Presidents," everything was made on the SP, man: the whole sequence, the drum sounds, the Nas sample. The only thing that wasn't done on the SP was the sample, [but] I ran it through it to give it that sound.

Pete Rock Everything that you ever heard from me back in the day was the SP-1200. That machine made "Reminisce" ["They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)"], "Straighten It Out," "Shut 'Em Down," "Jump Around." When I made "Reminisce"—I had friend of mine that passed away, and it was a shock to the community. I was kind of depressed when I made it. And to this day, I can't believe I made it through, the way I was feeling. I guess it was for my boy. When I found the record by Tom Scott, basically I just heard something incredible that touched me and made me cry. It had such a beautiful bassline, and I started with that first. I found some other sounds and then heard some sax in there and used that. Next thing you know, I have a beautiful beat made. When I mixed the song down, I had Charlie Brown from Leaders of the New School in the session with me, and we all just started crying. An End of an Era

Pete Rock - I used the MPC [a technologically superior sampler line first introduced in 1988] on Soul Survivor II. That was kind of the beginning of using it. I thought it had a thinner sound than the SP, but it had way more sample time—like three minutes. So, can't beat that. I got hundreds of beats on the SP-1200, but I like the MPC. I'm really starting to get in the midst of it now. Hank Shocklee They've mastered the computer to the point it does things the SP-1200 can't do. [But] we would have better records today if people said, "Look, you've got five hours to make a record." The problem is that people got all day. They got all week. They got all month. They got all year. So thus, you in there second-guessing yourself. With the 1200, you can't second-guess yourself, man. You got 2.5 seconds a pad, man. . . . Till this day, nobody has understood and created a machine that can best it. http://djproaudio.blogspot.com/2007/11/e-mu-systems-released-sp-1200-1987.html --Geographic1 (talk) 01:54, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

According to DJ Muggs, SP-1200 has been used on all House of Pain records (see documentary 'LA Originals'). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.117.169.122 (talk) 08:01, 24 February 2023 (UTC)

Sampling Rate
There are now highly reputable sources cited, including a disambiguation from E-mu co-founder and original SP-12 and SP-1200 designer Dave Rossum provided on this specific subject for the 2011 book SP-1200: The Art and Science (on page 60).

Dave is quoted:

“I don’t know where the rumour started that there was a different sample rate between the SP-12 and the SP-1200? I haven’t been able to find a set of SP-12 schematics to absolutely confirm it, but the sample rate of the Drumulator was 26.04 kHz (5 MHz divided by 6*32), and the SP-1200 is the same (20MHz divided by 3*256), so I’m pretty sure the SP-12 was the same as well. That rate was chosen in the early Drumulator R&D days as a good compromise between perceived audio bandwidth (high end) and total sample time.”

(Though there may have been an unfortunate error in a version of an SP-12 owner's manual, the fact remains that the sample rates are certainly the same between the SP-12 and SP-1200.)

The schematics clearly show that the instruments are the same in the area that generates the channel counter (which must be the sample rate). The only difference is the SP-12 used a 74HCT163, the SP-1200 a 74S163, they are functionally the same).

One can see that the 20MHz crystal oscillator is divided by 3 by the 74HCT74s, then by 8 stages of divide-by-2 in the '163 counters. This can be calculated as 20,000,000Hz/3/256 = 26,041 2/3Hz (26,041.666666...Hz), the correct sample rate.

Also, when E-mu updated the SP-12 to the SP-1200, E-mu provided ways for users to transfer their SP-12 sounds. They would have all played back at a noticeably wrong rate, and would have been terribly off-pitch (and there would have been a huge upset) had they not been the same sample rate. It would not have made sense to change the sample rate between the SP-12 and SP-1200.

If one has both an SP-12 and an original SP-1200, they can transfer a sample from the SP-12 to the SP-1200 via the cassette interface, and observe that there is no pitch change (and thus no sample rate change). Vactrol (talk) 05:55, 5 July 2024 (UTC)