THE MD SPS-1 timing debate issue
2007-04-14 by sad1robot2003
Last week i purchased a SPS1-uw and fell in love with it out of the box.Playing/ programming it for hours on end ~by itself it has tons of character. the timing randomness i could FEEL right off the bat. The night before buying it i spotted the thread about the Timing fluctuations in the sound triggering dept. of the MDs internal sequencer.hmmm i thought, cant be that bad~ oh how wrong ~how high my hopes were ~ I syncd it to my roland orchestra of midi clock/ Din syncd drummachines and i was sadly aware of the Timing issue.Here is where i notice it most: i have an 808 & 909 pattern running in tandem , all sounds( kicks , snares , claps, hats toms etc etc are going thru the separate out puts on the 808 & 909. arriving into individual input channels on a healthy soundcraft ghost 24 LE, i like have all the individual channels up & running with the sep sounds all Looping and the PLAYING the mute switches making parts with combinations of all machines on the fly. Of course im decribing something tons of electronic musicians have been doing forever, no secret stuff~ but heres when the SPS 1 timing slop is really apparent. When you start isolating sounds I.E. an sps-1uw snare track played in tandem with the 808's kick and the 909s ride, that snare hits OFF about 75 % of the time. occasionally youll get a dead on hit and it sounds magical like the rolands do 100% of the time.ive been a drummer for over 20 years. my drum teacher used to have me practice to a metronome and my mission was to play rudiments and nail the metronome track spot on. when this happens , stick and click hitting at the same time theres a crack of accuracy that is magic. flams are flams, and thats the best way to describe what the SPS 1 is doing most of the time! Flaming! and have been collecting drum machines for the past 10. my collection is vast( tr 505,606, 808, 909, dr-110, cr-8000, cr-78, sp-12 turbo, sp-1200, mpc60,II, Mpc 3000 korg micro pops, kpr-77 simmons sds- 9, sds 1000, so of course goes w/out saying ive been looking forward to owning the machinedrum for some time now. On its own its fantastic ~ fluctuating and all, but when played alongside the other classic drummachines, i just want to mute it. sad cause i love the sounds out of it. Ive been following the thread close and just dont get how some people overlook the fact that this is a problem that needs to be solved. to pay good money for a unique modern machine is worth it for the sheer power of customization and control~ YET its insane that one of the most important features of a drum machine is its ability to play its own internal sounds Precisely with accurate precision, and all the power to people that are measuring it against MPC 60s or 3000's than by all means make those standards by which the SPS 1 should perform up to. recording the SPS 1 into protools i can see and measure the fluctuations and its a shame. My sidstations env's are sloppy . That was a BUG in the SID chip itself. Elektron made up for it by adding a great feature in the USER setting to have the choice to bypass the Buggy env's and switch it into GATE mode making arpeggios Super tight when played with an external seq. I hope the Elektron Guys have perked up their ears ~ the thread is still going on over at the Elektron group page Special thanks to SN interclock for steering it back to the real issue at hand~ Accurate timing. Perhaps im a rare bird syncing up a bunch of old drum machines and using cv/gates to trigger toms made on an arp 2600, or snares on a mini moog~ but i like the sounds on the SPS 1 too! but they are getting muted on the desk when played next to the other machines. i hope elektron solves the problem in the near future. i think if enough users get the point of what the timing complaints are really about~ theyll speak up. By all means make that flammy timing an OPTION on the Global page , But give me Solid timing FIRST!