soundbite samplers

[Dr Bones]

anyone had any bad experiences with these little buggers? on the verge of buying the pro model, but i haven't heard much about them from most people. are they difficult to use, good fun, any known bugs or things that commonly go wrong?

[ekwipt]

They work as advertised, i use to use it with my serato setup but now i have traktor i have no use for it

Soundbite micro for sale in the buy and sell

Would be good if you had two decks or cdjs etc on a 4 channel mixer

[richcur]

Never had any problems with mine, which is an XL

[Dr Bones]

gonna be using it with vinyl and me empath. pretty sure it's exactly what i'm looking for.. want to be able to loop, but don't really need any effects or any crap. before this i was thinking of an efx 500, but it seems the sampler does all the things i want the efx to do, for cheaper, and minus the corny effects.

[Ecleracid]

I recently purchased a PRO off ITM and I'm using it along side 2 CDJ's and a 4 channel mixer.
The monitoring system takes a little getting used to as your Headphone out of your mixer now becomes the input for the Soundbite pro, and your CUE buttons determine which channel your sampling (if that makes sense). For your headphones you then use the Headphone jack on the Soundbite (which doesn't have its own volume control).
So you have to get used to not touching your headphone volume on your mixer, as this affects the record level of your sample (the Soundbite does have an Autolevel feature, but its not perfect).

Apart from that, they have tried to incorporate as many features as they could, with as little buttons possible. So a lot of the features are access through multi-touch sequences.

All that aside, once you get used to it - they are absolutely fantastic! Awesome for Techno & Tech House!

[Gruso]

Jeez, that would take some getting used to. I'd hate to lose control over my headphone level. I'd probably add a small heapdhone amp to the chain.

Bones, seen this one (http://edited.lol)?

[Dr Bones]

haha, emailed him about it yesterday mate =) cheers though.

[Gruso]

Ha, I kind of had that feeling as I was hitting the post button. That site rocks yo, it found me an Atari ST the other week.

[edit] I edited the link so no cunt gazumps ya.

[Dr Bones]

hahahahahaha, thanks very much mate :thumb:

[richcur]

I recently purchased a PRO off ITM and I'm using it along side 2 CDJ's and a 4 channel mixer.
The monitoring system takes a little getting used to as your Headphone out of your mixer now becomes the input for the Soundbite pro, and your CUE buttons determine which channel your sampling (if that makes sense). For your headphones you then use the Headphone jack on the Soundbite (which doesn't have its own volume control).
So you have to get used to not touching your headphone volume on your mixer, as this affects the record level of your sample (the Soundbite does have an Autolevel feature, but its not perfect).

Apart from that, they have tried to incorporate as many features as they could, with as little buttons possible. So a lot of the features are access through multi-touch sequences.

All that aside, once you get used to it - they are absolutely fantastic! Awesome for Techno & Tech House!

When used with a Xone92 you can forget all the headphone/cue connection method, and just output one of the send/returns to the Soundbite, then input it back into the mixer through a spare channel... so damn easy to use, after a while it feels like the mixer has an onboard sampler

[Dr Bones]

i imagine in that case, i can use the send/return on my empath and input it through my middle channel? or is it a bit more complicated than that? never used any sorts of effects with my mixing, so really know sfa about it.

[Gruso]

Oh yeah, FX loops. :slap: That's me kicking myself, but using my hand, on my face.

You shouldn't have any problem doing it that way.

[Dr Bones]

brilliant, hopefully old mate replies. if not, just have to wait a bit until i've got some more funds.

[richcur]

i imagine in that case, i can use the send/return on my empath and input it through my middle channel? or is it a bit more complicated than that? never used any sorts of effects with my mixing, so really know sfa about it.

Depends if the send/return on the mixer is part of an effects loop and routed back through itself eg. like the Pioneer mixers. Xone's send/returns aren't based on effects loops as they have the ability to route returns back into the mixer wherever you want, not just straight back into the send/return.

[Dr Bones]

it's a flex fx send/return, so i imagine it's dedicated for effects.

[richcur]

Yeh, no good :( You're stuck with the headphone/cue do-dad

[Dr Bones]

maybe i'll add one of the duvelakers grus was talking about.

[seth111]

Depends if the send/return on the mixer is part of an effects loop and routed back through itself eg. like the Pioneer mixers. Xone's send/returns aren't based on effects loops as they have the ability to route returns back into the mixer wherever you want, not just straight back into the send/return.

Unless of course its the 42.

[TaNG]

I recently just sold one of these. They are great fun and really work well for what they are. It just didn't suit my mixing style so I sold it.

The way I set it up was via FX Send from mixer to input on SoundBITE Pro.

The beat detector is really good, would catch the beat on pretty much anything. Drum and Bass, Breaks, Dubstep... 4/4 beats is pretty much guaranteed 99% accuracy. Just make sure you only feed it one source at a time or you'll confuse the shit out of it, which just means it wont detect anything. It'll sit on the last BPM it's detected or just wont detect a BPM at all.

One problem I had with it was the Automatic Gain Control (AGC). It was pretty much a piece of crap. I would record one loop, and it would be at a good volume, and then record another one and it would be significantly lower. Then I would record another loop and it'll go back to a accurate volume. The nice people at Red Sound have seen this as a problem coz I got in contact with them and in their latest firmware, which you can update to if you get the PRO, has a manual gain control function. Basically you press and hold a button, and then it will let you choose 'user' or 'auto'. If you select USER the display turns into a VU meter and you can just adjust it. It's really hard to describe but all you need to know is to NOT use the AGC. I dont know if the XL can be firmware updated coz it doesnt have a USB port. So get the Pro.

Other than that. It's a really cool machine. Too bad it didn't suit me.

[TaNG]

Here's the instructions on how to set the user gain control directly from Red Sound.

Hold down the Re-Sample button for 2 secs to enter 'Set Level' mode. Display briefly shows 'InPt' (for input level) then shows the current input meter level using the 4 display digits (with a special character) or "Auto" if the AGC is enabled. Pressing the Tap/Clear button toggles the AGC on/off with "Auto" or "USEr" displayed briefly when the mode is changed. Pressing Re-sample exits the mode & saves the setting to flash memory.

The meter calibration is as follows

" " or "Lo " (after a short time of no signal) : less than -20 dBFS
"= " : between -20 and -10dBFS
"== " : between -10 and -6 dBFS
"=== " : between -6 and -3dBFS
"====" : between -3 and -1dBFs
"CLIP" : above -1dBFs

User should aim to set the input level such that, during a loud section the top segment is flickering on/off, but is not ON constantly.

Rotating the Edit jog dial displays the current AGC settings in 1/2 dB steps from -27 to +37.