SP1200 Lo-Fi FX rack for Ableton Live update 🎛️👌🏻 [download]

This was originally posted on my website in 2017 and it was later on one of the very first posts when I launched my Patreon in spring of 2020. Ableton posted this back then too, if I'm correct 😋

I still actually use this one, so I've decided to give it a little update! (There's so much stuff on my Patreon now, I think some of the old stuff that may feel a bit out of reach may deserve a bump anyways)

So what's this for…now this is for those who want some LO-FI in their lives!

An “SP1200izer” audio effect rack for Ableton Live 🔥

GRAB EITHER:

• V2 WITH UPDATE + macros for Ableton Live 12

or

• THE ORIGINAL FROM 2017 (should prob work with Ableton Live 10/11)

A lot of times I like a certain edge to my sounds, and more often than not it's a bit rough as opposed to clean and hi-fi, so do try this on your drums and bass at least.

How did I do it? I sampled two drumloops into my SP 1200 and back, and then put those on an audio track in Live and decided to try and make the original versions sound as close to the SP 1200 versions as possible. The result is this audio effect rack for Ableton Live. It’s not 100% 1:1, but it’s close enough, and sounds quite lo-fi and dirty....it can make DRUMS sound nicely old, lo-fi, and gritty – but feel free to spice up other sounds with it too. Especially good for oldskool hip hop drums!

You may have to tweak some of the controls to make it less aggro for other musical elements, as the starting point may be too hot for musical stuff.

The starting point takes the sound somewhat close to SP-1200 drums via EQ, Saturator, and Redux – this is what I found in my tests. I haven't added any controls for the EQ; it takes the edge off of very digital sounds and tries to model an SP-1200 type EQ profile.

I've added macro controls to the updated v2 version that allow you to tweak it in another direction:

🎛️ Gain in upper left allows you to tweak the gain going into the plugin. The amount of gain you added is compensated for at the very end of the chain, so output will be turned down by the same amount, so overall level doesn't get louder.

Default position is the center position, which should be ok for drums. But if you run some melodic stuff into it and feel it gets hammered too hard, try turning down the Gain and go counterclockwise. I've set it to +- 10 via mapping browser in Live.

🎛️ Downsample knob sets the sample rate. At its most counterclockwise position, there is no change. But as you go clockwise, you get more aliasing, which is a big thing with SP. This is very audible in melodic elements, so do try it out.

🎛️ Bit depth knob allows you to turn the signal bit depth down to 10-bit if you want. This will add a bit of noise to the signal. I often like a wee bit of noise in my sounds (I often try and avoid an "overclean" sound in my productions. You can of course "mod" this via mapping browser if you want this to go lower (if you don't know how to do this, leave a comment and I will explain).

🎛️ Speaking of signal getting too hammered (especially melody stuff), try turning down Drive. It decreases the drive added by a Saturator.

🎛️ The starting point is mono, because SPs are, but you can change between mono and stereo via the Mono knob.

🎛️ Widen knob adds subtle width! Doing this with a very short Reverb. Use this to give mono elements such as drums a hair more width. This gives you a hair of width even if the Mono mode is on.

Try this with basses for example: turn down Gain, Drive, and Downsample, and add turn all up a little bit: can be nice for bass spice!

You can add a bit of width for basses too via the Widen knob.

Feel free to mess with it and let me know how you like it!

I’d like to emphasize that

1) this is not the result of any intensive experiment that took days of work using tons of audio material and intensive testing, which is what would be needed if you wanted to create a reallyreally authentic version that’d suit all scenarios and all samples, and

2) I’m definitely not trying to say this’ll replace any actual SP 1200 out there. So take this lightly if you're a grumpy SP1200 owner (like me)!

You only need Ableton Live; no 3rd party plugins needed.