SP404 MK2 Beatmaking: the Insane Possibilities of Sample Chopping
- Sunwarper
- Sep 16
- 3 min read
One of the most powerful parts of the SP404 MK2 is how flexible it is when it comes to sample chopping. Whether you’re working with a dusty vinyl loop, a melody you recorded, or a messy drum break, you can use the SP’s chopping modes, envelopes, resampling, and effects to turn raw material into something completely new.
In this post, I’ll walk through three different sample chopping techniques I use on the SP404, plus some sound design tricks that help make chopped samples sit better in a mix.
Melodic Sample Chopping with SP404 MK2 Auto Mark
Let’s start with a melodic loop. On the SP404, hit Shift + Chop (Auto Mark).
Auto Mark or Chop will spread your sample across pads with evenly spaced slice points. That’s useful as it is, but the real power comes from moving those slice points manually. This way you can find micro-movements between chords, the little reverbs, note tails, or transitions you wouldn’t normally notice. These “in between” slices can give you fresh melodic phrases that feel more unique and sonically interesting than just looping the obvious sections.
If you hear clicks or pops between chops, you can fix it with the amp envelope:
Hold Shift + Pitch/Speed to open the envelope menu
Add a small amount of Attack and Release to smooth transitions
From here, you can sequence the chops directly, play them like one shots, or even map them chromatically for pitched variations.
Drum Chopping for One-Shots
Drum breaks are perfect for Auto Mark. If you've got a shorter 4 to 8 bar loop, you can start by slicing into 8 or 16 slices. If your sample is longer, you can truncate it in the Start/End menu and then head back to Auto Mark. Another option is to set Auto Mark to transient, which slices based on the level detection of the transients, or initial hits, or each sound in the sample. The transient setting can work well, but sometimes it wont detect the lower sounds as individual samples, so for me it's just easier to set to even slices and move them around. From there, you can clean the marks up by:
Adjusting start end of each mark and adding new marks when needed
Shortening kick tails so they don’t clash with your bassline
Add a little Attack/Release to smooth clicks
Isolate individual drum hits and assign them to pads for sequencing
You can then layer your groove in Pattern Mode, recording snares, then kicks, hats, then ghost notes. I like to add low-velocity kicks or snares on 16th notes to add that boom bap swing.
Resampling for New Textures
Sometimes a chop has too much reverb or sits awkwardly in the mix. That’s where resampling comes in. Using things like isolator, EQ, compression or a mix of them can adjust the tone of samples to help fit in your tracks mix.
Apply effects like Isolator, Lo-Fi, Vinyl Sim, or Compression while resampling
This bakes the effects character into a new version of the sound
You can then re-chop or layer the new sample for unique textures
This works especially well for percussion loops, resample them with heavy filtering and they can turn into subtle percussion additions or ghost notes behind your main drums. It's that extra bit of ear candy that makes the song more interesting listen after listen.
Sound Design with Filters and Effects
Filters are essential when reshaping chops. Here's a classic Sampler trick to bring out bass on samples so you don't need to add another layer for bass:
Use a High-Pass Filter with high resonance
Drop the cutoff into the low end
Even though it’s a high-pass, the resonance peak actually emphasizes the bass, giving you a faux bassline straight out of your chopped loop. Resample this with some EQ or warm saturator that emphasizes the low end & removes the high end to add a bass layer without trying to find the key or matching bass. For this resampling trick to work, the goal is to isolate the "emphasized" low end, since your original sample will still have all of the higher frequency information.
Want a faster way to master these techniques and make the most of every SP404 MK2 feature? Check out my SP404 MK2 Cheat Sheet & Quick Start Guide. It’s an easy to follow reference that covers chopping, resampling, pattern sequencing, and more.
Get a free sample pack when you sign up for my monthly mailing list with more tips like this. Head to this link and follow the steps to get the free sampler starter kit, full of loops, one shots and sounds that are perfect for flipping into something new.