Yamaha SU200 Loop Factory

The Yamaha SU200 Loop Factory's mission is the same as its older sibling, the SU700: Create a loop playback-plus-effects environment geared toward easy remixing of dance-friendly loops. For this it contains eight pads that play three banks of eight samples each, an effect section with two knobs for tweaking, a ribbon controller for scratching effects, and a very helpful LCD display.

The battery-powered SU200 can be taken anywhere. (Click here for a close-up)

Sampling

Stereo line inputs and a mic input are provided for sampling or for routing external audio through effects. (The loop remix, slice, scratch, and time effects don't work on external audio.) You can sample at 44.1, 22, 11, and 5.5kHz. You get 21 seconds of stereo, 44.1kHz sampling time, and up to 333 seconds of mono, 5.5kHz time. The standard setting of 22kHz mono allows 83 seconds. I don't quite know what the point of having 44.1kHz or stereo samples is, though -- stereo samples cut the already slim six-voice polyphony in half, and 44.1kHz samples take the polyphony down to two and cannot be routed to the effects.

Sampling is exceedingly easy. Hit the Rec button, select the pad you'll be assigning the sample to, set your levels, and hit Start. Sampling begins when the audio reaches the trigger level that you set and ends when you hit Stop. To set the loop points, hit the Start Point or End Point keys while the sample is playing or set them manually using the Data knob or increment buttons. If you know the tempo of the loop you are sampling, leave some extra space on the end before you hit stop. The SU200 calculates the BPM automatically, so you just hit End Point, and turn the Data knob down until you reach the original BPM. It's a breeze and it worked perfectly every time I tried it. After that you can extract the unused portion to save memory. Because of the ease of setting loop points, I was able to record, edit, and extract eight samples in about five minutes -- much faster than on the ST-224. However, for some reason the SU200 took its sweet time deleting samples.

Samples can be set to gate or trigger playback, one-shot or loop playback, and normal or reverse playback from front-panel buttons. Samples can also be set to scale play, where the same sample will be mapped across the eight pads at the pitches of a major scale. All samples can be assigned to a MIDI keyboard.

Time stretching and resampling are also available. The time-stretching function works well, with noise being introduced only after a 20 or so BPM change, but you can only stretch a sample to match the speed of an existing sample. I'd prefer to be able to set the time stretch to any tempo. During resampling, you can play any combination of pads with effects and scratching if desired. I was able to record my own drum loops by resampling combinations of single hit samples -- a great feature on a budget sampler.

Effects

The knob-controlled effects are Loop Remix, for breaking up bits of the sample and playing it back in a different rhythm; Slice, for gating different slices of the sample; Tech Mod, a metallic, ring mod-like effect with LFO; Distortion/lo-fi, Delay, and Low Pass filter. A ribbon controller's scratch effect doesn't emulate vinyl scratching very well, but it isn't entirely useless. Finally, there is a Time button that changes the tempo of a sample and introduces distortion. It cannot be used in Loop Track Play mode. Only one pad can be routed to the effects at a time, and (besides scratch), only one effect can be active at a time.

Where appropriate, the effects automatically sync to tempo, and generally sound excellent. My only complaints: There are too few effects, and cutoff knob is to the right of the resonance knob; the other way around is standard.

Loop Track Play

Loop Track Play mode lets you sync all eight of a bank's samples together. Hit the Loop TR Play button to begin, and you can then bring samples in and out of the mix by hitting the pads. The SU200 automatically syncs the tempo of all the pads in the bank. To change which pad is routed to the effects without turning the pad off, press the Hold key while selecting the pad.

'Round back there's MIDI to sync Loop Track Play to external MIDI clock (Click here for a close-up)

Jamming with loops in Loop Track Play mode is great fun, but entering the mode introduces unwanted clicking noises. Sometimes playing more samples would cover up the clicking, but sometimes that would make it worse. Some loops didn't click at all --even if their tempos were greatly increased or decreased -- but some loops began clicking as soon as Loop Track Play was turned on, even if the tempo did not change. Sometimes sampling the loop again would alleviate the problem, but for the most part these clicks just seemed to be random. It's an unfortunate drawback to an otherwise very satisfying machine.

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