Now You Can Use This Iconic Sampler For Pennies On The Dollar

Pete Rock, DJ Premier, and J Dilla: What do all these producers have in common?

They’ve all used the same sampler to create iconic beats.

And now you can use the same gear for a fraction of the price thanks to modern audio technology.

The SP-1200 makes funky beats

In 1989, a young Ice Cube cooks music in the studio while wearing the iconic N.W.A cap.

He turns to the camera. “Y’all wanna know how we make the music?” he asks.

The room fills with anticipation. His DJ stands in the corner, waiting for the cue.

Ice Cube answers:

“We sample!” he says, punching the playback button on the SP-1200 sampler.

Suddenly, a funky beat starts playing, and Cube does one of those shoulder dances last seen in the ’80s.

“You hear that?” he asks. “That’s how you make funky rap records!”

Now you can use the SP-1200 in your DAW

Until recently, the only way to get the SP-1200 was to invest thousands of dollars in the hardware.

But now, Inphonik released the RX1200, a 12-bit sampler instrument modelled after the original SP-1200 from 1987.

For context, the SP-1200 is a legendary sampler machine. It helped create some of the greatest hip-hop beats ever made.

If you’re looking for new sampling gear, try the SP-1200.

What others have to say…

It seemed to work for this guy:

“Everything that you ever heard from me back in the day was the SP-1200. That machine made ‘Reminisce’ [‘They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)’], ‘Straighten It Out,’ ‘Shut ‘Em Down,’ ’Jump Around.’”

— Pete Rock (via Village Voice)

It even worked for this guy:

“I worked with Jay-Z and did all of Reasonable Doubt on the SP-1200. For ‘Dead Presidents,’ everything was made on the SP, man: the whole sequence, the drum sounds, the Nas sample. The only thing that wasn’t done on the SP was the sample, [but] I ran it through it to give it that sound.”

— Ski Beatz (via Village Voice)

And if that’s not enough, it also worked pretty well for this guy:

“That’s how we got a lot of beats, like on ‘Machine Gun Funk’ by Biggie and ‘Everything Remains Raw’ by Busta Rhymes. Anyone can loop but I created techniques on [the SP-1200] that nobody had ever used or was even thinking about.”

— Easy Mo Bee (via MusicTech)

How to get it for yourself

The original SP-1200 was discontinued in 1998, but there’s still hope. Its founder, Dave Rossum, reissued the SP-1200 in 2021, which you can get here.

Alternatively, for 1% of its price, you can pick up the new RX1200 plugin here.

But remember:

Gear alone will only get you so far.

You still need the right strategy to help you get consistent results.