Like the product it was meant to replace, the SP-12, the SP-1200's intended use was as a drum machine and sequencer for dance music producers. However, its use as a phrase sampler produces a "gritty" sound due to the machine's 26.04 kHz sampling rate (roughly half the fidelity of a compact disc), its SSM2044 filter chips and its 12-bit sampling resolution. This distinctive sound, often said to capture the "warmth" of vinyl recordings, has sustained demand for the SP-1200 more than twenty years after its discontinuation, despite the introduction of digital audio workstations and samplers/sequencers with far superior technical specifications, such as the Akai MPC.