anybody know how to fix this when my friend turns the 303 on all its says on the screen is 8 and nothing else no buttons light up nothing any suggestions thanks

That makes my heart skip a beat, but I've had mine for two years and I never seen that( I do treat it like a newborn baby though). It sounds bad, he should call Roland and see what they say, if they can't help I say he should order a 303/404 on ebay and open the old one up and try and find out what makes it tick. On a side note, I wonder if you could open up a 303 take all the guts out and stick it in a new custom fabricated box hooked up to just the pads from a korg padkontrol, then you could have large mpc size pads that react more like a 303's and they would still light up.

Not entirely the same thing but I was pondering the possibility of putting my 404 in a custom box, and squeezing a padkontrol into the same box. . . somehow remove the 404 pads, and have the padkontrol instead - no fancy wiring though, just run a midi cable inside the box between the two

Yeah with the x/y pad with roll and flam, I don't think it would be hard at all, I just don't have the money to experiment. I would definitely take the guts out of both for an overall smaller package because otherwise the cases would make a new box too bulky and I like small samplers I can carry.

I would recommend not to remove the pads from your 404 if you were to build such a custom box, the pad control only works via the midi connection, and I would not dare to guarantee that all operations for which you use the original pads can be done via pads of a midi controllor.
Just my 2 cents.

That's why I'm talking about rewiring just the pads of the Korg padkontrol to 404 switches, that way you can have large illuminated pads that offer all the same functionality, I'm not talking about using the pads with the midi cable but I would try to have the x/y controller and it's flam and roll connect with the midi in. I would need the money to do this though so it's just a thought. I might try to make a composite picture with photoshop and use it as a design for when I can afford to make my own custom sampler. Why wait for a company to make what I want, I read great suggestions from people all day in forums and never see them manifested by these companies, it might be time for some personal R&D, shit I've built computers and done electrical work, a sampler can't be that different.

that's a really interesting idea Dr. Sample
i encourage you to look into it

i use a padkontrol with my 404 and it's a great combo

Most interesting would be if we could get our mits on the sourcecode of the os, and implement some extra functionalities like real copy, panning, and envelope fx and while we're at it a real pitch fx ( 12 semictones up 12 semitones down). It's good to dream.

That's an even better idea, I don't think it's impossible though people crack source codes all the time. I never done that but my friend knows everything about computers maybe he knows of a way to analyze the processor and download the source to a computer.

I would be very interested to contribute to that since I'm a trained software engineer but the problem is to figure out what processor is used in the 404 and to find the programming tools (debugger,compiler and decompiler) for it.

When it comes to cracking the chip we would probably need to find someone who could write code to customize or create a program to make that happen, what are your feelings on that?, I have more experience in putting together all the parts of a computer and less knowledge when it comes to software. The processor can't be that rare and if we had the source code and some time I'm sure a hacked sp could be had. I think it would be best to find a broken one first in order to open it up and survey how it's built first.

check this thread out man, hopefully the pictures will still load

viewtopic.php?t=317

Help a brotha out, there's no link.^
Never mind musta be lag.

Damn, Jim Y his it locked down. Everyone on the board should pool together or knowledge and see if we can make a hacked SP-X0X.