Thinking about picking up a 808 today, mainly to use it as an effects box next to my 404. Just wondering if you can make user effects patches with 3 effects in a row, for example: Reverb -> Tape Echo -> Vinyl Sim ... or Phaser -> Chorus -> Flanger, or if it's just 1 effect at a time like the 404 but you can assign the three knobs to any of the effect's parameters?

I think you can, i just never needed to. Might have to get the manual. There are effect patches that when you go to fx edit you can see there are a chain of fx that make up the one but its usually relative to the effect. For example, the total comp fx has a compressor, noise gate, exciter all in the patch. Let me know what you find out. Has got a trillion fx tho, not just combinations but actual fx.

Cool, so could you edit the total comp fx and swap the noise gate with a reverb, then save it as your own patch? Had a look at the manual and I'm still not sure. Anyway, got one on ebay today for £85! Love some of the effects on the 404 so can't wait to try the 808's out, I've heard they are sick. Got a 250mb zip drive as well so I'm gonna upgrade it to an EX for the extra fx and mono synth!

have fun upgrading, heard its a bitch. As far as swapping fx's, like i said, i never did but it seems like you should be able to. They have presets and user presets and usually user presets are changable and savable. So id assume this is something that you can do i just never did or needed to. Got me thinking about it now cause the fx's are so dense and good, be nice to add the record(vinyl sim on the 808) fx with a total comp fx and a loudness fx(eq on the 808) They even have gates and you could possibly hook up a workaround side chain fx with some know how. I might have to dig into that. Sounds cool.

If you find the upgrade Sysex midi file, would send it or a link? I need to do this but never have.

The midi upgrade files are here..

http://launch.groups.yahoo.com/group/SP-808USERS/

You need to login to get in to the 'files' folder on the left.

Right on. I never could get those to work on my pc. I have a Mac now though.

Just upgraded to EX using this midi file.. https://www.dropbox.com/s/j607ljwfhspg1 ... rSP808.mid , sending it to the 808 from SysEx Librarian. The original zip drive was broken, so put a 250mb drive in there too. Very easy to do both upgrades!

Loving this thing already, the effects and synth are dope. I can see some of the user patches have a few FX in a row (comp, gate, isolator etc) but doesn't seem like you can swap them for other FX which is a shame.

That noise from the zip drive is really pissing me off already though, hope some one works out a way for it to use CF cards or something!