hi guys

lately i have been using Ableton Live to sequence drum parts for the 404. this allows more finite control of drums parts, and of course velocity sensitivity

i create a beat in a Midi channel, using the information on page 41 of the 404 manual to correspond keyboard keys to the 404's pads. by pressing play in Ableton you can hear the 404's sounds being triggered

i then send that midi information out from the Midi Out on my soundcard, into the 404. then, i set the 404 to record a pattern with the same bar length as the pattern i have made in Ableton. i set quantize to 16 or 32, depending on the intricacy of the beat.

this enables velocity sensitive midi info to be saved by the 404 and played back when you select that pattern to be played, allowing for more dynamic drum beats

but there is an issue with this approach that i hope someone may be able to help me with:

when i set the 404 to record the pattern, i press Hold and the pad i wish to record the pattern onto (so as to allow Midi Sync). this matches the tempo of the 404 to Ableton's Midi Clock. but when the pattern actually starts recording is dependent upon when i hit Rec the second time (and the -4,-3,-2,-1 metronome count begins).

does anyone know if there is any way for the recording of the pattern to be triggered via Midi? ie- could i create a drum beat 3 bars long with no midi data in the first bar (ie when the metronome is counting in to being recording) so that as soon as the 404 is recording the data from Ableton will be playing *click* in time?

it seems midi can trigger the 404's patterns to play, but can't trigger the record function?

any help would be appreciated

Sounds like you need the EXT SEQ SAMPLING function, which is not on the 404. Perhaps you could try just recording your patterns as samples, and after trimming them up to fit on the computer (or the 404 if you're patient), importing them as loops....or evn simpler, render the patterns as wav files straight from Abelton and all you'll have to do is load 'em up and go!

yeah man, that's a good idea except i like being able to put FX on some drum parts and leave others dry. for example throw delay on hihats and raise the feedback for crescendo effect, etc etc
also the 404 doesn't save the BPM of patterns, so i like to have it all midi'd out and adaptable to whatever else is going on with other equipment. if i had pads with set-BPM drum loops it would diminish my control

Hmmm I see what you're saying. You could, if you had the time, record several versions of your patterns at different tempos and with different amounts of automation of parameters and go from there. If the 404 is the same as the 606 it wont like changing tempo mid-pattern anyway so you can just get the next loop ready and go from there....but yeh it's a lot of work - having bpm-syncable loops is more of an advantage than I thought