i have a lot of drums kits and samples on my pc that i used for making beats on FL, (theyre all WAVE files) but i can't figure out how to transfer them onto the 404.. i imported some drums from my PC to the bankA folder that is given after the CF card is formatted on the 404 but when i tried to import it the display screen read "ENP" NOT 'EMP' and it didnt work..so I went back and relabled all the files with a '.wav' at the end and moved them to a different folder..but the same thing happened... PLEASE help!


p.s. I know all the files must be placed in the 'root folder' in order to be imported but how do I know exactly where the root folder is?...all I see when I place the CF card into my computer are the folders from the 404's formatting (backup1,2 etc..)

i figured out how to make it work but now my problem is that not all of the files i placed on the CF card are importing..i don't get why because they are all the same format and i labeled them ''steez_01.wav - steez_10.wav'' only two of them ended up loading..i tried it several times.. anyone know what could be wrong?? any help is appreciated. 1.

It isn't enough that files be .wavs - they can only be 44.1Khz rate and 16bit format. It's also possible the .wavs could contain extra data from the programs that created them - loop points, slice points etc that could upset the 404 since it doesn't understand any of that. Check the file properties of each .wav on your computer - many music programs can mix different audio file formats without complaint, but the 404 won't.

I've had some import problems myself with my new 404. I've made sure all my wav's are in the right format, however when I have the 15 or so I want to import on the card I get a USP error I think it was (unsupported format). If I do it one at a time however, it works like a charm. Any ideas why this is happening / how to fix?

Check the 'properties' of the samples on the PC.

They need to .wavs, 44.1/16bit. You can use free software like Audacity to change their properties if need be.

Yup, done that. Made double sure and re-saved all my samples (well, the ones I wanted to export anyway) at 44.1/16 bit using sound forge. For some reason they don't want to work in bulk but one at a time works fine

I can say is that I've slammed in 4 banks worth in one go (takes a while but it gets there).
I've not looked into every feature of the 404, but is it possible you have a bank/pad memory protected?
Is there enough room on the card or internal banks? - Card bank samples end up on the same card and take up half the space of the import .wavs. So 100MB worth of .wavs won't work on a 128MB card. Internal banks A & B can hold about 16MB, which means no more than a total of 32MB worth of .wavs on the card intended for the internal pads.
Have you got the right start pad for import? You have to specify the first bank and pad for the imports and they load sequencially thru every pad and bank including and after that start pad - so it could run out of pads if the start pad is in the last bank.

If you start in bank C, the imports will all have to go to the card banks. What I'm not sure of, is if you start in bank A (or B), and there's more .wavs than the internal banks can hold, will it automatically spill over into the card banks? As it happens, I've only ever imported either to internal or card banks, I've never tried to fill both bank types in one import - maybe that's where the issue is?

Jim

Interesting. Yeah there's definitely space - only importing small samples and I have a 1GB card. Importing to card banks, unused banks as well so I don't expect any pads to be protected.

Thinking about it, possibly one of the files I haven't got to yet was unsupported (even though I'm pretty sure I've checked them) and the SP-404 scans all files and gives the USP error rather than doing it one at a time then exiting

Will hopefully nut this out over the weekend
Cheers for the help so far, guys

@ Jim Y, in Regard to the OP:

No, if you load samples into Bank A or B, there's no spillover into the card banks. The 404 will just stop reading when the internal memory is full. The OP should be sure to start his importing to Bank C.

@ azzmoney:

I'd bet that one of the files is in the wrong format, like you guessed. The 404 will check to make sure all the files are in the correct format before beginning to load. Sometimes I end up with files in the wrong format because I convert them to 16-bit, but forget to save them as 16-bit 44.1 khz (in the drop down menu of the "Save As..." folder of your DAW).

cheers for the help guys,
i've found that a couple of the files WERE in the wrong format - despite saving them as the correct format they weren't at 44.1khz. dunno why but at least i've found the problem, all the other ones work just dandy