Hey guys I'm new to these forums and I'm looking for my first sampler. I'm looking at the 303 the 404 or the 606. As of now I'm leaning towards the 606 because they're all pretty close in price (especially the 404 and 606; the prices on Ebay) and it seems to have the most features.

I wanted to get intelligent input from people who use these regularly and know what they're talking about. I'd really like it if you all could vote in the poll and give me any knowledge you might have, pros/cons/experiences. From what I have heard out of you all's beats, all 3 are top quality but i just wanted to get some personal opinions and more info.

Thanks in advance guys.

404....i can give you all the specs you want but here it is....
i picked it up out of the box and its been the easiest thing ever since....

ive neevr ahd anything before it and now im jamming every day
so i would seriosuly reccomend it

The 404 is great. I love the 303 and 606 but the 606 isint quick enough for me and the 303 lacks alot of the features the 404 has for about the same price. I think the 303 sounds a little better tho.

I've never used the 303, 404 OR the 606 but I had the 202 when it came out about 10 years ago and loved it so much I recently bought a 555.
I would seriously consider the 404. Well, as you can see on this forum, people make heaters on ALL the SPs but I guess it comes down to sound and how your work flows or the way you want it to. Maybe poke around the forum see what peoples questions are for different machines and that ought to give you a better idea of what YOU actually want out of a sampler as well.
Hope that helps
Peace

Thanks guys! I'm taking this all into consideration!

i use 404 and 555 , i vote for 404 because i know it, but i recomend you both...i know you want chose one....
hope you have your spxxx soon!

i use a 404 and i love it!!! sampling and chopping samples is very quick and easy, it's like an old school samplers, no visual editing, u can chop only by your ears. The Fx are really impressive, u can make any sound u need fuckin up wit them. The sound is fat, the SP 404 is a great workflow.
The only bad things are:

- 1 track sequencer (i use it, i dont' need to go deep into sequencing, for me it does is fuckin job)

- no velocity pad

- no pitch shift (it sucks!!!)

- 8 voices of pholypony (but for me it's not a problem)

i would go with the 404 or the 606. while i haven't used the 606 i like it's specs and apparently that's one of madlibs main pieces now. he loves those sp boxes alright!!

for me the one problem with the 404 is not it's 1 track sequencer, which has work arounds or it's limited polyphony but it's pitch shift which is awful.

Yeah the one track sequencer is a real turn off for me but you guys say there are ways to get around it? I'm assuming you are talking about resampling? Does that distort the sound quality at all? and can you individualize effects like say putting delay on the drums but not on the chopped up sample.

As for the chopping by ear, I'm fine with that but I was wondering does anybody with a 606 know if you can only auto chop or can you do your own chops to? I assume you can do both.

12 voices actually

Guys, unless your sequencing external stuff theres no need for more than one track ! your time behind the SP should have taught u this

Yeah man, using the 404 is so simple and quick. I believe the 303 is very simular but I gave my biased vote for the 404.

Yes, you can do both. There isn't something actually called 'manual chop', but there's something called 'sample loop edit' which is basically manual chopping. I use it a lot as it's by far the more accurate way of chopping!!

Good to know you can just sample by ear. Does anybody know anywhere other than Ebay that you can get a hold of a Used Roland SP-606? Anyone looking to sell?

craigs list

I saw a dr 202 in excellent condition with orig box and all for less than a bill and an mpc2kxl for like 250 bux w/o the 8 outs and the fx card. You just gotta check regularly.

so, what was the point of the poll