Hi,

First of all i'm sorry if i come across the wrong way posting in here like you guys are customer service or something but i've tried the roland support staff and it was not so helpful to say the least, so i am at the end of my wits.

I recently got myself a SP404 and after getting to learn it i'm still left with a couple of questions;

- can save more then 8x12 samples on one CF card?
At first i thought this was what the ''backup save'' function was for and i ended up destroying two days worth of collecting drums from vinyl. It would really be a shame and a flaw to not be able to utilize the 35+ minutes of sampling memory i still have left on my 128mb CF card after filling the 8 banks up with drums. also if this is the case does anyone know where you can still purchase compatible CF cards with low memory such as 64mb? manufacturers like kingston and sandisk have apparently stopped selling them.

- Are there ADSR envelopes?
Being able to change the attack of samples would be really valuable and i have seen nothing of the sort in the manual.


This one is not all that SP related but some of you guys might know something decent:

- Is there a (portable) device out there that can trigger midi and record sequences?
I'm looking for something with wich i can trigger patterns on the SP and play it back to make up for its lack of a 'song mode'. this way i could properly track out to other devices such as protools. I've looked all over and the closest thing i could find was a mpc500, but getting an mp just for this would be rather rediculous.

Once again, sorry to throw all these questions at you even tho i havnt contributed to the forums here but i really didnt have anywere else to go.

Thanks a bunch in advance

1. You should be able to use Backup Save/Load to get more banks kinda.
I don't know what you did. Let say you have all your bank full, back up save that, then you could delete everything and still backup load them. The only thing is that backup load/save refill every bank so having all your drums in 1 backup is kinda useless. I would rather have 2 banks of drums and leave all the other one empty so that would make you a "startup template" or something like that...

2. Nop. You have to do them yourself using effects kind of...

3. IDK.

Thanks for replying, i apprecieate it

I may have done something wrong in that case, i'll try again.

Also is there a way to keep your internal memory (bank A and B) when you load backups?
i may for instance want a snare from another backup, that would be impossible if it replaces everything

as for the adsr, too bad, i'll try and work around it

Hum I relly don't know. I talking about SX since this is what I know. There might be a way but I don't know.

sounds like you got a OG 404, in that case, the backup function backs up the internal banks (A and B) to your card, and you can do this 12 times (a full bank worth of back ups), then when you call the back up load function, you select which back up you wanna call (1-12) and it fills in the internal banks, if you have anything already on the internal banks they get over written, so always back up whats there before loadin an old back up

so, in my opinion, its good to have either breaks cut up or groups of similar sounds (hi hats, snare, percussion, vocal samples) grouped together, then you can call up different drums and percussion stuff while you have whatever new stuff you have been sampling on C-J

another useful thing to do is, if you have a card reader hook up for your computer, you can pop the CF in, open it up, and save the entire 'roland' folder to your computer. it won't contain sounds you can play them on your comp, but it has all the information the SP reads, so you can hook a card back up at any point and drag the folder onto it, and it will have everything on C-J, samples and patterns, as well as the back ups associated with that card

@pennypacker- been doing the opposite, keeping all drums on C-J and chops/loops on A & B. wasting a lot of space and not using the card fully. you're right, it's probably better to have C-J free for longer samples since the drums don't take up much room and could easily fit on the internal. i guess i don't really need simultaneous access to 8 banks of drums. seems better to just use A/B and recall backups of drums for diff beats.

are you saying you keep all diff snares, for example, on a backup of A, all kicks on B, etc. or do you keep hits from the same break together on a bank so you can play them live together?

hahaha i actually don't do anything with back ups anymore, and when i did, i actually did it like you do, maybe not with 8 banks of drums, but i would try and cut up everything from the main sample on the internals and then save it, so now i get nostalgic every once and a while and call up old back ups and see chops i used to fuck with and wonder what record it was off of.........

the method i explained really just formed as i was trying to explain to the OP what might help him out, if i was to start doing it, which i very well may cause it totally makes sense to me, i would back up a single break that was complex enough to cut up and have all the pieces necessary, or at least more than just one or two hits, cause i wouldn't wanna seperate sounds that came from the same source, and if the break was small or simple enough, i might save two or three breaks to a back up, then as i came across straight up single hits and fills, i would save them to the appropriate back ups i had started......if i could be so organized and write down what was where, that is.......it would probably end up being a bit jumbled and unorganized, but, to me, it seems better than having to spin the breaks i'm thinking of on my table and sample em in.....

i then would probably time stretch it (if it wasn't just straight single hits), and if i ended up liking it, then i would grab the record and sample it in for real and pitch it right......when i start thinking about things like this, though, it makes me want to grab the 2000xl with the expanded ram and zip drive installed, 8 outs and all, cause even if you can come up with the most organized, accessible way to store your sounds, you still can't pitch naturally without pullin the record back out!!!