Hey just an idea. I've seen those Boss guitar "Loop" pedals. Basically they can sample a sound and loop it back if I understand correctly. This seems like it'd be cool to pair with a 404 cause you could record patterns into the Loop pedal, then re-record the loop pedals output back into the 404. Might allow you to easily expand the capabilities!

Has anyone tried this? Or even with one of those Boss Digi Delay DD-6/7? I know you can record and loop a little bit with those two (or even just delay a sound so it plays over and over again). Would you need a DI box or anything to make it so the 404's output could go into the pedal with no problem? (Matched impedances and all that stuff I understand very little about). I'm not sure.

hi,
basically there are several possibilities of using a 404 along with a loop-station of your choice. that's why i will only drop some basic things that come into my mind about your question. although i don't use my boss rc-50 to "expand the capabilities" of my 404 (i just use it as a synchronized beat-supplier for the loops that i am creating with guitar an voice), it might fulfill your needs as well, but it depends on what u wanna do.

what u probably cannot do is:
playing back a beat on your 404, send it to your loop-pedal and at the same time sending it back to the input of your 404. this would be the perfect feeback-noise.

what u could do is:
first loop the beat into the pedal and once it is in, u can stop the playback on your 404 and re-sample your loop onto the 404. this way you could in fact "resample patterns" which u normally could not. but i don't think this hole thing is very handy and you will definetely have to deal with some tricky timing-problems cause u have to press the 404's "REC"-button just in time or spend a lot of time with manual editing. this would even work with the DD7 cause it accepts line-signal, so your're fine just with 4 (stereo) or 2 (mono) extra cables for the INs and OUTs. but i don't really see the real big benefit of that plus it's not useful for live-situations.

what u also could do is:
connect the outputs of the 404 with the input of a midi-able looper like the rc-50 and the outs of the looper with your PA. then you could feed the looper with some nice beats out of the 404 and built up some beatloops layer by layer. but i dunno if that makes much sense. could be useful in life-situations though, because this way you could overcome the 404s problem of stopping a feshly recorded loop-pattern before u can play it back.

in the end i would say that enhancing the 404s capabilites with the help of a looper does not make that much sense, but using those two units togehter to expand your musical setup for the creative purpose is definitely worth it.

First off, thanks for putting in the time for a detailed reply. But now the nitty-gritty... I pretty much agree 100% with everything you said, EXCEPT for your conclusions!

To me, being able to resample patterns would expand the power of the 404 significantly. I know you'd have to re-cut the resample into a proper loop again, but isn't this what you have to do every time you resample anything anyway? Sure, it's kinda a pain in the ass but that hasn't stopped me from doing it all the time.

And as for the overdub-layering of sounds/loops, it hadn't really crossed my mind, but it's an interesting idea. Might be nice for performing live (without the aid of a computer). Kinda like recording to tape. I'm not sure how practical it'd be though, depending on the sophistication of the pedal/recorder. I know at least on the Boss DD-6 Delay Pedal, you'd get only one chance to record each part, and if you messed up, you'd have to live with it or record the whole sequence over again from the beginning. Maybe using a more advanced recorder/sampler in place of the pedal though? I know a lot of these ideas are being discussed in the "Using 2 SP-404's together" threads on here right now.

with the rc-50, you wouldn't need to re-cut if just used the usb. you could record, export, import (to sp-xxx) voila.

hey eloheim,
alright, if pattern-resampling is crucial to u then u should go for it. but i was wondering a little. because if u are manually re-cutting anyway, then u don't necessarily need a proper looper. every recording-hardware like a little cheap audio-player with record input would do the same job. but well, maybe you had even something different in mind, anyways.
btw: with the rc-50 and rc-20 you can undo/redo a crappy overdub.

hi there
i also got the rc 50 + sp 404 setup and it's great. it enhanced my abilities a whole lot. we're only two guys in my band and those 2 devices make us sound like a four-piece. you can check our myspace and find out whats possible when combining these machines.

pattern-resampling is absolutely no problem. the rc 50 has also got an auto rec function and if you connect the two via midi you're always in perfect sync.
and another really great thing is that the rc 50 sends start and stop signals to the sp 404 so your preselected patterns start in time with your loops.

man i been thinking about combining those two for a while. sounds like i gotta cop one. damn...

Ah, I see what you mean now. I was just thinking of the Loop pedal because it would be small and you could operate it with your foot (I think) while using your hands elsewhere.

I'm not really familiar with a the little digital recorders out there, so I'm sure you're right, some of them would work much better.

Check this out, I have a RC-20xl pedal. Bad ass! I don't use it with the sp but this thread has inspired me to. The only downside I can see is that the rc-20 is a mono pedal.

Heres how it could work

A. Run the sp into the rc-20, then back into the sp (like stated above, this is a feed back loop so make sure if you arm the external source on the sp make sure the input on the rc-20 coming from the sp is turned down and vice versa when recording to the rc from the sp). Record a pattern to the rc using the setting that automaticly starts recording once it hears sound, making it easy to bounce loops back and forth because the sp has a similar setting (del+rec, i believe). All you'd have to do is trim the end of the loop on the sp and done.

B.If you wanted to do somthing live, you could run the sp into the rc and out to the house PA and play loops into the pedal and looping them on the pedal and using the overdub function on the rc to keep adding to the loop. This would be cool for some trippy shit but if your big on having things synced up and dropping parts in and out of patterns for a song then this probably isn't the way to go, this would be more of a just keep adding on thing. The best way to do that would be with a laptop and ableton live, you could record anything played out of the sp and record and loop it instantly and have it all synced via midi and you can drop and add parts (check out kid beyond and ableton live video, he talks about how he beat boxes to his whole show and uses the laptop to loop everything)