Hey, I just picked up my sp 404sx today, and have figured a few things out, but the one thing i cant figure out is how to actually save what I'm doing, I know how to save the samples to the pads, but I have no idea how to save the actual beat i made. Any help would be appreciated greatly

saves automatically. you can turn the machine off and back on and everything will be the same, including the last pattern tempo you were working at.

Just be careful not to turn the SP-404 off when the red dot in the corner of the main display is on. This means it's still loading / saving.

Usually this will be lightning fast though.

thanks guys for answering, but i cant even figure out how to get to the point where it saves. I played around with the different samples i put in just to see if it would save, but when i turn it off, its back to just being samples on pads again. no idea whats going on. also, do you guys know how to delete those terrible preset samples, i cant seem to do it. thanks for the time

oh yeah, i checked out both myspace pages, both of you are puttin in work, keep it up

Did you make a beat in pattern mode, or are you talking about when you freestyled a beat? If you made a beat in pattern mode( with the metronome sound), it saves what you created and you need to get back into pattern mode when you want to play the saved beats.

hey jiggity, thanks for the reply. you were right, i was in freestyle mode and that is why it wasnt saving. so i went to the pattern select mode, and tried to use the samples i programmed in, but it wont let me, only those crappy one they have programmed in will work. i just gotta put more time into it. i really just wanna figure out a way to put the samples i have of me playing piano and drums in the pads, mix them up and build a track that i can put onto a cd. any help would be appreciated guys

the internal banks are protected, thats why it says prt or whatever when you try to delete it, what you gotta do is turn on the sp while holding cancel or somethin, look in the manual, its in there somewhere, or search the boards, it comes up all the time, just recently actually, i can't remember where though, i think its cancel but i'm not 100% sure about it

i had the exact same issue when i got my sx.. as said before the factory patterns are protected so what i did myself was to format another card which is nice to have anyway if you end up sampling a lot. the result will leave you with a clean card ready for recording new beats and samples.. you can always copy sounds from the old card to the new if you want to