ok noob here, forgive me if this is in the wrong bit of the forum.. i'm looking at getting one of these two because of the timestretch/sync abilities - are they basically the same in both machines? the sound on sound review pans the sound quality of the sync phrases, and i see on these forums that it's an 'interesting' sound... Is it the same sound for both machines? any examples online?

Beyond that it seems the 606 has a lot in its favour on spec, ie computer connection etc but the subtler differences in workflow are hard for me to imagine..

broadly what would you folks with experience say were the pros and cons of each machine if they were the same price to me..

Thanks, Mark

only had the 505, here is what I know
-its the sp303 sound engine. Its grungier than the 606 will be.
-it has the overused but great vinyl sim, dont know that the 606 does
-better clipboard feature
-slow w/ smart media card

What i've heard on the 606, YMMV
-a little more plastic-y, not as sturdy
-sound is a little more sterile
-2 (maybe 3?) effects at once
-d-beam
-USB audio use

I started with the 505, then moved to the OG404, then the 606 and now I'm rocking the 404sx.

The 505 is quite different from the 606. I must admit I miss more from the 606 than the 505. They both have wave form editing, which is pretty neat. The 505 also has this strange pitch function, which was quite neat. You'd choose a sample and then it would pitch it over the 16 pads. Didn't always work tho!

In my opinion the 606 is far superior! I miss it's 16 velocity pads and the D-beam is awesome, especially for controlling the filters. The 606 is more of a studio with 4 track sequencer and 2 effects (3 if you include the master effect too). Usb connection is good for transferring samples over. You can also use the 606 as an audio interface, but the drivers only work on win XP so I could never use it (am rocking win 7).

The reason I got rid of it was I wanted the portability of the 404sx and I REALLY, REALLY wanted to have the DJFX/BPM looper ala Dibiase. I also like the workflow of the 404sx as it's super fast to chop on and you can really use your ears to set start and end points rather than your eyes.

It's up to you want you want really. I wouldn't get bogged down with how they sound as I've never really noticed a huge difference between the machines. Also, I'm not big on timestretching either, I'd rather slow the sample down on the record player or just try and extend the sample with different chops.Also, I don't like the sound of it on ANY of these machines. Ableton is the boss for timestretching.

thanks for all that input - yeah i realise ableton etc will be better for timestretching but i'm hoping to get as far as i can without having to get computers involved.. at least not on the front line of getting creative stuff down...

so here's one question: do EITHER of these machines allow sampling while a sequence of other samples is playing? and i don't mean resampling, i mean more like multitracking e.g. a load of sequenced samples play and i want to record another part onto a seperate 'track'/sample.