you can only cue things up like that in pattern sequencer mode. i guess if you sampled the pads to the pattern sequencer so your pattern is just one pad looping you could do it. eg. pattern 1 is just pad 1 looping, pattern 2 is pad 2 looping, etc.. you'll just want to make the pattern bpm same as the loop's bpm

Ah yeah that's what I wanted to hear, thanks man.

Hey Geek, if you're still tempted by the Maschine there's a compromise called the SP606. All of what you were cautious & curious about the 404 is in the 606-> velocity, multi-part sequencer, intuitive screen, quick workflow, loads of effects are there.

Cons are that its not portable like the 404 and lacks the memory & flexibility of the Maschine. Plus the only way to get them now is 2nd hand.

Weirdly, the SP606 seems to have been a bit of an inspiration for the Maschine seeing it has its own (PC only) program. It opens the 606 up a bit further, but its not that easy to use. Stick with whatever DAW you've currently got. Althought the SP606 has its own built in soundcard as a bonus.

For a bit of balance remember we're all biased towards the SPs here... Because SPs are the best samplers out, natch.

Thanks man.

Ah yeah the 606 does look cool, can be had for less than a new 404 too it seems. I think it's still too much though, I'm starting to get a real attraction to the limitations on the 404. I'm not looking to 'change my workflow' so much, I'm happy with the way I'm working but I just wanted a quick and dirty sampler. I know if I pick up an MPC or the SP or even some vintage Ensoniq thing I'm just gonna end up messing with it for hours doing stuff I don't need to do. While that'd sure be fun, I'd like to continue making beats in a similar way to how I do now, but with the addition of the SP's cool little features.

I'm especially excited about the effects, I think that's what's appealing to me the most. Initially I just wanted a sampler but the I've watched so many videos of the SP's over the past couple days and I'm pretty sure it's the one for me.

In any case, I've put my order in for one, they're outta stock for a week or so but should be here in plenty of time for Christmas! Excited!

i just wanna clear up a few things for ya

1. resampling a beat down to a pad is possible, but maybe not in the way you are imagining it. there is resampling, where you can record to a single pad any kind of live play you want with what you already have sampled on other pads, so you can play a drum pattern out of single hits, or chops from a melody, and it will record everything you do to a single pad, but this is all based on your live play, you can't resample patterns you've made in the sequence mode, which means you can't quantize your hits at all while resampling in the box. there are cool work arounds for this, like maybe instead of trying to play an 8th note pattern of hi hats, you just change the end time of the sample so that it loops at the speed you want it and resample that, then you can mark out however much you want, like maybe half a bar, so you have to trigger it every two beats instead of on every 8th note, or if you get a half a bar of live drumming spot on out of a minute of resampling you playing, you can mark that out and loop it up, resample it, and then mark out 4 loops of it to have a full 2 bar section......

but if you wanna place everything you do in the sequencer, you're going to need to record the patterns out to something else, and then record them back in to get them on one pad, cause you can't resample patterns you sequenced, like i said above. alot of us use either another sampler, a cassette deck/4 track, a digital multitrack, or DAW to bounce out to. if you had two samplers its really nice to be able to bounce patterns back and forth down to pads, then you can make new patterns outta whole chunks of things, mix, and bounce back to the other sampler, then mark pieces outta that and rearrange and sequence/live play resample those, etc etc

the other thing i wanted to let you know is that if you do what yo-yo crunch said above, and you have a section of the song that loops on pad 1, and its 2 bars long, so you go to pattern sequence mode, choose to record a pattern on pad 1 (there are 10 banks with 12 pads in each, so in sample mode you have 120 sounds, and in pattern sequence mode you can make 120 patterns out of those 120 sounds)
so you set the length of the pattern to 2 bars, set quantize to whatever is appropriate (maybe even off if that suits you) and you place the pad in there, then you do the same thing in another pattern with the other part of the song which is on pad 2, you might notice that it doesn't always transition flush, which is because the sequencer bpm only goes by whole numbers, so what works for one piece might leave a miniscule gap at the end of another, and you'll quickly find yourself agitated trying to make the transitions sound perfect across multiple sections of a song, this is where you might want to just trigger the pads live yourself, outside of pattern mode in regular sample mode, which you would have to triggeer them in real time, there is no cue for that

hopefully some sense can be pulled from this, enjoy the 404 when you get it and stick with it for a few weeks, search all over this site for a wealth of work around information, read the manual a few times, and just play with different ways of making tracks, don't worry that you can't get the first track to sound exactly like you want, just try your best to accomplish what you want, then move on and try something new, its gonna take a little bit to learn how to do the things you want to do on it and to think and work with respect to what the machine is capable of, but once you start to become fluent on it i'd bet that you'll have a ball playing with this powerful little box, its a ton of fun

Thanks man, very informative.

Ah ok I get how the resampling works. Yeah that's kinda how I imagined it would work. I'm more interested in resampling with effects, rather than 'multi-tracking'. So I was planning to record my sequences into my DAW, then put them back on individual pads and then add effects 'live' whilst resampling.

So can I do that? Record effects live?

you can only use one effect at a time, but you can resample with an effect on, so if you want to stack effects you need to resample things multiple times, it will take a little getting used to, have to be aware of the order in which you do things, plus you want effects to be consistent across all your sounds, so it would be smart to do one effect at a time for multiple pads, but yes, you can tweak effects live while resampling and it will record what you did

one thing i like to do that i don't think is talked about to much is piece together things with resampling, marking and looping, and then repeating this til you have looped up what you want. it can get complicated with alot of pieces but its a pretty cool way to get precise transitions between parts

say you have two pieces of a song that you want to put together, two one bar loops, and you want to have the first part to loop 8 times, then the second 4 times, then back to the first part, so i would resample the first part looping like 9 times, just so i for sure had the loop 8 times in its entirety, then i would turn it off while still resampling and let the second part play 5 times, there might be some blank air between the two, but you clean that up in a second. so you mark the start point to be right at the top of the first loop, and the end point to be at the end of the 4th bar of the second loop, then listen to it and tweak it til the transition is perfect between the end and the beginning, loop it up, and resample that so it plays all the way through once, and then back through the first loop through the 8th bar and into the 9th a hair so you have the 8th bar in its entirety, then mark that new resampled phrase at the beginning of the second (4 bar) loop and at the end of the 8th bar of the first loop the second time around, eliminating the space that was originally between them, and tweak the start/end points til that loops perfect

seems long winded, i know (definitely easier when working with smaller sections that don't require 5 minutes of listening everytime you resample and mark), and definitely can be accomplished through live play resampling (the timing is on you in that situation though), or arranging those pieces in a DAW instead, but this keeps it in the box and allows you to freak that whole phrase with effects rather than trying to freak it while switching pads and stuff.....i also like doing this for rearranging pieces of a break to end up with a single pad loop in the end instead of trying to sequence 5 pieces in the sequencer to sound flush and smooth

Ok in a wild turn of events my interest has been sparked by the MPC500.

I'd always just brushed it off as an inferior MPC1K but having done a bit of research, it looks like it might actually be more in line with what I'm looking for. It certainly covers some of my concerns over the SP404SX shortcomings (velocity, note repeat, mute groups, 12 level pitching), whilst maintaining a similar chopping workflow. I know the effects are inferior, which is why the SP is still a consideration.

The thing that's bothering me is that I'm not sure how much of my leaning on the SP is influenced by the fact some of my favourite artists love it (Samiyam, TokiMonsta and the Brainfeeder crew). I read Samiyam ditched his MPC in favour of the SP since it's simplicity was attractive, and obviously Madlib is known to have produced a number of awesome tracks with just the SP. So in truth, I dunno if a lot of this is me thinking 'well so-and-so uses it so that makes me want to use it' when in reality the MPC500 is more in line with what I want.

Can anyone convince me otherwise, because the MPC500 is identical in price here in the UK.

i've got the two : 500 and 404sx ! and i cannot tell you what the best
the two are great ! download the two manual and find what suit you the best !

If you want a modern MPC I would say go with the 1k so you can use JJOS, it would be worth the extra money. The 500 doesn't have waveform edit as far as I am aware. Also MPCs only have a few minutes sample time at best. I think a 404 can give you like 2 days sample time or something with a good memory card. The effects are going to be basic too. It really depends on what you want to do with it, of the things you mentioned, velocity, note repeat and mute groups all have workarounds on the SP, some more crude than others. My opinion is that the MPC's only real selling point now is the sequencer, it's best sequencer in the world. The only Numark MPC I would personally pay money for is the 5k, regardless of what anyone says, I think it's a beast. But don't let me put you off, they're two totally different machines and it's for you to decide which one you will make better use of. One is a MIDI sequencer with a sampler built in, the other is a sampler with effects that bend the space-time continuum built in.

I've been working with MPCs since the 90s, bought my 404 this year and frankly the only reason I haven't sold everything is because I have near 20 years worth of floppy disks full of MPC stuff that I'm still making use of, drums, sampled instruments, etc. If I was to start over with music tomorrow I would happily get by with just my 404 and a multitrack. But if you need the sequencing capabilities of an MPC, you are only going to find them in an MPC, so go with it, but then with a little extra cash you could cop a 1k with JJOS and that would give you a lot more options. Or check eBay and Craig's list for a used 2kxl.

Aw man, this decision is tough.

The 1K is out the question, my budget is a strict £300.

The thing is, I don't need a sequencer, I just need a sampler that I can use to track into my DAW, and get creative with chopping and effects to some extent.

Things like mute groups and 12 level pitching are pretty fundamental to even my simple requirements and the MPC has those built in.

However, the effects are clearly superior on the sp and for live use the sampling time blows the MPC away.

most daws can pitch, and the 404sx is a snap to import files. you just use the import utility that comes with it. lets u map the sounds to the pads u want on your pc then just plug the card into the sp. so... get an sx

Get the sp first cause it's the perfect complimentary sampler to any set up. Also a great tool for live performance. One thing we look past in the digital age is signal flow very important in making music that isn't flat and computer sounding. This is from a dude who has Maschine ableton logic reason. But still prefers mpc and sp 404 combo. But no matter what I use I have the 404 in the mix.