SP-404 MK2?

[Danswift]

Pretty in depth interview here with Takeo Shirato and Peter Brown,the designers of the new MK 2.

https://articles.roland.com/roland-engi ... sp-404mkii

[SP-USER]

Just nipped into the world of Ichi, mentioned the MPC to him and thought he was gonna kill me
Then I asked him what he thought of the new Roland SP-404MKII, and this was his reply:

IchiTheKiller.gif (824.55 KiB) Viewed 7480 times

I think he really really reeeeeeeeally likes it

Pretty in depth interview here with Takeo Shirato and Peter Brown,the designers of the new MK 2.

https://articles.roland.com/roland-engi ... sp-404mkii

Thanks for posting that, looks really good and lengthy, gonna really enjoy reading that tonight!

[SP-USER]

Just read the article, it was a nice read. So I was right about the designer being Japanese (one of them at least), and I probably wasn't too far off regards the age I suspected he was either, but he doesn't really come across as sadistic. That said, looks can be deceiving, so you never know homies, you never know!

Either way, big-up Shirato and Brown, can't speak for others but I love the MKII big-time

PS: I'm being extra nice today just in case you're reading this, and cause I hope you haven't fucked-up on the Wah effect, but if you have, please add Touch-Wah settings to the Wah effect in an update. A lot of gear fails in that department, they'll often just shove an Auto-Wah on there and think it's ok, but it really isn't, it's nowhere near as good as having Touch-Wah abilities, cause Touch-Wah actually reacts to the volume of the material that's being put through the effect, whereas Auto-Wah just wobbles away regardless.

You can get far more funky with a Touch-Wah, proper funky monkey!

[Headphones]

So lo & behold, there’s all a sudden a bunch of people trying to sell off their 404a’s & SX’s!!! It’s all on my fb feed. If anyone is looking for the older models, I guess you’re in luck! And that can only mean people are looking to ditch their other SP’s for a mk2! It’s not really my style to ditch the old for new. I just dug out my SP202, and it’s amazing to think how it all started. The most basic of portable samplers, and here we are 30 years later or whatever. It used to be to have the power of a sampler you needed a 19” rackmount Akai, Emu, Ensoniq or Yamaha to sample loops and play them from your midi setup. Now we have those same features in a 404 mk2!!! Well, most of them anyway. The rackmounts all used SCSI which has been dead for a grip now. And it’s pre USB so it was slow anyway to archive/retrieve samples. Now it’s so fast/easy that I think this is why the 404 SX’s & A’s are dropping right now.

Will the SP303 drop finally in price as well? I don’t see why not. But it’s a more grit machine with a lower sample rate. Which is another reason NOT to be so quick to sell your others.

Work more hours at your job! Give up your vices like booze, weed or cigarettes for a few weeks, deliver pizzas for a 2nd job, but don’t give up your old SP’s until you have it in your hands!!! Because once you maybe find something they didn’t bring from the others, you’ll wish you hadn’t have sold it!!

[forest]

Work more hours at your job! Give up your vices like booze, weed or cigarettes for a few weeks, deliver pizzas for a 2nd job, but don’t give up your old SP’s until you have it in your hands!!! Because once you maybe find something they didn’t bring from the others, you’ll wish you hadn’t have sold it!!

Totally. Even then, I'd say that will be cool to just chain them. Store one if you're not using it right now and you have the space. 404s are kinda small in comparisson with other stuff.

I regret pretty much all the gear I sold just because, y'know.

That said... man, it'll be hard as fuck to get my hand on one of these here in Brazil.

[SP-USER]

Work more hours at your job! Give up your vices like booze, weed or cigarettes for a few weeks, deliver pizzas for a 2nd job, but don’t give up your old SP’s until you have it in your hands!!! Because once you maybe find something they didn’t bring from the others, you’ll wish you hadn’t have sold it!!

Well, the full Reference Manual is online now so I guess we'll see either way (link below). Stupidly I only thought to look again after posting my previous post about the Wah, and the good news is they appear even to have got the Wah right!

It seems they really have thought about this stuff cause every effect you would expect to be is even tempo syncable. Wah for example can be used as a Free-Running Auto-Wah, a Tempo-Synced Auto-Wah, and thankfully a Touch-Wah if I'm understanding the settings correctly. This same sort of control is extended even to Flanger and Phaser effects etc, so very cool!

I decided not to order one yet, but that's only because of the amount of businesses going to the wall right now. There'll be so many pre-orders by now that I wouldn't get it any quicker anyway, so I'm just gonna sit back, relax and watch others enjoy it while I wait for the retailers to catch-up with demand, and have stock readily available.

So anyway, for anyone wondering does it do this or does it do that, the full reference manual is up now, so definitely worth digging in to.

Roland SP-404MKII Full Reference Manual:
https://static.roland.com/manuals/sp-40 ... index.html

[Headphones]

Work more hours at your job! Give up your vices like booze, weed or cigarettes for a few weeks, deliver pizzas for a 2nd job, but don’t give up your old SP’s until you have it in your hands!!! Because once you maybe find something they didn’t bring from the others, you’ll wish you hadn’t have sold it!!

Totally. Even then, I'd say that will be cool to just chain them. Store one if you're not using it right now and you have the space. 404s are kinda small in comparisson with other stuff.

I regret pretty much all the gear I sold just because, y'know.

That said... man, it'll be hard as fuck to get my hand on one of these here in Brazil.

Man, I’m no expert on obtaining gear new or 2nd hand in South American nations or Mexico. I can’t speak Spanish or Portuguese, so either eBay or Reverb.com would be my suggestion. Roland SHOULD have a distributor on the continent, or in Brazil itself. But I have no clue how long you will wait to get one online or at a music shop and what import taxes or shipping costs that might Jack the price up for you.

Probably by early spring 2022 it should be possible to order one. Good luck though.

[ellaguru]

So anyway, for anyone wondering does it do this or does it do that, the full reference manual is up now, so definitely worth digging in to.

Roland SP-404MKII Full Reference Manual:
https://static.roland.com/manuals/sp-40 ... index.html

thanks
in this manual i've read that the 404 can send 16 midi notes per banks, if i'm not wrong; this seems more like sp606 midi. Not the best.
other stuff: between many fx (some seems mc909 or sp606 style fx) also there is a vocoder too inside and a juno106 chorus (damn!)

[SP-USER]

thanks
in this manual i've read that the 404 can send 16 midi notes per banks, if i'm not wrong; this seems more like sp606 midi. Not the best.
other stuff: between many fx (some seems mc909 or sp606 style fx) also there is a vocoder too inside and a juno106 chorus (damn!)

Damn, that was creepy, I was just thinking about you, then you posted on the next refresh

Just wanted to show you this, pretty awesome:
https://static.roland.com/manuals/sp-40 ... 05730.html

Also, regards your observation of the MIDI and Banks. Believe me bro it had my heart in my mouth for a moment there but look closer. You can use channel 11 to give you access to all banks. It says that in order to have this mode the Input Effect needs to be set to Vocoder, but considering you can switch mixing of the Input On/Off anyway, that shouldn't be a problem (I hope not anyway).

So basically it sounds as if you just need to make sure your MIDI Keyboard is transmitting on channel 11, and that you have the Input Effect set to Vocoder (which I assume you can just mute anyway according to the settings and stuff).

[Chulukinat]

The best thing since sliced samples!

[kel]

The best thing since sliced samples!

Careful what you wish for… forums about to go crazy again!!

[ellaguru]

Just wanted to show you this, pretty awesome:
https://static.roland.com/manuals/sp-40 ... 05730.html

Also, regards your observation of the MIDI and Banks. Believe me bro it had my heart in my mouth for a moment there but look closer. You can use channel 11 to give you access to all banks. It says that in order to have this mode the Input Effect needs to be set to Vocoder, but considering you can switch mixing of the Input On/Off anyway, that shouldn't be a problem (I hope not anyway).

thanx for showing me this, didn't noticed before.
Btw, i was also interested in sending midi notes from the 404 in order to try to use it as a sequencer for external hardware but it seems mostly like the creepy midi on sp606 on this side...
if they implement and develop this part + the step seq/micro editing +resample in dj mode, then they will got my vote ( ) )

[SP-USER]

Will take another look at the MIDI spec, but REALLY cool news on the "Input Effects" front, at least it looks that way if I'm understanding this correctly.

Remember that stuff I said about "Input Effects" and how there's 13 less "Input Effects" on the MKII than the previous models? Well, I was just looking at the manual and I think what Roland really meant by "Input Effects" are basically an additonal block of effects dedicated to the front-facing Mic/Guitar input, not the rear inputs!

See the section "Input Bus" under "Other":
https://static.roland.com/manuals/sp-40 ... 05529.html

I think all effects are available on the rear inputs, and it seems you have an additional block of effects called "Input Effects" on the front input, because if you look closely you'll see that the "Input Effects" can even be sent to a Bus! In other words, since the front input can be sent to a Bus then that must surely mean it can also use any of the effects on top of the dedicated Input Effects, because any of the effects can be assigned to either or both Busses!

Man I hope I have that right, cause this thing just gets better and better the more I look at it

BTW, I forget to mention the other day that I absolutely love how they implemented Pan! Panning hard left will give you a dual-mono sample based on the left channel, panning hard right will give you a dual-mono sample based on the right, and setting it anywhere between gives you the usual Pan control - absolutely brilliant!

[luhem]

[Ill Green]

I saw you can layer 4 effects at a time.

What I want to know is how you diy the faceplate. Roland says download the template but who is going to print and cut to vinyl?

Which reminds me, Styleflip been mighty quiet...