Hi everyone so glad to have found this board loads of good info. Im thinking about getting a 404 pretty soon but am puzzled by a few things. Im quite used to using a DAW like ableton or cubase but have never really owned any hardware. Is it possible on the 404 to play individual parts of a recorded pattern? For example i really want to write beats on it then record the results into cubase but want the hi-hats kicks etc as individual audio files. Hope thats not worded to badly!
Oh yeah i managed to catch steve reid and four tet last year and i really think if your into the 303 then u should check them out live, hebdens use of the sampler was mental!!

The single-track sequencer would make this difficult, but there are workarounds if you search for 'mute tracks'.

Thanks man i shall look into the mute tracks thing. Think im gonna go download the manual from the boss website.

manual wont help u with this. You can use the FX (I use isolator) to kill certain pads so ya, this is possible. If you are used to DAWs tho and want all the nifty features of the 303/404 u may also want to look into the SP-555. It functions basically the same way but also acts as an audio/midi interface. The computer intergration is superb.

Alright, this gets a little heady, but there is a way to somewhat pull off what you want to do:

You've got a DAW, right (I know you do, actually), so let's just start with hi-hats, snares and kicks. Now, what I'm about to explain will let you separate your beat "performance" into two halves that you can work with individually. So, there's no way to have individual control of more than 2 samples after the fact, but you can do some tricks that allow you control over the aspects you feel you absolutely must manipulate.

You brought up being able to 'solo' the hi-hat track, so I'll start there. In your DAW, take your hi-hat sound, pan it hard right, absolutely silent in the left speaker. Pan your kick and snare hard left. Load those files onto your SP-X0X. When you're ready to record into your DAW, open up a stereo track (or two mono tracks, each panned hard left and hard right, if you want to save a step down the line), and record your sequence, either by hand or using the sequencer. Once the whole sequence is in the DAW, you'll have a "Hi-Hat Track" in the form of the right channel, and a "Kick Snare Track" in the form of the left channel. Separate each channel of the stereo file into its own mono file (this is the step you can skip if you went ahead and used two mono channels), which will recenter the samples so you have a full stereo filling drum sound. You can then of course pan the hats and kick/snares wherever you want (and as long the snares don't overlap with the kick, then you can still suss out each individual hit to its own track if you want...)

If you get creative with how you're going to arrange everything, you can end up maintaining control of each element.

The "mute tracks" idea works well, too, might be simpler for some. I find my method more intuitive for me, but I can see how the process might be a little extensive. I came up with it as a method for recording scratch patterns that go back and forth on my Turntables. Previously, if I wanted to leave myself the chance to go in after the fact and tweak/EQ/pan just one individual Turntable channel (I use two er... three, kind of) then I would have to record each little piece by itself and then punch in with the other record, in stairstep type pattern as the recording went on. But recording like that ruins the "back and forth" aspect of the scratching, which is sometimes necessary for the sound (rushing back and forth between both decks is a skill in itself) With this method, I run the RCA cables so that the left Turntable only comes through on the left channel, and the right only comes through on the right channel. Then I can record live, but still have editing capabilities as if I had recorded step-by-step.

But as for navigating the whole stereo source/becomes mono source/stereo source/only half the record coming through/etc... those are all dilemmas for another time. Time for me to practice.

wow Huph i would have never thought of doing that, sounds real interesting.
I think the best way from what i've been reading up on is the mute tracks method. Am i right in thinking that you can apply an effect to multiply pads at
the same time? I'm guessing that applying the isolator to multiply pads and turning all the knobs to zero would effectively silence those pads.
Have i got this right?

correctemundo.