I'll answer all SP questions best I can

[q3k]

HI everybody
i have one question
i own sp 303 and sp555
on the sp555 when i use the mark button to loop a portion and then i mark out the sample play again back from the beginning..which is quiet boring when you have a long sample..on the other side...the 303 continues to play from the mark out point with no problems as it should be..
somebody knows if is possible to loop in the same way on the 555 as the 303?
thank you

[GreasyGPT85]

Hey I was wondering if you could help me out. everytime i try to record a sample on my sp 404sx the external source button lights up when i push record and it wont turn off when i push the ext source button. thanks for the help.

[James Frank.]

alright, so i just bought an SP-404 (classic) from a close friend of mine today. i consider myself an expert on the 303, but i've always been intrigued by the portability of the 404.


however, now that i do have it, it seems like i've taken a major step backward in functionality and intuitiveness when compared to the trusty ol' 303. the way that i usually work is as follows: i record a block of music for a general sample (~20 seconds or so), go back into the master sample and mark out all the bits and pieces i want, resample them onto new pads, and then pretty much go from there making my beats via the resample method (i don't like the sequencers on any of the SP's, i don't have robot timing in my hands to bang out EXACT patterns).


with the 303, you can mark something in and out, and then if you realize it's a bit off you can just un-mark it and the sample will continue to play where it's at. on the 404, as soon as you unmark something it jumps back to the beginning of the entire sample...this has made beatmaking extremely tedious and un-fun for me, already with having this thing for less than 6 hours. also, if i need to trim a sample via the start/end points, it restarts the loop every SINGLE time i make a change, no matter how minute (it can be +/- 30 or +/- 1, it doesn't matter)...this makes listening to a loop to verify it's tempo VERY tedious and time-consuming. i just spent close to $300 on this thing, and i'm worried i just flushed that $ down the toilet because this thing sucks way more than i envisioned it would from watching YouTube tutorials and what-not. anybody got any advice? did they ever fix this problem with like a firmware update or something, because i don't think i can work like this... ????

-jf

[Rabot]

this is how you chop on a 404.

you get freaking good at marking and you try never to readjust the end point. having the sample restart on start point is no big deal but end point sucks.

[yo-yo crunch]

this thread and video will provide tips on faster chopping with the og 404:

http://sp-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=6941&hilit=mark+mystery+delete+disaster

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMIsgV0Vgp8

[James Frank.]

thanks for the help, guys. i'll check these vids out ^^^ later today...i guess it's all just a learning curve, but damn. really lol? why did Roland/BOSS think taking a step backward in functionality was a good idea? it just makes very little sense to me...but oh well, glad to see that i didn't buy a shoddy product per sé, and that the issues i've ran into are the same ones all of you guys have had to work with forever.

peace,

jf