I bought a 404sx instead of an OG 404. I messed up, right?

[Von]

I decided I needed a 404 over my 303 because I make 90% of my beats away from home. I have the battery pack deal, so my 303 was portable. I also had 10 SM cards full of samples and drums. I just found it so time consuming to turn off and on the 303, swap cards, find the sample I want, resample it to bank A or B, turn off the 303, swap cards, find the sample I want, resample it to A or B, etc, etc. Plus the 303 on banks A & B take for days to do anything. By the time I had like 8 drum hits I liked, it would take up easily 15 minutes. Now I have to find samples and resample to A or B, and remember you only have like 30 seconds sample time on those banks, blah, blah.

So I decided to sell my beloved 303 in favor of a 404 because it better suits my needs. Both versions of the 404 have 10 banks and 12 pads per bank, I can easily just sample like 60 drum hits and still have 60 pads to work on my beat. It just made more sense to me and I'll make more music because of it.

I saw a good deal on SX for $250 so I bought it. Now I'm reading through all the old threads and everybody is saying it's way too harsh and bright sounding and missing key pieces (vinyl sim). I had an OG 404 before and I really liked it. I didn't like it as much as the 303, but I still loved it very much. The 303 is like cheating. It doesn't matter what sounds you mash together on that thing, it glues them together. I don't think I've ever got a harsh or bad sound out of it no matter what frequencies I smashed and layered together. It's just a special character piece of gear that will live on forever.

I just want to be done buying and selling stuff. I can't afford to keep the sx and the 303, and I've already decided it's 404 time, so the king 303 has to go. If I sell the sx to buy an OG, that's like another week I can't make music and another thing I have to sell. Plus then I have to switch my DJ Tech Tools caps from orange to blue too. lol Should I just suck it up and try to make this thing work? If I think the 303 is the greatest sampler ever created minus it's storage ability and speed, how screwed am I with the sx? I already know I will hate it, but hopefully I'm pleasantly surprised.

Somebody buy my 303 on ebay, I'm only asking 4 bills for it. I'll give you an SP forum discount though.

http://www.ebay.com/itm/301936464824?ss ... 1555.l2649

[distorted]

The 404sx is much quicker than the original 404. The added features save you time, the storage is greater, and it doesn't sound bad at all in my opinion. I bought one 2 years ago and have no regrets. The 16 bit / 44khz linear wave sampling is more clear than the original 404. What goes in comes out exactly the same, just as if you were using a DAW. Spend some time with the effects and resampling to make it more gritty and more compressed. I get good results with the Bit Crash. The filter on knob 3 is perfect for warming up samples. Resample it with some compression. Resample with EQ. You'll get your samples sounding right with a little work. It's also quick and painless to edit your samples on a PC or Mac since they're WAV or AIF and don't need to be converted from Roland format. Plus the SD card has faster transfer rates than a CF card. So going from the SP to the PC and back to the SP, you're not waiting long for the SP to boot up or the samples transfering from PC to SD.

[Von]

Thanks for the reply. I just got the SX and I've messed with it a couple hours now. First impressions, I like it. I do have to work harder to get a sound I like, but it definitely is possible. It should come quicker with time. The biggest actual adjustment coming from the 303 isn't the sound, it's the pads. The pads on the SX are horrible compared to the 303 and it effects performance. It's just something I'll have to get used it, and I don't want to buy a PadKontrol or whatever. I just want one SP and that's it. The pads would have been an issue with the OG also. Overall I'm happy though. Now I just have to master this instrument.

303

- Best sound
- Best pads
- Ext. Source Resample

SX

- Speed
- Storage
- Easier portability

If I made all my beats at home and had other drum machines and synths, I would own a 303. The Ext. Source Resample with other machines is the greatest thing ever. The pads and sound are unmatched. I need more storage with portability all in one machine, so the SX fits my needs better. I've seen people make great music with all the SP's, so it all depends on which one works best for you. Peace.

[l i f]

Why oh why has the sx NOT got ext source resample???!!!
Get yr shit together Roland..!

And while yer at it, change out the radio tuner effect for something actually useful