I'm a solo artist that uses full-length backing tracks as part of my live set, and sing/play guitar/drums over them. Right now, I use a basic MP3 player, which can be kind of clunky to navigate back and forth to find a song.

I keep hearing the SP-404SX can accomodate really long sample times. Would it be possible for me to:
1) Load all 20+ of my 3-4 minute stereo .wav files into an SP project, assigning each as a one-shot sample to a pad across a couple banks.
2) When I want to play a track, I just hit the appropriate pad and it would mute any other track that's playing (i.e be set to monophonic).
3) If that's possible, how long would it take to load such a project? This would be for live use, so expediency is important.

Thanks!

Hello!

1) yes, and the 404 is the ideal machine for it

2) no mute groups, but yes this can be accomplished with one of two workarounds that are.....

3)...... instantaneous

Awesome to hear!

So, my main two questions:
1) How long would such a project--with about 1.25 hours' worth of stereo .wav audio--take to load? Or does it stream from the SD Card? I come from MPC land, where things take forever to load.

2) What's the technique for mimicking mute groups? For instance, if I meant to play Pad 2, but accidentally hit Pad 3, can I set it so hitting Pad 2 will mute/stop Pad 3 and start playing Pad 3? Or do I just hit Pad 3 again to stop it, and hit Pad 2.

1) Unlike an MPC, you never have to save or load off of the card. When you turn it on, everything is just there exactly as you left it. As soon as you pop in the card it's ready to go in about two seconds.

2) The method that sounds better for your situation is to have every pad in your "mute group" set with GATE off and LOOP on.

Now for example, when you hit pad 1 it'll play (loop) until you hit pads 1 and 2 simultaneously. pad 1 will stop playing until hit again and pad 2 with begin playing, and won't stop looping until you hit it and the next desired pad simultaneously, and so on.

The other way to do this is by having all of your samples with both GATE and LOOP off, and hitting the DELETE button. All of the available pads will flash and wait for you to hit them. Every pad in every bank will temporarily act as a single mute group! Just be sure that when you are done, press CANCEL instead of DELETE again or all of the samples on the pads you left lit up will be PERMANENTLY DELETED (not joking) because the 404 recognizes this command as not triggering the sample in a performance, but rather auditioning the sample to be erased.


The advantage to the first method is that you can keep the EXT signal monitoring while your pad plays, and you can tweak FX live if you want. The disadvantage is that the last pad selected will keep looping forever, so if you don't catch it right in time you might screw up.

The advantage to the second method is that the sample will stop playing when it's over, and you only have to use one finger (one pad at a time) so no danger of overlapping. The disadvantages are that it's risky for the deleting thing, and you can't use FX or monitor the EXT source.