SP-404 MK2?

[TGN]

WTF! The variphrase algorhytms sound so smooth!
I really liked the normal pitch-function before, but these functions are way better! SP-USER, don't worry, the normal pitch and timestretch functions were not touched with the update.

it's strange but compared to the previous convincing examples i posted before (https://youtu.be/d4mzvKf8tAc?t=549
https://youtu.be/-IQbT-7SUAI?t=71), this new one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O9B7IccSx90&t=276s is not convincing me that much, here the Vari mode seems much as the sp505 pitch function or at least the mc-909 pitch/timestrech function, wich is cool, but is not as good as the VP9000 or the V-Synth ones from Roland (early 2000s machines, i have the second one)...


btw, if you have possibility, could you do some test please? Thanks

For sure!
https://we.tl/t-n9myyWONzT
Here i pitched a drum loop the full range, so from 0 to -12 semitones and back to 0, then to +12 and back to zero.
First in normal pitch-mode. Then in backing-mode, last in ensemble-mode.
Three files in this zip-file.

https://we.tl/t-MZvhVLDz9d
Here i pitched a flute...same procedure. Three files in the zip-file.
Here the ensemble-pitch stands out! Really good!

If you want i'll make a comparison of a sample of your choice...just upload it somewhere. Maybe we can compare with your Variphrase-Pitch, too!

[ellaguru]

thanks for the examples man!

[Ill Green]

Putting out an APD!!!

MKII in stock right now at Musiciansfriend.com and guitarcenter.com!

Your all fucken welcome!

I'm at One Plaza hotel.

[SP-USER]

Thanks for the heads-up bro, still none for England tho!!!

[Jaytreaze]

@sp user https://www.thediscdjstore.com/roland-s ... CoQAvD_BwE stock expected in October

https://www.thomann.de/gb/roland_sp_404 ... 8EQAvD_BwE These guys will ship to uk and stock expected in couple months but a .de site so shipping might be iffy

I’m going to be honest, if you’re in the uk I don’t think you’ll get one unless it’s pre order

[SP-USER]

Already tried that, I pre-ordered with Gear4Music very early on but they kept changing the date so I thought fuck it, just cancel it and wait for it to come in stock, so that's what I' did, I cancelled it. I wouldn't take any notice of those dates if I were you, because as the date approaches they'll just bump it up another two or three months at a time which is what they have done right from the start.

That's all they ever seem to do, take people's orders and keep jacking the estimated delivery date up all the time, and to be honest I really cannot see this chip-shortage fuckery ending any time soon, seriously, an end is not even in sight!

The only thing I can see happening 'soon' is nuclear, all part of their plan to reduce the population to a level where they can take full control of those who remain. We literally are dealing with a bunch of psychopaths wanting to rule the world, the situation is fucking deadly bro, I'm telling you, it's all going according to their plan and like I said, this chip-shortage fuckery is not ending any time soon.

There literally is no end in sight for it, so unless Roland secured another chip manufacturer outside of China, they're as fucked as every other corporation that chose to depend on manufacturers operating under a Chinese Dictatorship for the production of their ICs.

[djazid]

There literally is no end in sight for it, so unless Roland secured another chip manufacturer outside of China, they're as fucked as every other corporation that chose to depend on manufacturers operating under a Chinese Dictatorship for the production of their ICs.

Well the synth/sampler market is a niche one. Which means that if Roland (and others) wanna make something, they are last in line to get components. Roland/Yamaha/[...] always made some chips themselfs in the past [and maybe still ?], but they (ofcourse) also rely on other manufacturers. And for a small market that's not so easy to get noawadays.

[SP-USER]

Firstly, all manufacturers need to stop using the chips they are currently using, and instead, use their inept corporate brains for once and start building their products around Open Hardware silicon designs that can be manufactured anywhere. Secondly, they need to invest in IC manufacturing plants in their OWN countries in order to produce those ICs.

Problem solved, Chinese dictatorship screwed!

[TGN]

For you UK Freaks, like SP-USER:

sp-404mk2 back in stock @anderson's:

https://www.andertons.co.uk/roland-sp-4 ... sp-404mkii

[SP-USER]

Bro, I could freakin' KISS you right now (but don't go getting any gay-ass ideas about that)!
Cheers mate, I don't think I ever visited and logged into a website so bloody quick in my life

Wow, so I finally got one ordered, and of course that means I can hold my head up high next time the homies on here start teasing me for not being an "SP USER".

So suck on dat
Dis be the deal
I got me a 404
For fuckin' real

Was definitely worth saving you from the Mafia for, and I hope you had a nice holiday btw!

[SP-USER]

Well it arrived at just gone nine this morning, which was a surprise cause I never paid extra for Saturday delivery. The delivery date was meant to be Monday but I'm not complaining!

Lucky it arrived when it did though, gotta get my shopping in today and could easily have missed it. Man, if someone had said to me this time yesterday that an SP-404MKII would be in my flat on the following morning I would have laughed at you and duly prescibed you some retard pills!

Haven't opened the delivery box yet, but the good news it has not been squashed in any way, no damaged corners so that's a good sign, I'm guessing the same is true for the main box inside. So looking good so far, although you know very well that SP-USER is going to find something to rant about, so expect one or two to start appearing after tea tonight which is the earliest I'll get to open it. Can't open it now or I'll never get my shopping in!

And wow, Wedley's original post in this thread was from 25th August 2021. It's now 3rd September 2022 which means the wait was just over a year. But will I send it back after such a sadisticly long wait to get my hands on it?

We shall see

[SP-USER]

Well here it comes: SP-USER's verdict on the SP-404MKII

I think it's a seriously cool piece of kit! It's so nice to be able to do the sort of stuff I was wishing the previous model could do. Was a heck of a wait but was definitely worth it. I'm still majorly pissed-off that there's no Touch Wah among the effects but I'm hoping they'll add one in an update in the future.

It looked a bit overly-complex when I first sat in front of it but once you get the basics down you realise it's actually just as easy if not even easier in some respects than the previous one (and that surprised me).

But here's some serious advice to EVERYONE who owns one of these: I have no idea why but Roland have chosen to ship it from the factory with the wrong knob settings, so do yourselves a massive favour and follow these simple steps:

Go into the System Settings menu and look for the following settings:

- Edit Knob Mode
- EFX Knob Mode

Set both of these settings to "Direct" mode instead.

You will notice they're both set to "Catch" from the factory and this is a really bad decision, so do yourselves a massive favour and set them BOTH to "Direct" mode instead. Doing so will make the knobs behave in the same responsive manner the original model did which is far better than the unsuitable "Catch" mode they set it to from the factory.

Blows my mind that they set it to that by default, but they really did, so be sure to change both settings to "Direct" if you want to hang on to your sanity when twiddling those knobs and get maximum enjoyemnt out of using the device.

But yeah, man, totally loving this thing, and even the way the pattern recording is set up, man it's just so damn nice and logical and even has multiple steps of undo that can be used while the pattern is being recorded. Absolutely perfect in my opinion and I've not even updated the firmware yet, it's still on version one point something.

Something I noticed (which I think explains the difference being heard in the effects) is that the gain on effects like the isolator appears to have been reduced a bit, probably from 15 to 12 db. But that makes sense because on here you can literally run four effects in series so that means you could have an Isolator over another Isolator over another etc etc, For example I had an Isolator into an EQ into a Compressor and fucking hell, that sounded real nice!!!

So I reckon any changes there are likely due to it now having to accommodate effect busses which it never had before, perhaps to lessen the chances of distortion or whatever.

Interestingly though, I have not been restricted in the way SPVIDZ was when restricted when he was talking about effects busses. I recall he was unable to assign effects to the final two busses without saving them to a faviourites first, but I have no such limitation here which makes me wonder what the dude was doing to be locked out of it like that.

I can scroll between the four effects busses and directly assign whatever I want to each of them, so the stuff I'm seeing in the videos has me scratching my head wondering what's gong on there with their settings. Has nothing to do with the update either cause like I said, I've not even updated it to version 2 yet, it's still on version one point something or other.

So yeah, VERY happy with this piece of kit and it most certainly is not going back

Please though, Roland, if you're reading this, please add a Touch Wah among the main effects so that we can run our samples through it while resampling. An exciter effect would also be very nice to have since this really is a full-on production tool.

[TGN]

What a blessing that we're allowed to experience this in this forum's life!
SP-USER finally lives up to his name! Well done!
And Bro, i think there is a good chance that Roland comes up with your beloved Touch Wah! When you're going to install the latest firmware you will notice, that there is an additional table with efx, because Roland added 4 new effects and the 12 fields underneath are waiting to be filled!

Btw. how do you scroll through all 4 efx-busses?

[SP-USER]

What a blessing that we're allowed to experience this in this forum's life!
SP-USER finally lives up to his name! Well done!

Cheers mate, I think you're the only one on here who appreciates me

And Bro, i think there is a good chance that Roland comes up with your beloved Touch Wah! When you're going to install the latest firmware you will notice, that there is an additional table with efx, because Roland added 4 new effects and the 12 fields underneath are waiting to be filled!

I noticed that too, and I hope you're right, but so far it has a whole bunch of useless effects with funny names while neglecting the essentials like a Touch Wah. So there's definitely room but whether they will come good on that side of things is another matter entirely.

Three essential EFX I feel are missing so far (in my personal order of importance):

1 - Touch Wah (This is a Hip-Hop device, yet it lacks a funky Touch Wah)
2 - Shimmer Reverb (This is an ambient and drone beast, yet it lacks Shimmer)
3 - Exciter/Enhancer (This is a full-on production tool, yet it lacks an Exciter and Enhancer).

Btw. how do you scroll through all 4 efx-busses?

- SHIFT + PAD 16 to enter EFX SETTINGS
- Select FAVOURITE tab using CTRL 3 knob
- Turn PUSH/ENTER knob to select any favourite
- Press PUSH/ENTER knob to go back to tab selection mode
- Turn CTRL 3 knob to select any of the four busses
- Press PUSH/ENTER knob to enter EFX selection mode
- Turn PUSH/ENTER knob to choose any EFX for the chosen bus

I think what might be throwing SPVIDS is that if you don't select a favourite, then you have to select bypass, and if you select bypass, then you are not able to set the effects for busses 3 and 4. So when I do it, I just choose "Favourite 1" on the "FAVOURITES" tab and then scroll over to the other busses to change whatever is assigned to that favourite even though I never actually saved "Favourite 1" in the first place.

So you're totally free to scroll between all four busses and freely assign whatever you want to them. I do agree with SPVIDS about the selection method though, to an extent anyway. What I mean is that I totally agree that all busses should be selectable from the "BUS FX" pad, but I do not agree that the same function should toggle between four busses, because the final two busses are meant as global busses.

So what I would do is this:

- BUS FX toggles between BUS 1 and BUS 2
- BUS FX + SHIFT toggles between BUS 3 and BUS 4

See what I'm getting at? That way we fix the frustration SPVIDS is talking about but we don't have to wade through four presses each time we do it. The way I suggested means you will be able to select between four busses in the way SPVIDS is wanting to do, but you will still only need to toggle once at most. So I totally share his frustration, but at the same time, you have to remember that having the same function toggle between four busses would be a bit of a pain because it is mainly the first two you will want to select between most of the time (because the final two busses are global).

I'd contact SPVIDS to let him know but I'm not a member of YouTube so I can't, so hopefully someone else will let him know. Anyway, I'm just about to install the update that dropped the other day, mine's still on one point something!

Looking forward to trying the new TR-REC mode, man I love this thing!

[TGN]

Thanks SP-USER for explaining.

When i was in italy i took the mk2 with me for doing some lofi uk garage house with the TR STYLE sequencer mode. Gonna finish this ep in the next weeks, but i already have some thoughts and complaints:

I like the possibility to set velocity, pitch, shuffle, sample start per step,but once entered it is not possible to see these details again, you have to guess them. So if you program fast hihats in a 2 bar loop with the heavy use of different velocity, pitch and shuffle settings, it is nearly impossible to recreate this pattern, because you can not comprehend afterwards what you were exactly doing. So a workaround is to resample the loop. Fortunately you can mute kick, snare, etc to get only the hihats.

And it is not possible to copy or alter notes like on the elektron machines. If you don't like, erase and do it again. Copy? Resample. Or crop and duplicate the pattern.

So when it comes to these things, nothing changed.

The overall behaviour of samples set up in TR-Mode is different, too. Normally if you have a pattern running, you can retrigger samples, which are also triggered by the running sequencer. Samples which were entered in TR-Mode can't be retriggered by hand while the pattern is running. If you trigger the sample, it plays on top of its own, polyphon. But on the one hand, the release of a fastly triggered kick drum sample is not cut this way. I always liked the sound of my MC-505 for this behavour.

On the other hand there is a disadvantage: If you have programmed a pattern in TR-Mode, the pitch (and maybe other parameters) of a sample is hardcoded in the pattern. if you change the pitch of a sample it does not affect the pitch of this sample in the pattern. But you can pitch down your sample and resample it and put this to the pad.

I like the sp-404mk2 for techno/house/4x4/ stuff, but you still have to find your workarounds on a luxury level now - what a luck, it would not be a SP if it wouldn't be this way.

Another thing - i recently bought an alpha juno 2 in good shape and i love this synth. So in wanted to sample it straight into the mk2. Unfortunately the stereo inputs do not tolerate a lot of gain. drum samples imported from SD-Card are way louder than my phrase samples of the alpha juno. Glad to have a compressor efx, but i wish the extern inputs would accept more gain/volume.