so im getting a little frustrated not having the ability for a pad to cut off when you press the next one,and im tired of watching boondock on youtube take 5 minutes to bang out shit that would take me a couple hours,lol..i cant even fathom how dope it would be to just put all your chops on trigger and play them right right away,in any way, without adjusting any end points,putting some samples on gate,some on trigger ,etc..im assuming pad controllers would have that function,espescially the akai ones ...so my question is if you have a pad controller,and you hook it to the midi in on the 404,does it basically become an extension of the machine? would you just lay down your drums on/within the sp like normal,and then record your chops into the sp from the contoller while the sp's in record mode?if it works how i think,it would just be like having a couple extra banks on the sp with the pad cutoff function...not to mention pressure sensitivity...right?sorry i know nothing about this new fangled technology

Just put your samples on gate then release it before or at the snare hit and you'll be golden.

external pads do not add pad cut off. they're just extra pads that tend to be easier to bang on accurately than the built-in pads. plus if you set them to a diff bank than the sp is set to you can hit more sounds without changing banks. if you get a padkontrol you can set a pad to a foot pedal and there's a cool "roll" feature. you still have to set your end points, unless you have a pad on gate and you just stop hitting it when you want the sound to end, but that's the way the sampler works anyway regardless of external pads. hope that clears things up a bit.

oh, and the pK pads... like butter baby! =)

my dream has been crushed..but yea,i know i can set the samples on gate,of course-thats how i've always done shit,infact i only recently started using trigger at all on chops,besides my drums.ive always just played my samples like a keyboard,i guess since the first thing i made beats on was an eps back in the day.still, that can be limiting and tedious,and its hard to make things fluid sometimes,espescially really quick 8th and 16th chops-i love the sp,i just wish it had that one feature..i figured the akai controllers would have the pad cutoff since they're supposed to kinda replicate an mpc ..oh well,thanks

no problem man, any time you need your dreams crushed you just let me know. =)

you know,i've been checking you tube out,specifically mpd 16 and trigger finger videos..and it looks like they all have pad cutoff-i reealize thats probably 'cause they're all using software-but if i could sample,chop,add effects & sequence my drums all in the sp...then put all that in the computer and be able to play my chops on the controller..that would be DOPE..i think people are underestimating the importance/cretaive possibilities of just playing the pads however you want with out having to over analyze what should go on trigger,what should go on gate,etc -i mean really if you're satisfied with just having all of your samples on gate,you must not be doing anything too complex with the chops.

it sounds like you are growing out of the sp and into needing (or wanting) an mpc. mpc has mute groups (pads that cut off other pads). thats exactly what you are talking about. even the 500 has them.

mute groups are good shit!

i just got a 404 i wish it had at least 1 mute group. and note repeat. and velocity. but at the end of the day, i am having more fun with the 404 than i used to with my mpc 2000, 500 or 1000. i can simply turn it on and have fun and make music. i don't have to spend a lot of time loading stuff or messing around in menus setting things up. that is too much like doing it in the computer and exactly what im trying to get away from for the time being. i work on a computer all day, when im home making music the computer isn't a very inspirational instrument these days.

trigger fingers and pad kontrols definitely do not have mute groups. i had a trigger finger that i just traded recently to someone else on this forum. they just don't have it.

what's cool is if you really needed mute groups and love the sp and had a pad controller you could whip up a midi patch in bidule, pd, chuck or max/msp fairly easily that you could route the pad controller through to get mute groups before sending the midi to trigger the sounds on the 404 if they were set to gate.

im not sure if you've used ableton live but you could really easily do what you talk about if you tracked your stuff from the sp into different clips on the same track in live. you don't have to have a pad controller at that point because you can map the clips to your computer keyboard. if they are on the same track they are in the same mute group. you can even set some clips to legato mode (if you switch from one beat to another mid beat they don't lose their place and start where they should be instead of at their beginning). be sure to turn clip quantize off and its some really fun stuff. and that works all the way back to at least live 4, probably older.

i am still rtm on my new(old?) sp-808 and i just was reading about mute groups which is pretty comprehensive i believe. so if you want to avoid the mpc price range, 808's can be found hella cheap these days.

one thing you can do is set up a few blank pads and loop them so that you reach max. polyphony but it really isn't the same thing, huh.

i didnt know the 808s had mute groups! thats good to know.
i was checking out the 555 manual and couldn't find anything i might ask around about it though. if it had mute groups i'd be sold with the loop capabilities and a few other things it has.

whats so awesome about mute groups is that you could be anywhere in a beat and just switch to something else entirely. with mutes you can take 2 pretty normal sounding patterns/beats/melodies and make a new beat switching between them that is far more interesting. in one way you can do it on the sp 404... they are also really useful for having a closed hat sample cut off an open hat sample, etc. things like that. or having each note of a melody cut off the previous ones. its just a different sound/technique and opens up new possibilities.

ive actually never worked on a computer at all making beats,strictly hardware...and i really dont want to-but i cant afford an mpc at this point,and even if i could i would find it hard to spend over a grand,or 2, on a machine-and like i said i love the sp..i just want that ONE feature,lol..this dude on youtube said that fruity loops and most software programs have a setting that will do the cutoff-so its not really the controller doing it,yea,but its still doing it(apparently)..i just dont know if its worth the headache of going back and forth between a computer and my machine-then again if its as simple as transfering what you have into a program and then banging out your chops on the controller,it wouldnt be much of a headache at all...
ejector-are you saying that with ableton you would have to track each chop seperately,and then they would mute eachother out?see this is why i stay away from computer production-i know absolutely nothing about it,and it seems to become more technical than musical...i need to check out that 808

its too hard to explain what im saying if you've never used ableton much less a computer to make music.

it can be as easy or as hard as you make it. you could simply track (record) your sp stuff (patterns) into something like ableton then bang out new patterns using a pad controller. the computer opens up endless possibilities but also sometimes seemingly endless headaches when stuff just doesn't work right for some reason. definitely becomes more technical than musical. at the end of the day i like to sit down at my rhodes or my synths or pick up a guitar or now bang on my sp, close my eyes and let the music flow.

its a shame the 404 doesn't have midi out, then you could just use it with a computer as a pad controller.

i know it's frustrating when something lacks a feature you really want,
you gotta adapt though, it's a challenge to alter your style and not be reliant on a feature.

yea man,no doubt..i'm saying,i've never in my life made a beat where the cutoff thing is an option at all..all i've worked on is the sp,a zoom sampletrack,and a eps and asr..you might actually be able to do it on the ensoniqs,i dont know ...i'm just curious to see how creative i could get by putting 8,12,16 whatever chops on the pads and just playing them shits however..i mean you can accomplish anything you want beatwise with any peice of equipment really-but with that option it wouldnt have to be completely planned out before you record your sequence..and yea with the samples on gate,you can do whatever,but i usually have to make several runs through something to improve or completely redo parts,& make sure things arent TOO choppy.but fuck it,thats part of the fun

the 808 allows 7 mute groups. it seems to be for saving polyphony but yeah it's there. if you get the OM check pg.37.

btw this thing is a monster. if i connect my 404 through the aux in/outs i think i'll get the best of both worlds cuz the 808 isn't really fast like the 404. but yeah, grab one if you can find it cheap.

Pad muting works awesome on the SP-606 as well. It's cool that there are more and more SP-808 videos on youtube now, very impressive piece of gear!