I was trying to figure out what the "Effects Grab" was, because it just allows you to quickly turn the effects off. You could hit the effect button on and then off quickly, but this is a momentary switch for more precise control I guess.

The strange thing is that for most effects that you would use a momentary switch for, the switch would be an effects send, not an effects return, which is what this is set up as.

For instance, you have a nice dub loop, and you want that big reverb on the snare - on a mixer, you use an effects send to send the whole loop (if you have to) to the reverb, and then you pull it back right away, so you are only sending a small snippet of the signal to the reverb, and then that big snare goes "Bang", and the reverb tails off naturally.

On the SP404 - the effects grab is a return, not a send, so when you take your finger off it - you don't get the reverb trailing off, you get zero verb.

I wish they had made this an effects send - because that would be really useful - particularly when using loops where your instruments are not separated.

Perhaps in the next update. . .

You could still do that sort of style by instead leaving the effect on and adding and removing samples by holding down Remain and tapping the samples you want effected.

You are totally right! - good call on that one.

It took me a while to get this to work because you have to have 2 samples selected, and then you can toggle one of them. If you only have one sample playing, you can't do this trick. (or I couldn't)

This is one area where the 404 still confuses me. If I select a sample for an effect, and then turn that sample off, and then select another sample for the effect, the effect light is off, and then I turn it on, and the effect does not kick in yet - and by then I can't really tell you what's happening.

The whole short blink, long blink thing is confusing enough (Roland, use different colored lights, like Korg does). .But even then, I have patterns playing, and I'll select a sample in advance to add an effect before it kicks in, and pretty soon, the whole process gets confusing.

I'll work it all out, but I don't think it's going to be intuitive in a live context. This thing has many multi purpose buttons without a shift key or anything.

Good advice on the effect send!

SR

its not really 'wrong'

it just doesn't work how you want it to

These samplers can be baffling sometimes, but you can make them do almost anything after some practice.