How have the 404 limitations CONTRIBUTED to your workflow?

earwolf · Post by **earwolf** » Mon Aug 18, 2008 11:38 am

As anyone who has hammered their credit card on music gear over the years comes to realise, Brian Eno was spot on when he said:

Regard your limitations as secret strengths.

The 404 had to chop a few corners spec-wise in order to make the selling price, but how have these been limitations been exploited? The simple sequencer, display, editing options or even QUICK THE BATTERIES ARE GONNA DIE? Give me the straight line doc

iG9 · Post by **iG9** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:05 am

i think the lack of visual chops strengthens your ear. as well, you wind up with less obvious, more obscure chops.

earwolf · Post by **earwolf** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:20 am

nice!

PHeMoX · Post by **PHeMoX** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 12:52 pm

iG9 wrote:i think the lack of visual chops strengthens your ear. as well, you wind up with less obvious, more obscure chops.

Very true.

One thing I really like about the SP-404 (and it's bigger brother the 555) is how the effects make it possible to really tweak and bend sample chops into crazy things. Not really a limitation here, but... these devices definitely encourage creativity through what is and what is not possible!

adru · Post by **adru** » Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:49 pm

i'v never had a credit card,lol...but if i could get one i'd be all over that musicians friend monthly payment shit

as far as the ,limitations-i enjoy simple samplers-they force you to take an approach more simmilar to playing an "actual" instrument.i also enjoy just the idea of making stuff with a 250 dollar machine thats completely comparable to cats making beats on 5,000 dollars worth of shit.
i like chopping manually too-i'm always amazed when i see people that cant fathom the idea of doing your chops yourself or not being able to see a soundwave..why would you need a visual of your chops?that makes no sense to me-and i'm sick of seeing these boondoc (HE'S dope though) wannabes on you tube taking a 2 bar sample,having the machine chop it up for them,and playing some retarded reppetitive sequence talking about "yea,thats the hotness"..lol

to me an sp or simmilar machine makes you take a more artistic and musical approach to beatmaking,which is what it should be about-thats why i dont think i'll ever want an mpc-maybe an mpd though..

John P · Post by **John P** » Fri Aug 22, 2008 4:50 am

after playing around with software (which I'm doing off and on right now...) I like the 404 a lot better. It's more fun. Like some of you said, there's no screen to get bogged down in... it's all in the sound. I'll bounce some stuff out to a 4-track cassette, add some stuff, bounce it back in, re-chop it a different way. More like messing with a real instrument.

HomeMadeInstrumentals · Thu Aug 28, 2008 9:50 am

yeh....i reckon the lack of a visual is better. well its refreshing. like has been said, it keeps your ear keen for chops u cant hear with ur eyes. it keeps me away from tired 16th chops. a lack of screet and visual interface makes it feel more like an instrument then an application.
Another point...which a few of you may dissagree about...is things like the reverb aint that great to me. I cant control it to sound like how imagine the reverb...which sounds like a bad thing, but when i used to use albeton (whcih is a great program still, it just aint the only thing there is

), i relied on the effects so much, my music was drowned into a mess of vst's and plugins. I dont really bother with that many effects on the 404..apart from reverd and isolator! so i cant hide behind them either

adru · Post by **adru** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:48 pm

i feel you on the reverb-i've never liked it on the sp,it sounds all tinny and shit and if you use it on snares it changes the entire sound of them too drastically instead of just basically putting a tail on them-unless i just havent figured out the best way to do it.i'm about to cop another zoom sampletrak to do reverb and pitch shifting & a couple other things.they should be mad cheap by now & are a perfect addition to the 404 to do the few things the sp cant.ESPESCIALLY pitch shifting everything from samples to bass tones to drum hits with no distortion at all....and the reverbs a lot better on it

Dj Frantic · Post by **Dj Frantic** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 4:56 pm

some1 posted a tip about the revern once (I forget who) that said to add a little bit of vinyl sim compression after u use the reverb and it sounds alot better. The reverb on the 555 i smuch improved IMHO.

Euclid Ov Oåklånd · Post by **Euclid Ov Oåklånd** » Thu Aug 28, 2008 7:48 pm

I think the effects do pretty well, but they definitely can't compete with Ableton Live or something similar.

HomeMadeInstrumentals · Mon Sep 01, 2008 11:02 pm

yeh adru thats what i was thinkin...its a little tinny and not that natural. i dont mind the occasional delay/tape delay (tape delay is pretty sweet) to fill my tracks out about when they're too choppy. I reckon maybe my standarrds have been spoilt by ableton lol...i might be expecting too much.
a zoom sampletrak....cool idea. i might also look into that and add it to the thousands of dollars of shit i want

PHeMoX · Post by **PHeMoX** » Tue Sep 02, 2008 12:41 am

Yeah, the shitty thing about gearlust isn't that you can't own all.. but the fact that every little piece of gear costs money.

its a little tinny and not that natural.

It's because the fading sounds gets stretched up a bit with their algorithm. Reverb should be bouncing sound, not just a soft echo type thing.

Ableton Live uses a different method that comes closer to what real natural reverb is, it's more modern and many might say 'better', but it also requires more resources...

It seems to me the SP555 has a much better reverb than the 404 tho, so I wouldn't be surprised if that machines uses more of the same far more natural algorithm.

HomeMadeInstrumentals · Tue Sep 02, 2008 11:08 am

interesting info there PhemoX....that pretty much sums up how i hear the ableton compared to the 404...much more natural and almost bouncing. Not really complaining tho...the 404 is a budget piece no matter how u put it. i knew that when i bought it. i'd be interested to hear the 555's reverb...

balazs · Post by **balazs** » Tue Sep 23, 2008 3:14 am

adru wrote:i feel you on the reverb-i've never liked it on the sp,it sounds all tinny and shit and if you use it on snares it changes the entire sound of them too drastically instead of just basically putting a tail on them

yeah putting a tail on a snare with a good sounding reverb can be difficult. I discovered a lot of tricks from the battles and from spending hours chopping drums hit out of records before i dump them. one recent trick i learned is resampling with a pretty fast and very quiet delay then add reverb, the vinyl sim compression can help too

Huph · Post by **Huph** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:01 pm

I actually like the 404's [Reverb]. I wouldn't use it when I'm doing real mixing work, but I love laying it on top of samples to completely obscure them.

I guess it's not too useful from a production and accuracy standpoint, but for the purpose of original sound design, the [Reverb] is top notch in my book. I've yet to find another reverb unit that can emulate the 404 (besides the 303). Not to say it's the greatest reverb or anything like that, I just think it sounds really unique and original. I like to bathe sounds in the verb, and roll the ctrl3 all the way right and start spacing out.

As a matter of fact, one of the new songs at my blog is absolutely drowning in 404 reverb, but I'll talk about that in another post shortly over at the "Your Music" board