What I'm trying to do is be able to play one sample on my 404, but be able to play the same sample in different notes. For example, like a casio sk1 or sk5, you can sample something and then play the keys to get the sample synced up with the corresponding note. Does anyone have an idea of how to do this on sp404? MIDI maybe?

you'll have to make copies of the same sample and tune 'em by hand.

we all really wish the 404 can do this... its the one big fault of the machine. You can use the chromatic PS effect (#19 I think) and that works ok... but not super great. It creates wierd artifacts and cuts off alot of high end.

Yeah, we all hate this limitation I guess. It is somehow depressing when you know how easy it is to implement ! The thing is midi implementation don't work that way on the 404 : one note per pad, so you can all trigger from your keyboard, whereas on every other sampler : a sound = a midi channel and the same sound at different pitches.

I had an Akai s20 sampler that could MUCH more in terms of sample editing and playing (at different pitches mind you, triggered by midi) : you could select the "release" time, which means you could make the sample fade out smoothly... You could set the looping points with perfect precision, which meant you could make a violin sound loop smoothly...and there could be sound before the first looping point...and...well, that was almost a decade ago.

I guess that is not the way roland went. They went really wild on the feeling (you've got to love the sp...), they dedicated huge amounts of "CPU" power to ensure your beat could be time stretched in real time. Well you get it, it was designed for techno heads...hence the huge effects section !

What's cool is I've never seen such a small machine sparkle so much creativity. I guess the beast is now alive, and went beyond what the engineers imagined. And everyday I see new tricks comin'up to get around the limitations we face. I LOVE what's happening here !