First post so be kind

I got my 404 a few weeks ago and I'm loving it. I havn't really got into sequencing yet, but just playing around live is lots of fun. I loaded up a CF card the other night and just chilled with the SP + a set of headphones on the couch for a few hours. Seriously, what other setup can you do that with?

Anyway, I have a couple of CF cards and I'm finding the import management a bit of a pain. I have way more samples than I have pads to play them on and trying to import them all so the right ones stay grouped together is a bit tricky. It seems like the SP doesn't always import in alphabetical order + just reorganizing all my sample files on the PC and renaming is slow.

So I am considering writing some software that does all that for you - but I wanted to scope out 2 things before I did. First, has anybody else already written something that makes importing a bit easier and second, what would people like to see from it?

I'm thinking a dummy SP404 interface with a way to create "sets" of samples. Once you've opened a set you can drag and drop any audio clips onto the pads in the UI and play them to try them out. There would be limited playback options but you should be able to loop + gate and maybe even recut. Format conversion from MP3 or whatever to WAV should be pretty easy too. I'm hoping I can tear apart the roland file formats so you don't even need to import, but a first pass might just be a way to easily lay out your samples before you import.

I'm also hoping you can store several sets on the 1 card, and swapping to a new set just means clicking a button in the UI rather then recopying / reimporting all the samples back onto the card or requiring that you backup all your sets on your PC.

Bit of a late night brain dump, but I wanted to hear some thoughts on the idea at least?

sounds great, post up a rough working version when you get one, i don't really load samples from my comp, but i know alot of people on here do, and i also would use it for copying samples and patterns on a familiar interface, i'm not a big fan of the flying lotus trick, don't have the internal banks open enough to do it, maybe when i get more cards i can organize it.......

you should hack the 404 operating system, i will love you long time .

i havnt imported ever since i got my rca cables...

^^^^

which reminds me , i should start using the rca outs , instead of the headphone out for recording, way better quality .,

on that side note, if you do use the headphone out make sure you are using a stereo cable.. for a real long time i wasnt (most guitar cords are prob. not stereo) and i just thought it sounded rough, but the other night i realized it and it sounded pretty fine with the right cord... look at your 1/4 inch cable tip one ring = mono ... two rings = stereo check it out!

on the program software yeah that would be the shit, i usually dont import the samples, but mostly because by the time you rename all the files and make sure they are right you could have just recorded it into the machine reg style. so any speed ups would be cool if you can do it where it names the file properly and makes sure its the sample rate and all that, and copying if you can hac k it would be butter!

great idea mate. do it dman!

Excellent idea.

A few "facts" though...

The sample import order is based on ASCII character value from the first bank+pad you select on the 404. To help know what we're doing, most users have settled on using the bank letter as the prefix for the sample name followed by a 2 digit number. That is, the samples are completely renamed before putting on the card. So, C_01.wav, C_02.wav etc.
Note the 404 import doesn't read the name - naming it with a "C" won't make it put it in bank C, nor does it use your number to allocate to that number pad - you have to select Bank C, Pad 1 on import then the 404 will place all the samples consecutively starting from that.

So to begin with, the software could help by letting you drop the samples on a virtual bank/pad matrix - keeping the real names that you see, but automatically renaming them in the above fashion when you dump the set to the card.

The Software could also help by checking that your samples are a legal format when first selected - that is either .wav or .AIF and all 16bit, 44.1Khz and uncompressed (that is, plain pcm samples).

Just these 2 jobs would be worthwhile.

Going further than that would be tricky - the 404 converts imports to Rolands own compressed data format, that's roughly 50% smaller in normal quality. These 404 files have no header info, it relies on other files to tell it about the samples. So software that might speed things up by doing the complete import on the computer has a lot of work to do. I suspect the data compression is Rolands own R-DAC codec ( used on Roland and Boss recorders) and the 50% compression ratio for those is known as MT1.

Good luck

Jim

Welcome to the forums and ofcoz to the wonderful world of the 404
Nice that you're ready to put some work in right from the beginning. There have been some attempts/projects concerning 404 software (tried search but did not find) but I think there's still need for one - especially one that would look like the 404 UI. Pattern copy and ability to organiize and manage the backup banks would be great stuff to have on it.