I actually bought this product because I could not find my old faithful Zoom SampleTrak ST-224 from way back in the day, which I have long ago sold, anywhere on the net. What I need to do is create entire songs on this machine and I don't mean just never ending dance loops or drum patterns. Can it be used as a stand alone system? To be honest the whole pattern sequencing feature seems to me to be surplus to my requirements. The problem is that on my old machine, it was possible to record, say, two samples (a beat and a bass line), cut the start and end points and truncate them. What made the thing so useful though was that after preparing the samples in this way, it was possible to quantize them in relation to eachother; this humble little machine would stretch or shrink the start/end points/bpm incrementally, at the touch of a button, so that the samples were exactly in phase with eachother (I think this was done at the touch of an "auto sync" button.) Now the sp 404 performs the first part of the task but if I want to produce a live performance from these two samples WITHOUT messing about with the pattern sequencer, the tiny discrepancies inherant in even the most finely clipped and beat-matched samples means that if they are played on a loop together for any amount of time, they fall out of phase and you're left with an arythmic mess! Surely there is some way to make samples speak to eachother on the 404 in the same way the Sampletrak was able to do. For me, the pattern sequencer just complicates something which I feel could be so much simpler. I have no problem making complicated moves with my hands, and my rythmic sensibility is very good, so I don't need the sampler to fix MY timing, but the timing of the samples as they are imported so-to-speak. I hope this makes sense. Its such a long time since I used a sampler and any help would be most appreciated.

well, you're right.

if you loop a drum part on Pad 1, and a bass part on Pad 2, there's a very good chance that they will slip out of phase. Sometimes you can get them to line up perfectly (often by trial and error, or editing to length on a computer), but more often than not, there will be slippage.

one thing to consider is getting each loop as perfect as you can (trimming end points, etc), then triggering one or both on the "one" of the bar, each time, manually.

so, let's say yr looping yr drum part on Pad 1. okay, off it goes, looping over and over.

set up Pad 2 as non-gate, non-loop: hit the Pad on the "one" of the bar (or whenever you want it to launch) and it will play thru ONCE. you will then have to hit it again to re-trigger it when the drum loop comes around.

but since you say you don't mind complicated hand motions, this IS a way around that. you can then trigger Pad 2, Pad 3 or whatever, whenever you need them to fire, using yr own sense of time to match up with the drum loop on Pad 1.

the other option would be to use a Pattern Sequence, set up to (again) launch Pad 1 and Pad 2 on the "one" of the bar. note that these pads would both need to be set up as one-shots, so non-gate, non-loop. as the pattern comes around, it will re-trigger the samples.

i hope that helps you, and makes some sense. i often use the above techniques, and it feels pretty good, because it feels hands-on.

good luck.

Thank you so much for your prompt reply. I think the clouds are clearing!
I had a feeling that the pattern sequencer could hold the answer (constantly having to re-start one of the samples outside the sequencer does indeed seem needlessly time consuming!). I still find this feature difficult to comprehend though. Could you perhaps give me a brief run down of how I can use the pattern sequencer to construct an entire song, like the one described in my first post. Am I right in thinking that such a tune would need to be constructed piece-meal in 4, perhaps 8 bar segments? I've given it a go but I'm still having trouble with the basics of arrangement and quantization in this mode. I expect I'm being impatient with the machine, finding it frustrating that I can't immediatly reproduce the effect of my first, far more basic sampler. I am much obliged to you for any help you can offer.
P.S (Are there perhaps any COMPREHENSIVE online video tutorials that may help me achieve what I'm describing i.e using the 404 as a stand-alone instrument rather than just an accessory to decks or a computer enslaved add-on?)

so, first, there is no auto-sync that may have been on the sampletrak. so that's the first thing. if i understand what yr asking, you'd use the sqncr just as i described briefly above:
make samples into one-shots, non-looping
figger out when you want them to trigger
arrange yr sequence to fire these for you
then switch sqnces manually

you would have to build the song via different sqnced patterns (and the sqncr is only a One Track sequencer), but you are not limited to 4 or 8 bar patterns. i think you can just keep scrolling them up to 32, 64 bars or whatevs.

yr best bet is to mess around with it. the key is in the bpm of the samples and the sequence.

regarding videos, you have to learn a bit from each guy on youtube. they all do dif things. panda bear / el guincho can teach you stuff. so can joe beats. so can fourtet, etc.

good luck. there are workarounds.

A thousand thanks, Lauren, you have been so very helpful and I am now making real progress. You're right, its obviously a complex machine and just having a good old fiddle with it seems to be the best bet. A few last (promise!) queries though, just before I go and be the next DJ Shadow(!)
I am currently using the click track on my multitracker to make sure that the bpm of my samples are dead on. This means having one headphone from the sampler in one ear (so that I can hear what I'm playing), and another headphone from a different set, listening to the multitrack click, to keep me right in what I'm playing. This is reasonably satisfactory, but nevertheless seems a tad over-complicated.
I know that you can get the sampler to play a count-in on the run-up to recording samples, but is it possible to have it continue WHILST recording and then remove it afterwards? This would simplify the whole time keeping thing and stop me constantly getting tangled up in masses of headphone cable!
Secondly, just some further clarification on sequencing. (Sorry!) Remember I spoke in the earliest post about adding samples one after the other to make a song etc. etc? Well, I've come some way with this and I realise that the sample length can be scrolled and all that jazz. Is the best way to construct a song perhaps to do a single (or whatever length) measure bass line assigned to one pad, a drumloop assigned to another, then, to develop the tune, assign another pattern to a pad with both the bass and drums from the two other pads combined within it? Do you follow me? This technique has worked for me up to a point, the quantize function holding the samples in phase beautifully, but things get a bit complicated whenever I try to make more elaborate pattern sequences especially with pads containing samples longer than one measure. Do I just need to excercise practice and patience in this respect? (as I've said before, I'm having trouble explaining myself.)
Okay, take the aforementioned Shadow and people like him. His tunes contain hundreds of different combinations of samples; single basslines, single beats, riffs (the list is endless. If I were to attempt something akin to this work, would I need one pattern pad with a beat on its own, one pad with a riff on its own etc. etc. and then a whole bunch of other pads comprising different combinations of these single samples?
Thanks so much again for sacrificing so much of your time to answering my silly convoluted questions. You truly are a life-saver (when I first started messing with the 404, I was THIS close to throwing the fuckin' thing out of the window! So not only have you been very kind, you've saved me 200 quid!!!!)

practice helps. keep in mind that shadow is more of a turntablist and he often would pitch (adjust) longer riffs from his tt and mix that thru his mixer while cracking beats from his mpc 60. of course he uses much more gear these days, but you get the idea. on the first question, you could record a count in first for up to 99 bars and then take it out quite easily but you would want to make sure it corresponds with the internal metrenome or else you might be a little dissapointed with the result. my guess is that most of us work with short patterns and create songs thru pattern triggering. you might want to look into an external midi pattern sequencer if you can't be bothered with the pattern sequencing, many people do this with quite amazing results.

go tom!

hey ya'll. first post. and boy is it digging an old one up!

i'm about to pull the trigger on an 404 but then i came across this thread. hey, fauna, i'm not quite sure i understand what you mean when you say a one track sequencer. i'm sure i'm missunderstanding something...but a one track sequencer sounds VERY limiting.

can't find anything in the manual about this either...

thanks!

work arounds are everywhere, you just gotta think of a way to do it with what you have, when he says one track sequencer, it means that you can only have one sequence playin at a time, so make multiple sequences that contain all the subtleties of parts you want, then just trigger through them (patterns will switch automatically when one ends and you have chosen another, the one you hit will start right on 1 after the last 4 of the pattern before) it might involve alot of requantizing annoying drums, and alot of cutting to get drops and shit that you want, but after a few times you get the hang of it, and don't forget you can change the value at which you quantize to for every sample you lay down in a pattern, just hit quantize and change it and it will start doing it to that while not changin stuff you already quantized

there is a way to do almost anything on a 404, just think about how you can achieve what you want using the machines functions, and if you are startin to layer shit up, don't forget the polyphony, 6 stereo can play overtop of eachother at once, 12 mono

cool. that makes sense. thanks for the advice....i got a 404 today! wooot!

also the 404 doesnt have an auto loop button but you can set the bpm upon recording, while rec is blinking and a pad is selected hit bpm and adjust. no metronome though but the light flashes in time and if its a music sample you can use your ear. sometimes you might have to trim a point or two after but mostly it gets it pretty good.

one track sequencer - does kind of suck, it basically means you need to make separate patterns for any changes in your main part but there are workarounds for muting individual samples.

heres a trick to make the 404 a 3 track sequencer. ( with 2 mutable tracks)

say you want to mute bassline and hats. put the isolator on them, with all levels turned down. theres 1 mutable track.

you want to mute the snare , but still be able to go back and mute the bass and hats seperate, smack the snare pad, hit volume and turn it down to mute it, i know it sounds ghetto, but i got it down ,

i usually dont use the volume trick , cause 2 tracks is enough for me.

oh yea sometimes it might think your trying to apply isolator to the snare because it was the last sample, so you might have to go back and regroup whatever you had muted. only sometimes, usually it will keep them grouped and ignore the snare.