Hi all together,

I am thinking of buying myself an SP-404 and thanks to Youtube and this splendid forum i've got the feeling that I already know every single pro and con of this very nice unit without having touched it. But there's one simple thing that u can't see in any video nor have i found it on the forums or in the manual yet:

As I already found out in another thread, it's possible to modify existing patterns - and of course it would be very weak if that was not possible. Now my question is, if one can do that also in REAL-TIME, which means without stopping the playback at one point??

Here is what i wanna do:
Let's say I am starting the playback of a pre-made pattern and there is simple bass line going on. Now I am switching to the sample playback mode and choose a nice sampled drumsound to play along manually. Is it possible to add that drumsound to the playing pattern without stopping the playback, meaning that I can switch back to the pattern select mode and bass line plus newly added drums are playing at the same time??

I could imagine that one simply has to press "REC" to overdub the playing pattern with the new drum sound. But I am asking because if you create a pattern from scratch, the manual tells me to press "Cancel" when I am done, which actually STOPS the playback, which is crap for live-situations.

It's a cheap question I guess, but i would be very interested in the answer! Thanks a lot in advance!

Axel

Unfortunately, no you can't. You can only trigger other samples live when your sequence is playing and the machine won't record where the sounds are placed. For that I would use ableton live or an mpc.

Indeed it's a breeze with Ableton's Live. I just hoped the 404 can do as well. But thanks a lot anyways!

No doubt.

if you are in pattern record mode you could do this but when you leave this pattern for the next, that would be when the playback would stop. so while recording one pattern(a previously recorded pattern may be used) you could turn down the metrenome and parts or even switch to rehearsal mode and play sounds without applying them to the pattern but getting in and out of record mode DOES stop the music.

one thing, and you have to pre-record this, but the track mute workaround could be handy.

again the drumloop would need to be pre-recorded but you could also just trigger it as a sample alongside the pattern.