I bought the SP-555 a couple of weeks ago and have been using it as much as possible to decide whether to keep or return it. On the plus side, it's a fun machine to play with, but last night I encountered a couple of problems. Maybe I have a bad machine but here's what happened:

I used loop capture to capture about 10 samples from a keyboard, synth, and drum machine and assigned them to pads. Tested them, everything playing fine. Then I turned on the Pattern Sequencer to try and create a "song" and here's the problem I ran into (note: I play with the Fixed Velocity feature ON so it makes no difference how hard I hit the pad):

1. I played Pad 1, no problem. At measure 4, I released Pad 1 and hit Pads 2 and 3 at the same time. No sound. Nada. Stop the pattern sequencer.

2. Start over. Pad 1, no problem. Pads 2 and 3, this time no problem. Try to add Pad 4, nothing out of Pad 4. Stop the pattern sequencer.

3. Start over. This time Pads 1-4 all play.

On various retakes (and there were a lot since every time you hit the wrong pad or time it wrong, you have to restart the sequencer from the beginning), I experienced the same problems. Not every single time, but enough for it to be irritating. Has anyone else had similar problems with pads sometimes not playing?

One other thing. When not in pattern sequencer mode, the HOLD button lights up. When I'm in pattern sequencer mode, the HOLD button does NOT light up when pressed. The HOLD feature works but the button does not light up. Is this normal?

you need to turn off gate and loop mode for your in pattern sequencer mode.

turn on quantization and hit the sample at the start of each loop.
same with kicks at the start of the bar, you got to have gate mode turned off.

its counter intuitive at first


i made a list of things i wish i knew when i bought it:

viewtopic.php?f=13&t=5106

also, theres no use of the hold button in pattern mode.

So if you switch on the pattern sequencer, you then have to touch each pad and turn OFF gate and loop for each pad separately? And Hold doesn't work in pattern mode?

Then how does this work... Say on Pad 2 I have drums, Pad 3 is a bass line, Pad 4 is a synth. I want to start with Pads 2 and 3 for a few measures, then add pad 4 to the mix. Then I want all three pads to continue playing throughout the song.

If gate and loop are OFF and Hold doesn't work, aren't the pads going to play one time and then stop?

thats why you quantize and hit them again.

its really not that big of a deal if you ask me. trust me it works, and has worked on the 303 and 404 and on the 555.

just get your loops triggered and quantized, copy that pattern and work from there. that way if you mess up you can just copy that pattern from the first time over

What about the problem I had with the pads occasionally not playing when pressed. Have you ever run into that problem before?

I'm still within the return period for the machine so if that's a machine problem as opposed to a user problem, I can send it back.

the problem IS that you had gate/loop mode on. if you do what i said it wont happen.

OK, I'll give it a shot with gate/loop off. Thanks.

yea i didnt get it for a while.

but give the 555 a shot theres a lot of things you can do with it, its kind of like a swiss army knife of production.

Just a follow up. I called Roland Support and talked to them about the two issues I reported earlier and here's what they said:

1) The HOLD button DOES WORK in pattern sequencer mode to hold the pads you are recording but for some reason the HOLD button DOES NOT light. I don't know why this is and neither did the support guy, but he put the phone down and went and tried it out on one of their machines and said the button does not light up on his machine either. Anyway, I'd file this away as just a "quirk" of the machine and nothing too serious.

2) The other problem I had was with pads that occasionally won't trigger when pressed while in pattern sequencer mode. This is one of those problems that is difficult to replicate because 90% of the time everything works as it should and about 10% of the time, I run into a pad that remains silent after being touched. The support guy said there's no record of any issues like this. He also said something like "you know, this is not an MPC," which I took to mean if you want a good sequencer, the SP-555 is not it.

I initially bought this machine with the idea of using its sequencer functions, but I've found it's a bit clunky to work with and probably won't use it for that purpose much. A laptop sequencer seems to be a far better option. Even though I could return the machine (I'm within the return period), I've decided to keep it because I really like the effects, the d-beam, the loop capture, and the fact that it serves as an audio interface. It's a cool little machine with lots going for it but, like everything, it has its limitations.

glad you decided to keep it

if you dont like the patterns just build your songs with loops. but i tend to use the 555 as a physical workspace for ableton live. when i need inspiration i just take loops out of the song, mess around and relax. lots to do with fx....some of the best fx youll get ANYWHERE.
if you dig the effects try using the effect memory.

you are probably thinking *whats the point of saving effects with the mfx bank already there*

well because you can create "custom" fx by playing back the effects hitting the pads like drums.

try saving (hold effect memory plus sampling then select a pad) different filter freq settings then hitting them back in a timely fashion 1.2.3.4.5.6.7.8 and you get some awesome results!

also try saving the notes of a scale from chromatic p.s from c to a# or c

maybe different wah times...etc

best feature ever. people on the ableton forums whine that the program doesnt have a feature like this yet the 555 does!!

also other advatages- INSTANT REVERSE...no processing. i wonder how they did this

and of course the dj/fx looper.

HAVE FUN

Agree that the effects make the SP-555 a keeper. Hadn't thought of using effect memory like that but will definitely try it out.

I think the SP series just needs a bit of a different approach to most other gear.. you'll get the hang of it!



I never understood why nobody else does have instant reverse! haha..

All it is is reading sample data from end to start instead of start to end..
shouldn't require any more processing than normal read -

nextsampleframetoread=currentsampleframe-1
instead of
nextsampleframetoread=currentsampleframe+