Midi out is all I ever wanted.... I love my 404 for what it is. It makes me appreciate my music a lot more. But midi out would have made it perfect for me. Love to use it for logic and reason. but it's cool. I'll stick with my baby.



Music is Love

Apparently someone has not been listening to our thoughts on what could make 404 a killer machine...

* cough * cough *

http://sp-forums.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2323

Shame on Roland!

Well, they won't make the perfect SP yet - they wouldn't be able to sell you another one after that would they?

Reading the SP manual for a few minutes...

There are no internal banks - they're all on the card, so you must have a card. At least they now supply one and at 1GB it's a useable size. There's more bundled "factory" samples and patterns on the card for us to sneer at and delete. There are still 10 banks, but A & B are on the card.

You can have a card as big as 32GB. It will be possible to have a complete DJ set of tunes on an SX plus extra samples, breaks and alternative stuff. The largest single sample is a 1GB stereo file.

The samples really are uncompressed 16bit 44.1Khz this time and appear as .wav files on the card. There is an import folder on the card if you don't have the 404SX sample editor software. The software is for Mac and PC. You still can't import ready made samples that carry their own loop/BPM information. They import if they're .wav or .aif, but the extra info will be ignored. I strongly doubt that this software will work on the old 404 CF cards.

Pattern & sample copy to pads is supported. No need to trick it using backup via onboard banks.

Battery type - I can't remember if this is in the old 404, but if you use NiMH rechargeable, you can tell the 404SX and it will measure remaining battery life more accurately.

No change in midi sync support or any of the external connections.


Anyone spot any more changes?

Cheers
Jim

http://www.samash.com/webapp/wcs/stores ... rySA182874


out soon i guess... no mention of the micro sampler on there but the 404sx is on there... not in stock yet but on the site...

I already briefly touched one here, the SX definitely is a cool update from the original 404. I have to say though, from the looks of it, it was mainly meant to deal with the flash card issue, but....

there's one thing I don't understand.



Why o why 32GB to burn and not add more padbanks too to store and access those sounds?

They should have added a relative system with many more padbanks, possibly accessible / editable through the new 404 editor.

Even with the current pad, knob and button layout, you could do something like [press and hold] padbank a/b + pads 1 to 12 to search through additional padbanks.

It feel like a missed chance that they didn't take advantage of that additional space too. Having padbank a and b on the card was a very good idea.

yeah.. 32gb card, limited to that many samples is wak...
but hey, the whole this is retarded

roland what have you been smoking you crackheads!

404sx is available today

sx who?

pictures/reviewish stuff soon

ramble ramble a little dabbling then some chicken and potatoes and a glass of wine mr sophisticated aka tim from texas then some more dabbling then this...

right out of the box and plugged in there was the initial this is the same freaking machine... why did i sell my old one to get this one... i wasnt even THAT into the old one...

then i started messing around...

i think im in a better place with this one to start out with... the 404 was my first piece of gear so when i found something that got me results fast i didnt mess with the 404 much... anyway...

the copy functions are really cool and useful to me... made the "meat" of a basic 2 bar pattern... copied it to 4 pads... then went in and deleted sounds from some of those patterns to make simple verses and stuff... and was done with a very basic little pattern in a few minutes without much effort.. i understand people got used to the flylo technique but anyone who would prefer that cluster of steps OVER "function-->copy" i donno what to tell you...

one thing i was kinda surprised by is say you have a sample and turn on an effect... then copy... it doesnt copy the effect.. you still have to resample which really isnt that big of a deal...

im thinking the pads are the same... but for some reason to me.. they feel a little better.. more sensitive... something.. the rubber seems the same but it almost feel like the "action" is shorter... less bang... but again it could be me...

for newer cats or people who live by their manuals this one is way better written than the old one.. it has little illustrations and some step by step tab a goes into slot b type explanations... which i found cool.. things seem to be explained with less jargon..

the "swing" function is under the quantize settings... so you have those options at the same time as your setting the note count.. i havent messed with it yet but it appears you can adjust the swing PER PAD which might be kind of cool/helpful... but again i havent messed with that yet... yet..

the samples are rad... awesome... siiiiiiiiiiick.... getting deleted... in reality they hook it up with a grip of decent samples... i think all but one of the banks is FULL.. several of them have awesome long song type samples that range from house and techno to "jiggy" lil john type shit... aside from that stuff there is some OK stuff.. nothing i would say is better than anything on anyones harddrive right now.. ok drums some ok string bass samples that were fun to mess with for now... a train whistle? this creepy rad baby giggle that is fun so laugh at and mess with on gate... there is trash too... if i remember right some of the samples overlap banks too... those bass sounds do if im not mistaken.. i thought one was long and one was short but im pretty sure they are the same... i dont remember this about my first 404 but EVERYTHING is set to gate and loop... the patterns are amazing also.......... not

i was about to load the software and see what thats about and came out here (living room) to give a little update before seeing whats up on the program..

i think if you can get an ok amount of money for your 404 its worth the little extra for the sx... to me anyway.. then again i know a lot of you are mega creatures of habit and sticklers for keeping things simple... more soon...

oh yea... the pitch is the same as expected... although i was kinda feelin what the voice transformer was doing... never messed with that before..

Good review, but I have to say at the moment stores here seem to be going crazy with SP-404 prices with discounts that makes the difference even bigger. Think 199€ for SP-404 and 299€ for SP-404SX.

It's perhaps not really all that expensive, but if the SP-404SX would be 199€ too, I'd probably run to a store and grab me one today.

bahaha

hows the importing from the card?

I haven't messed with the card at all yet... Yesterday I worked late came home to video games and beer till 4 up at 8 about to go to work now...

the card management software worked way better than i expected... you can audition each pad and its easy to import or delete samples from the pads. and its possible to listen to samples before putting them on the card... now i just need to learn all the other stuff bout the machine since i just got it today

Choplifta

Is the resampling process really improved? you all know this disgusting clicks and pops at the end of a sample... especially with the subs

What exactly happens if you switch between the mfx...? Roland was talking bout fluent fx transitions... true?

Did they really changed some FX parameter? How about the VinylSim and LoFi... sorry 'Bit Crush'... - I hope they didn't 'improved' those...

Could I change the midi channel without turning the machine off/on ?

How groovy is the swing? Is it finally possible to make some nice boombap patterns even with quantíze?

It gives the option for 8 and 16 quantize with "swangg".. At first I was bummed but it kinds makes sense... Judging by the other effects I have messed with they haven't reworked any of the filters.. But I haven't used the bit crush thing... Plus the feature was that they are suppposed to change smoother, wasn't it? I figure there was just a fade in fade out thing on swap? I'll try to remember more... Hopefully others will chime in who have used both...