So, while my SP-555 is away I thought about another strange thing that happened a while ago:

I pressed one of the EFFECTS buttons accidentally while saving my loop to a pad and the SP-555 freezed. Turned it off, turned it on again and everything was fine.

It happened another two times after that, one "accidentally on purpose" (after a reading comprehension problem regarding the Loop Capture tips on page 27) and the other one right after that when I was trying to reproduce the error (which took some time to happen by the way).

I think someone made a comment about this somewhere but I can't find it.

never happens to me, and i still press the buttons like a madman if i accidentally hit save to pad and i want it to stop...even though theres no cancel loop-saving process

Haha... I guess my SP is buggy.

Can't wait to get it back .

I definitely hope they get Loop Capture right on the SX version though, since Boss has been pushing that 38/40 second built-in looper on almost everything they release, it wouldn't hurt if Roland did the same. That among other things of course... (One can always complain a bit...)

did you send it directly to roland?

how much money?


and theres always a size concern with adding features like that, not to mention the power it draws. the warning in the manual about the shock you might receive could be partly to blame for not adding more features thus increasing the power needed, thus making it more dangerous?

point being: engineering is a bitch!

Authorized service center. It's still under warranty, apparently just shipping costs (return on their part).

Yeah, obviously these guys do a great job and these things have limitations. I can see how like the V-Link feature might have crippled the MIDI implementation and maybe it's the case with Loop Capture. We can never know if they expanded the SP-404 or "downgraded" the SP-606.

Like, for instance, they released an update for the SPD-S that allows you to use up to 4GB CF cards, it will only recognize 512MB but still... Pretty good for an older machine. Maybe it's because Yamaha released a "similar" product, maybe it's because the cycle for the V-Drums line is a bit longer than for the SP line.

I don't know why the SP-555 doesn't have mute groups, since both the SP-606 and the SPD-S have this (and the SPD-S even has panning), which makes me think the SP-555 is indeed an upgraded SP-404... So they are already really pushing it.

I can see why the SP-555 is what it is though, WYSIWYG for the most part, which is great (like the Boss ME-70 and the Roland SH-201). I'd like to be able to manage card files through USB, I'd like a better looper and I'd like a ton of things... But for most things it does what I need or gives me some sort of workaround option, so all in all it's great.

One thing I haven't seen mentioned here is that there's a trick for using external effects with the SP-555 (maybe no one mentioned because it's so trivial and maybe there's no point in using external effects, but still). Loop Capture > Ext Only, make the connections, play the pads, record the result, profit.

Ok, long post, kinda off topic and I guess this last bit should be on another thread...

So I was making some loops with my acoustic guitar and then I wanted to make new loops while listening to what I had saved already.

Loop on Pad 1 set to Loop Mode playing with MFX 11 (Fuzz) on, Loop Capture with EXT ONLY selected and Mic In on (no FX), step on the footswitch and suddenly the level of the Pad 1 cuts to like half.

I'm like "what?!"...

Well, everytime I step on the footswitch to record stuff with EXT ONLY ON the MFX turns OFF, step on the footswitch again and the MFX turns ON.

¬¬

Great, just great... :\

---

Ok... My mistake.

Manual, page 27: "If you use this setting, the effect will not be applied to the pad performance during recording". Still sucks though.