Yeah, so I'm thinking about buying either new 404 or the old one. But I'm a bit confused about the differences.

Do any of you know the specific changes? I've seen some more layout text differences that would indicate certain new features on the 404sx, with the most obvious being the shuffle in the quantize (that's a serious pro for me).

Price difference seems to be almost negligible, unless you get a cheap secondhand old one that has scratches or some shit.

I tend to go with the sx here, any thoughts on this???

(Also, I probably am going to wait for NAMM to pass by as it's only a few days, but if Roland doesn't drop a new sampler, the question remains. )

they have different cardssd vs compact flash. The sx does not have any internal banks, you Need a card. the regular 404 compresses info when you get it in the machine, the sx does not. I think some fx are different. Thats about all I know

Oh, they are different color. ha ha

isn't there a pattern copy function on the sx too?

and i think they changed the order of some of the fx....

I been lookin at the manual. Yeah there's pattern copy and the backup now backs up all the banks (pattern and samples) still limited to 12 backups though.

we need to get someone in here who has owned both but i would say sx man if you got the money. why not?

I'd go with the SX. It has all sorts of little details that make the workflow faster and stuff. No internal bank is a plus IMHO, because it means you can backup 120 x 12 samples/patterns instead of 24 x 12.

There's another Roland countdown going on, about 4 days + yet to go. I don't think they're going to release a new sampler now but who knows...

Thanks, yeah I was thinking the same.

The SP-404sx came as a total suprise release to me though, so who knows. Mike Acosta said there is going to be interesting Roland news this NAMM too. Might be sampler related and for this NAMM he is working for Roland again. Of course, I don't know what that means, but I might have to wait for NAMM.

hey i just got both and started a thread about it
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=6778
im going to update it soon with more details. many things are different, including the ability to make a sample lo-fi any time, without having to resample. you just hit the lo-fi, and presto. when you want it back to normal you hit it again. very nice

Hey IIIII, I totally missed that when reading the manual, very nice indeed.

wow that's weird.. the lofi thing.. cool!

the 404's main use will be as an FX box for me, but am i right in thinking the FX are mostly the exact same? As in it doesn't lack or have more fx, right???

im sort of thinking its worth going for the sx

Same number (29), but apparently some effects have changed a bit as you've seen in IIIII's thread. I guess it's a bit closer to the SP-555.

[On an unrelated note, for some reason I can't put five "I"s together... At least I can only see four here... If I try to change the color then the last "I" disappears instead of the first one.]

Yeah, the forum has changed a bit. It will randomly change I's and !'s into blue versions, seemingly making them disappear. Not sure why, I'll ask Keesj.