it might not have any outcome, but at least it's worth a shot.
I think we should get brainstorming and come up with an official SP-Forums spec for what we'd want in a new SP sampler.. Once we have decided upon everything, we make the list look official, add all our names to it as a kind of 'petition' in a way.. to show how many of us are involved. and then get it to roland as many ways as possible. (and sacrifice a goat to the devil, pledge allegiance to the dark lord if he helps us)
the most important things we should consider (IMO!) are:
Keeping it simple - No major changes, redesigns.
CHEAP - roland obviously does not want to spend money on this.. unfortunately.
So no gold-plated titanium shells, no intel quad-core processors, etc etc..
Also any ideas to CUT costs will be very very very very valuable!
Not going to hurt MV sales - need to keep it limited - just make sure it still feels like an SP, not some uber-does-everything-awesome-sampler.
So I'm gonna start with an idea.. you can either throw it out or agree..
Lets make a new format rule first...
Any new ideas/features/etc you want to bring up, make them bright green (or whatever colour you like
) so we can tell them apart from all the talk, so that ideas dont get missed etc. Try to keep this as focused as you can.. I know I tend to crap on and I'm probably the worst offender.. but we need to be very clear now and come up with a set of solid ideas!As things develop I'll put a post directly under this one and edit in all the ideas that get accepted to build a list!.
I think the next SP should be something a bit more complex and a more studio-based tool - based off the 505 & 606. the 404SX we just got is portable, battery powered.. and covers that part pretty well. the 555 is good for DJs and live use with its looper and such.
The 606 already has alot of the things you'd expect from a studio SP, so it's probably the best starting point (actually using parts of the 606 design, + parts of the 555 design is probably what roland would do I guess).
The kinds of things that I think need to be added - if every one on this list was achieved, I would buy it.
- 'normal' pitch (I think the reason this is a problem for roland is because of reading samples straight off the card.. not sure though.)
- amp envelope (attack/decay at least)
- improve polyphony - this doesn't matter to me, but other people maybe?
somewhere around 20 - 24 mono would be good.. I dont think i've ever had more than 10 stereo tracks playing at once.
- SDHC storage (this should be a freebie, since they've already done it for the 404SX)
With amp envelope & pitch - I would be OK with it just being a new effect (in MFX), where you change the pitch or set an amp envelope, then resample to store it -
using the effects DSP basically means we don't need any extra processing power to do these things..! if we can do the entire upgrade using say the same processor/etc.. roland might actually give it a chance.
To cut the costs of making a new SP, we can throw away the D-Beam, which is not really necessary in the studio.
I think we could also get rid of any kind of internal microphone.. what do you guys think of that?
ALSO.. What would you guys think about getting rid of the 2nd effect of the 606? Technically you don't need it in the studio if you resample... I could live without it.. could you?
I think we should keep the velo pads, 1/4" outputs, multi-track sequencer.
