when recording a beat the other day i noticed that when pattern select is on and all the pads are blinking there is a buzz kinda sound that comes through in sync with the lights. . .anyone ever notice this? its quiet, but definitely noticable. . .

yep, it is annoying as hell

When I was using a non-roland AC adapter the pulsing blue LED would make noise too. The flashing pads made the worse sound though. Now that I'm using the correct power cable it is much better. If you want to get rid of the noise completely you need to use batteries.

ohthe flashing lights sound, it reminds me of playing a tv remote into a am radio, one time when i turned on my 404 when an am radio was on i heard a crazy scramble noise then i hit record and the flashing lights sound came thru the radio !

The other day I thought I'd get some random samples from an AM radio into the built in mic - scratch that idea! You can't go anywhere near a 404 with it.

The only cure I can think of is to paint the inside of the rubber button mat with that silver loaded conductive paint sold to repair circuit board or car demister tracks - but it would look crap!

The noise getting into the unit itself - I don't think you can do much about but you can limit the lights with a power-on button combo. I did try putting a copper foil screening shield between the boards in my 404 - it made no difference whatsoever.

Jim

as you might know, you still got the option to turn the pulsing light off...

i had the same issues with the am radio... first i thought i had contact to outer space or hell or sth....

The noises from the AC current go away when you run on battery power.

And yah if you if wanna turn off the blue LEd turn the unit on while holding the TapBPM button. Then use ctrl2 to set it to "off".

what about the sx version, same sound or no?

It's the same with my 505 as well, so at least it's not just the 404

Is it possible to ground a 404 like you would with a turntable?

yo i noticed awhile back that the 404 does actuallyhave a ground screw next to the power adapter . i think anyway, its got this antennaish symbol and its different from the other screw in the back, but what would you ground it to?

if you have a DJ mixer try grounding it to the ground screw on the mixer that u put the turntable ground cable to normally.

alternately it might BE a ground FOR a turntable.. unsure.