The KO II is also limited to exactly 48 samples and only has 64MB of storage but it’s infinitely more usable to swap out the samples from the device itself, you tap a pad, hit Sound and type in a 3 digit # of the sample slot, or just cycles through them with the + - keys.
On the P-6, you have to hook up a computer and run the drag n drop sample editor app that is only available by installing the Roland Cloud app that loves to hog background resources. I hate it.
I really think Roland nailed the formfactor though… nice to see someone thinking about the toss in a bag and go crowd…
I just wish they do MC-101 with 8 tracks.
Like 2 banks of 4 so they can keep the form factor.
Or update it with some advanced sampling capabilities.
The will combine it with the P6 but I like having all shit in one device.
yeah – the sample slots i can totally live with. 48 sounds in a project it totally more than enough.
i just don’t like being limited to such a small amount of global sample storage. i have a hard time making my mind up and end up browsing lots of samples to see what fits.
it might be okay with the granular synth tho. i imagine i get lots of melodic milage out of that and as such do not need as many samples at my disposal.
roland should put out a phone/iOS app for project management so that we can create projects and sample sets and easily send them over to the device via USB-C without having to drag out a laptop. i am soooo allergic to laptops because i work on PCs all day at work.
anywho. those are my thoughts. i just ordered one off perfect circuit and it should be here on Friday.
One thing I didn’t realize about writing the guide for the SP404 mk2, was just how useful it has been for the blind community. While all of us sighted people are arguing over form over function, there is a large community of people who pretty much cannot use touch screens, but are more than willing to learn awkward button combinations because they can be memorized and work consistently.
I am not saying this makes what Roland does any better, but it was feedback I have gotten for a subset of the community that wants access to samplers that they can benefit from.
A reason I enjoy a ‘screen-less’/segmented display devices is I don’t find less visual feedback to be a hinderance. I actually prefer it. I enjoy chopping samples by ear, for example.
It draws me into the experience. It doesn’t deter or repel.
I don’t particularly enjoy having to use my finger to touch something I can’t see because my finger is in front of it. If only my finger made a better window than a door, as they say. (Larger touch areas/squares like on the VR4-HD touchscreen are pretty nice actually)
Can’t wait for the SH-4d treatment of the P-6 – the SP-6d?
While I agree, buttonless smartphones are most sight-impaired people’s greatest possession, they’ve come so far in making their lives more independent.
No reason that other electronics can’t implement audio, haptic, and braille cues. Ideally, knobs and buttons that correspond to highly updatable screen labels and bread crumb trails is perfect, ala MPC q-links
Source: Mother worked at a deaf/blind school for 20 years.
I never found one yet that I liked, admittedly only tried a few - iPad, 1010, Akai, but those all suck enough that I am very reluctant to try any other gear with touchscreens.
On this though I am in total agreement 
I couldn’t disagree more. I find them great for simple, mostly content consumption apps and stuff we generally do with out phones, but I can think of maybe 5 music production apps, where I find touch screen experience really good. And even then I prefer physical interface once I learn to use it and develop muscle memory.
But touch screen interfaces usually have smaller learning curve compared to complex hardware, that’s one point for them… and of course they can make stuff more portable.
It isn’t 48 samples. You have 48 pads. Each pad can be further subdivided into 64 sample slots if you use the step sample function (I’m going to call this “sample chain”). 48 x 64 = 3072 samples. Now realistically, you aren’t going to have that many samples because the sample time limit per pad limits what kind of samples you could put in the 64 slots (they have to be short). Plus, anything in a sample chain slot can’t be played chromatically. That said, you can have a good deal more than 48 samples if you are smart about it. For example, have most of your short drum sounds in these sample chains.
Watch the Anderton’s video. It shows the guy from Roland sampling things into these slots.
How did they get around the context-sensitive encoder?
Not the same as far as I can tell from the videos. The chop mode slices your sample into equal parts and puts them on steps.
The step sample allows you to sample into each pad at different lengths, you sample something, then it waits and you sample the next thing, up to 64 things, but limited by time. So you could for instance sample a bunch of different drums into these slots.
This is also useful I imagine for putting chops done elsewhere in these slots (I think Dibiase chopped something up on the SP404mkii and put the chops in these slots).
I feel like it’s more intuitive for me to think of the first one as “slice” and the second one as “sample chain”.
Could you step sample say, a piano chromatically (one note per step), effectively multisampling, or are the steps too short for minimum note decay (which might be 3 sec * 64 slots = 192 seconds)?
Maybe step sampling is only intended for drum shots?
Yeah, you’re right. Chop slices one sample where step sampling is recording separate samples to a chain.
Although in the manual it’s called Creating equally-divided samples (step sampling)
So i don’t think you get to have uneven length steps at the recording stage.
Still not sure what you can do with those step samples (or chopped slices for that matter) as far as editing them further.
this was kind of funny. they do always say something like “it doesnt have patch memory but the interface does make it easy to take note of the parameter values and jot them down in your favorite notebook” or something like that
“it doesnt have an oscillator, but you can go buy a diixie II and patch it into it’s external audio input”
the amount of samples is definitely workable even though so little, but it’s the lack of sample autonomy that is cringing 
I think it’s absolutely a worthy and reasonable mass sample request effort for sample/ pattern autonomy for this instrument… !
Isn’t that how 404 works?
My guess is mostly ignore it, or know really well what the bottom and top end of whatever it is doing sounds like
It looked like you can from the Andertons video, where he recorded in different samples, although it might have just been unclear.
The sampling by bars shown in that video is great as well. That wasn’t too clear from the manual so I’m glad he showed it.
Agreed
I was just thinking that even if the amount of sample time per step is the same (max sample time divided by the number of steps you choose). The most important thing is that each step in the sample chain will start at the start point of where you choose, unlike slice which is just evenly spaced.