First time holding an Sp 404. It’s actually the perfect size. Great weight for travel. You may not hear from me in awhile as I fall down a 404 rabbit hole. God Speed to everyone waiting.
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This is me basically (on other gear)
But that’s not to say that I don’t care about how it sounds. But it’s subjective.
If I can layer some elements and it works (for me) then great. If it sounds like shit (to me) I’ll have another go.
Same thing happens with my Op-1. Sometimes things naturally come together, but all from spontaneity. Other times not but I find this way of working exciting. I do try to find sounds that compliment each other from the beginning though,
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Are there any users here that will use the new 404 with an iPad to sample?
Can you recommend a good midi sequencer for AUM to sample from? I already have: atom, ripple maker, fugue machine, midi tools, atom 2 and octachron.
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I be getting one, but I wish it have the looper options from the sp 555
In Bobeats’ sampler comparison video, Bo said that he would not recommend externally sequencing the Mk2, but didn’t elaborate. Anyone know what his issue might have been?
Yeah, that’s probably one of the most important things you can do to get a good mix (and good song in general). Too easy to overlook!
To be fair though, that kills the vibe regardless of the environment. Keeping songs simpler makes the mixing process relatively easier, but it’s never a fun process. Just a necessity (for me anyway).
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Yeah, I see the attraction of that too, but then I think about the process of getting all of those sounds into the SP and I wonder how rapid it is in practice. I’m still partially tempted to give it a try to be honest, but I’ll probably wait and buy one used after a year or two. 
I’m saying that it’s harder to pin down the source on the MPC. Also, when you resample, what you hear is what you get. Often, when you bounce / create a mix down on the MPC, the effects processing happens during the conversion process, not in a resample scenario. So what you hear during the sequence is not always what you get on the mixdown, effects-wise. Resampling eliminates that.
I still think people would be surprised if they counted the steps from sampling to slicing to assigning to pads to sequencing between the 404 mk2 and the mpc… and imo most of the time those who think of the mpc as a daw just weren’t aware of the capabilities the mpc had over decades ago, and when that poor excuse for a beat machine the native instruments maschine came out everybody and their grandmother thought it was the epitome of a futuristic, state of the art feature set and yet again everybody and their grand mother had to use Ableton live or logic to augment half of the user experience because the maschine couldn’t do half of what was needed to put together a basic track… so everyone bragged about how they started their tracks on maschine but had to use their daw to do editing and arranging that people have been doing on the mpc for years with no daw in sight.
so the world collectively feigned amnesia and began to think that just to do basic things the mpc had been capable of for decades took an actual daw to do, not realizing that mpc features were not daw features but had been groove box features all along.
fast forward to the 404mk2… it doesn’t make sense to bash the mpc because Roland put an mpc inside the 404 to make the 404mk2 a better SP-404… imo there really isn’t such a thing as which is better only which is better for the particular tune you’re working on at the moment… of course I do not include the maschine or the circuit in my above statements, because my well deserved bias won’t allow me but for those of you who can still be objective in such cases the rule still applies 
mpcs aren’t trying to be daws, your daw is trying to be an mpc
everybody’s different but mpcs don’t feel like daws to me, they feel like this
the Digitakt is God
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I mean, you could really, on the MK2, do a resample of a full arrangement , end up with a 4-5 min. Track, then just lay down a complete vocal track on that, considering the 16 min. Limit per pad. That is not doable on the Live, unless you made a 512 bar sequence 
. MPC Live ram concerns seem bigger than the SP memory limits. If the MPC gets the Force arranger, then it seems more likely.
Interesting. I’d like to know that answer to this as well.
Holy shit just listening to J Dilla’s Donuts for the first time! It is blowing my mind! It’s like a hiphop version of Actress’s Splazsh.
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Me too and me too! Killer. I just subscribed to apple music free trial so that i can listen to it a ton on a 3 hr drive today. Thanks to those who pointed it out.
#outoftouch!
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‘Lightworks’ - the trippiest piece of sampling I’ve ever heard…
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I didn’t watch the video and can only speak of the SX but its sequencer is real-time entry. It works but is limited and lacking compared to other featured rich sequencers. I really enjoyed using the DN to sequence the SX. It was way easier using a step sequencer to trigger the pads.
Interesting, I haven’t had that experience. You mean compared to the SP-404 approach or compared to a DAW?
I’m guessing that he’s just referring to how the 404 is set up. The MIDI notes correspond to pads. And if you look at the MIDI implementation, all you’ve got is note on / off and that it responds to velocity.
Compare that to the Rhythm. By default you can play whatever sample is assigned to a track chromatically or you can set it to play slices. You’ve also got good control over the master track. So you can control and sequence the master filter and grid fx. (You can also edit the track parameters externally but it will misbehave if you try to sequence changes.)
Still, I think that even though you’ve got more control over the Rhythm and even more still over the Digitakt, where the 404 wins is that you’ve got easier access to more of your samples.
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Compared to anything. W/ a DAW, it’s much easier to see which tracks have plugins active, etc. w/ the Live / One / X, let’s say you’ve got a reverb w/ too much sustain, and over repeated sequences, it starts to hum and drones into the track, long after the notes have stopped… now you have to scroll across all the programs, looking for active plug ins… but guess what? None of the program slots are the culprit. You assigned it to a specific pad!! Now, you have to hunt it down there. I’d rather have it end when the resampled passage ends. Where I know it’s not overstaying its welcome, 2 min. Into the song.
I come from the days of the Tascam Portastudio, so destructive tracking, and multiple takes… that’s my bread & butter.
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Listening to you talk about it, I think you should get an MPC.
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