I hope Roland can get around to making an expanded/bigger SP 404 mk ii which adds in the x0x sequencer and granular from the P6, plus fewer button combos and maybe some faders too. That would be sweet.
Haha. I’m not sure you’d feel that way after you got one.
Although I always used to love to share this:
PS: If you like this, I hear Roland has a new budget sampler that is worth checking out. lol. Basically all of these old quirky samplers are why people should be all over this new one, IMHO. The P6 brings them into the new era rather than letting them get lost to the sands of time. For people like me that lusted over all of these kinds of cool samplers of yesterday, it looks like a dream machine. To me at least. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
Me 2 BUT watching the drag and drop samples on the pad makes me feel angry on why a more than 500 Euro box has not got this facility ( while the TR-6 has it and cost much less ) so I did skip the TR-6 and went for this, it will be another box in the bag BUT is compact and will free a Tone on my MC 101
Now I’m going down the rabbit hole on SU10 videos as I wait for the P6.
I didn’t realize people had rediscovered it. It dropped off the radar for me after mine died.
The sample rates on the P6 are very reminiscent of the SU10, but sound a lot smoother. Some won’t like that but I found the lowest rate on the SU10 unusable when I had one, so the P6 is probably a bit more versatile albeit at the expense of a little flavor (there are work arounds according to the video though).
It’s definitely not going to be for everyone and will have a learning curve for sure, but I think it will be worth the effort. I hope it catches on among the old SP headz because they were masters at coming up with clever ways to do all sorts of cool stuff.
Listening to the one you just shared now and man… Nice vibes. Didn’t know about the SU10 at all. There’s so much music I love done with samples, but I’ve just never had a desire to create with them.
We’ll see soon! Got an order in on Rakuten and some long flights in the near future.
Yeah, I’ve got one. It’s definitely quick and simple to sample something. It sounds good. It’s kind of tedious to chop samples with it. But it’s very doable. So if you just want to play samples from the pads or trigger them over MIDI, it works pretty well. But that’s going to be about it. And you’re going to have to do this with a maximum of like 4 voices of polyphony if I remember correctly.
And just from watching the Loopop video, if that’s all you want to do, it’s going to actually be a lot faster and more straightforward on the P6. You don’t need to get into a menu to access the start and end points, for example. And while you’re there, you can pitch individual pads, which is something that you can’t do on the SU10. The P6 also has a proper chromatic mode, while the SU10 will let you play a sample in a major scale but only monophonically.
If you decide you want to use it on its own and record a pattern then the difference is even more stark. It’s just not a close call.
Honestly, I think I’m selling myself on the P6. I mean, even if we want to talk about a janky 9 step backup process on the P6, that’s better than no process on the SU10. I guess you can do a MIDI dump, but I think that just sends the samples.
The more I think about it, the more I think that this is a really cool product. I use a Zoom Sampletrak pretty much every day. I’ve got a Yamaha SU10 and a Korg ES-1 in a box under my desk that I use a lot less often. And the P6 feels like a combination of the ES-1 and the 303. Maybe the Sampletrak too since you can pitch individual pads. And that’s pretty cool.
The SU10 was a very, very, very bare bones machine. The best thing about it was the sample rates which gave it a lot of character. The P6 is a big step up I think in terms of functionality. Also, the potential for Yamaha VSS30 type stuff is where it gets really interesting to me. If it can do those kinds of amazing drony pad sounds then it will be perfect for Boards of Canada or Sigur Ros kinds of vibes, so will go well beyond the standard lofi hip hop and techno stuff. Also, if it can do that, I can even imagine bypassing the sequencer and playing those sounds right into my recorder or DAW via a keyboard. Lots of potential workflows.
I can definitely understand you wanting to keep old projects available, so hopefully Roland will sort out a better solution sooner rather than later.
Given your love for the Sampletrack, I was thinking this machine might be in your wheelhouse. In fact, @Sleepyhead shared a great Sampletrack beat tape a while back that I’ve been thinking a lot about, as I’m hoping this new Roland can get those 90s boom bap vibes. That tape sounded amazing. Fingers crossed.
