Well, this is the last time I support the “little guy”. Everyone and their momz who pre-ordered from GC is getting a ship notification, and I’m here sitting on my hands, waiting for “mom n pop” Alto AND B&H to get it in gear. Not only did GC get the units sooner, but evidently, they do a much better job of communicating w/ the customers. Alto / B&H like: “hey! We get it when we get it! 
“.
So, we’ve established that it needs a USB C power brick to power it, right?
I was thinking about this one as I need USB A and C. Any reason why this wouldn’t be a good choice? Sorry I know very little about these kinds of external batteries and I need to get my peripherals/cables sorted.
Anker PowerCore Essential 20000 PD 20W.
Got my MK2 today. Decided to check on a whim to see if the order was shipped and I guess it was delivered today, missed the shipment email so that was a pleasant surprise.
Still need to learn it, can’t figure out how to do basic functions like record a pattern but I haven’t tried that hard. Did go through all the effects, really like the distortions, lofi, and vinyls / cassette sim stuff. I wish the odd named ones had better names, two of them seem like ping pong delays more or less. But it sounds really good, digging it so far. That said, I think I picked up the M8 a lot quicker lol
Edit: should mention I preordered mine the morning it was announced from Sweetwater. I couldn’t preorder it at midnight cuz their site was down, probably due to an abundance in traffic.
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Mine just arrived a few hours ago (California, ordered Sweetwater as soon as the midnight preorders opened) and I haven’t had much time to explore, but I can say the reverb is sufficiently huge to me. It has ambient, room, hall 1, and hall2 with time, level, and low/high cut and you can bus one reverb into a second reverb. You can get some cavernous ~10second decays going on. I wouldn’t hesitate to use it in a song despite having Eventide and Valhalla stuff available (I’ve never been too much of a gear snob though).
Heads Up to any new owners, the first thing you should definitely do is check the firmware and update it to the latest (1.13). You unfortunately have to do with this with an annoying SD card process instead of over USB and I have been having memory card issues despite having the correct type and formatting done. Mine was on 1.01.
When I first started finger drumming and playing with the effects out of the box I was like, “Yeah, pretty cool”, but a lot of things didn’t really make sense and there were missing button combinations and tools I was expecting. After doing the update suddenly everything started working and there were a ton of new options.
I have never used an SP before so I wasn’t sure exactly how it would fit me. I have been making some industrial/experimental stuff for the last few minutes and I’m 110% sold on it, absolutely worth the wait. Fingerdrumming+live vocals/guitar for a minute, hitting skipback, and then quickly resampling crazier and crazier loops with timestretching is super fast. Killer workflow and feel.
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Sweet! Congrats.
That’s awesome news about the reverb! I have a bunch of Strymon pedals, but when messing around with the Volcas I don’t always want to have to set up a big chain of outboard effects. The SP should be perfect for hooking them up to and grabbing anything interesting I come up with for use in songs later. Which reminds me that I need to remember to order those special SP compatible midi connectors.
In the interview with the developer on YouTube it sounded like they might be planning to update the knobs to send CCs, which would be great.
Glad you are enjoying it! It sounds like you plan to use this in a very similar way to how I’m envisioning. Love it.
Just remember that if you’re relying on a usbC power solution, you’ll be unable to use USB audio recording at the same time. For this reason, and on the strength of a recommendation by @Le_filou, I opted for the Eneloop Pro rechargeable AAs.
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Oh yeah, the thing is a lot darker in person. It almost doesn’t look like the grey panel like all the videos make it look like.
And in regards to the reverb it does sound pretty nice. Probably better than the Octatrack Dark Reverb, maybe not as good as the Digis but I’d have to A/B. I did put it on and finger drummed and did everything through the reverb and it sounded really nice just gluing everything together, even with the kick. It’s got great sounding effects.
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I don’t think a lot of reverbs are going to compare to a BlueSky, but the mk2 reverb is much better than I was expecting. The efficiency is definitely the main draw for me and I’m loving the effects so far. I can’t ever see myself in the position of making a sketch on the mk2 with the reverb/delay/vinyl/resonator etc. and thinking, “Actually, I need to route all this through my pedals/VSTs to really get the sound I want.”
The two exceptions would be for more unique/weird pedals and distortion. I like the distortion/bitcrush/overdrive effects it has, but it doesn’t get into heavy, fuzzy territory as far as I can tell.
@OldmanChompski Comparing it with the Digitakt right now, it isn’t better than the Digi to my ears, but it isn’t “inferior”. As you said, what matters is how it sounds all sounds glued together (no one listens to music by A/Bing the reverb sound of an isolated snare) and the mk2 sounds cohesive and rich to me even as I keep adding layers of effects.
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Yeah, I’m not looking for Strymon level quality. I was more just wondering whether the reverbs went pretty big and it seems like they do, which is awesome. Thanks for confirming.
I’ll no doubt break out the pedal collection from time to time, but I like having a compact solution when all I need is a generic reverb or something.
I have a great Analog Man fuzz face pedal that I got him to tweak to my specifications, so I’ll definitely be using that on some guitar.
Yeah, I have some rechargeable AAs, so I’m covered for that, but it only lasts a couple of hours on AA power I think, so I’m thinking that I’ll keep it hooked up to a bigger external battery when I’m noodling around and then move over to AA power when I want to sample from the USB, this way I’m not constantly having to swap out batteries or worrying if the batteries are going to run out on me while I’m in the middle of something.
I’ll be curious to see if @Le_filou gets the projected 4.5 hrs from the 2500’s he anticipated.
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You’ve convinced me. Instead of buying a new power brick before it gets here, I think I’ll try it with my rechargeables I have at home and see what kind of performance I get. These days Amazon stuff comes basically the next day, so I suppose no reason to rush. I do need to pick up a couple of USB C cables though (one longer one to leave plugged into the Mac and a shorter one for sampling from the iPhone).
I bought an SD card already as well. Hopefully it works. Seems like people have run into some issues with those.
I think that may be it as I already have the iPhone camera kit adapter. 
Edit:
Crap my camera kit adapter isn’t USB C! Doh! Will a USB C to lightning cable work or do I need a new USB C camera connection kit?
I see this:
“*A supported iOS mobile device with a Lightning connector can be connected to the SP-404MKII via USB-C using the appropriate Apple adaptor cable.”
So I guess I just need one of the Apple USB-C to lightning cables and not a camera connection kit.
Thomann just shipped both of mine. Yesterday it stated 13 weeks.
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Same here. But the thing is I got my M8 tracker last week and honestly I lost the GAS for the SP lol. I’m probably gonna return it lol.
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Hi @amaury,
I ordered on the 13th. Best of luck!
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Mine has been shipped today too! 
Mine didn’t bulge… well! Very happy for you and I hope to read some remarks from you
It can sample over USB, but it can only do audio and power at the same time over a USB-C to USB-C connection.
Doesn’t make sense to me about the power, but that is the design. It has class compliant audio for any USB connection though.
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Mine is slated for 28. January 2022 at the moment (thomann germany). Two months to finish all sketches started on other gear 
OK, so Nonjuror on YouTube who is one of the early adopters told me this. Apparently, you need a USB C to USB A cable and then the Apple Lightning Camera Kit to connect to the iPhone. Since I have the camera kit already, I guess I just need a USB C to USB A cable.
I’d be curious to know if anyone else has success with the Apple USB C to Lightning cable, as I think that’s what Nonjuror meant to say doesn’t work.
Also, those Roland midi cables aren’t cheap either, and I have read online that not all of those type of cables work with the SP404mk ii. There are a few different standards, so beware (perhaps buy the ones that Roland specifies works with it if you don’t have any).