So this thread really triggered my GAS and I decided this item was perfect for me (portable, hands on, fun looking, limited but still plenty to go at) so I ordered one. With a 4 year old and a new one due in a couple of months, beat making on the sofa is all I see in my future…
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Sounds easy enough, will give it a go! Thanks
Thinking on it, the problem might be that it replaces too much in your setup. It’s like a battery-powered recorder, a library for all your audio clips, a huge shelf of FX that you can directly apply internally without a send/return, a sampler with nice, physical pads, and an arranger for providing some order to that chaos. Honestly, reading your BB workflow post, it feels kind of like “circuitghost in a box”.
But to appreciate having that all in one box, you (in particular) would have to be looking to minimize your setup because you have it already. You’d have to be looking to ditch the BB-, field recorder-, and Chase Bliss-powered part, at least. If you’re not, I imagine it feels a lot like “this is what’s already here, only subtlety different in some ways and lacking in others for no reason.”
Maybe it’s the box you keep to take on vacation or something 
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A very interesting angle, though
Does this sucker send midi notes? As in, can I use this pimped up chromatic sequencer to create midi sequences for say my Prophet to sample right back into the 404?
Admittedly this is true for all devices really. They lead you towards a specific workflow that you wouldn’t have committed to, let alone thought of, on another device. I often think that what I do on the MPC could be done in the DAW too, but it’s sort of a moot point because unless I had the MPC, I wouldn’t have thought of that workflow, and it’s more convenient on the MPC. I’m guessing the same is true for resampling and committing on a 404.
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I believe each bank of pads gets its own channel, but you only get a limited range. So although I haven’t tried MIDI sequencing myself, I predict you’d be better off just using MIDI sync and any other sequencer created in musical history.
Here’s a link to the MIDI spec, though Lord knows if it’ll work since Roland require a click-through agreement to view HTML pages: MIDI Implementation Chart
And here’s the note transmitted info:
35–51 (B1–E³3, CH 1–10) *1 *2
36–60 (C2–C4, CH 16) *7
Only footnote 7 is really of interest - it specifies that CH16 is used for Chromatic mode. The other notes just specify the MIDI channels and link pads to notes. So basically as long as you don’t want to go below C2 or above C4, mmmmmmmaybe it’ll work for you. But probably not.
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Yes you nailed it, it works but it’s incredibly limited.
It does allow you to use the new scales if you select a pad with a sample (you can turn down the volume of said pad so you only send the midi)
I have been using it to help write bass lines which is it pretty fun for but past that it’s not really useful and you cannot add it to the pattern sequencer
This is a bit of a mixed bag. Like the BB, each pad sends a note to a channel. And these get sent whether there’s a sample set or not (so you don’t have to do the “set a blank sample" trick of the BB). But unlike the BB, these notes and channels are set in stone by the firmware and not customizable.
But the pad MIDI is primarily for triggering hits, anyway. The equivalent of the BB’s KEYS section is achieved by putting the 404 into chromatic mode, which is much more playable but only gives you a 2 octave range (C3 ±12 semis). This isn’t a problem on a synth with easy transpose controls, but can be a bit of an issue with the P12, for example, which only lets you transpose ±12 semitones and even then only from the global menu. One might have hoped the new “scale” mode added in v2.0 would give more range, but no. But near as I can tell it’s still ±12 and the out-of-scale pads just don’t play.
The pressure of the pads gets sent as MIDI velocity, which is actually really nice! But no support for sending pressure as aftertouch, which would have been cool.
So kind of depends? If most of one’s dynamics are programed into the patch and you just need a trigger, the 404 more than suffices. And you can even map velocity to some fun things in the target’s mod matrix to get some variety. So, ¯\(ツ)/¯ It compares well with the BB but is a far cry from a Linnstrument.
EDIT: What @NickD and @aaanicholls said 
That would be how I do things, in a nutshell.
I always rely on the patch itself to make it interesting, save for velocity output. Anything else going on, those are live tweaks from my end as I record. And I never save midi sequences.
Ok so this just turned interesting for real now.
If you can work with the note constraints then you could be all set, as the SP is happy to sample / resample (or both together) while playing. It does sound quite similar to your Blackbox breakdown, though from reading that it sounds like you wouldn’t really be making much use of the SP’s effects (one of the big draws for me), and you don’t have the same output flexibility as the BB for routing signals around. But if the SP is one of the devices ultimately going into your BB, it could be a valuable addition.
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I’ll def give it a shot. It’d be interesting just to see how far I can take the 404 for single box productions. I can bend complete tracks out of the Circuit Rhythm, so just trying this with the 404 would be educational at least.
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Ah! Well, for single box productions you can wallow in the FX bus magic, so all the better.
Yep. I use it like this to sequence my iPad and then record those sounds back to the 404.
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And I imagine having 40 seconds of skip-back for catching happy accidents would be one welcome addition over the existing setup.
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woah, gotta get back from vacation to check all this out and probably a month to update the guide completely.
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Who signed off your holiday? Back to slaving away for glory!!!
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Hah a printed copy of the guide… hope it helps, and definitely got work to do on it in a coupule weeks.
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Nice… just got to Fortaleza… grabbing lunch then hopefully heading to the beach
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Anyone else having trouble with the curser in chop mode after the 2.0 update? It’s like it won’t move - both the curser and the move function, after a while when I start chopping…!?
Edit: ok a restart fixed it for now…
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