I pre-ordered this morning. I’m not quite sure what the hell I’m doing 
. I have an Isla S2400 on the way and a trusty Digitakt which I’ll never get rid of (I think). I am not sure how these pieces will all fit together but my initial thought is that the 404 would make an excellent multi fx box if nothing else especially for the price point. Plus, I just sold my A4 mk1 and had money burning a hole in my pocket. But the idea of learning two new samplers simultaneously tires me just thinking about it.
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bunch of 404s flooding local CLs right now
I will get an SP404 Mk2, but I’m gonna make myself wait until I’m done with my current project. At that point I will reward myself with this new 404 dream machine.
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I do think it is a nice upgrade to the SX/A. For me, I didn’t gel with modern MPC’s, and this will cover most of what I would do with them such as chopping, auto-chop, mute groups, 16 levels, rolls, etc. The MPC’s can still do quite a bit more, and have much better sequencers, but they are also more like a DAW-in-a-box. It certainly wouldn’t replace my DT or even M:S as they are entirely different beasts altogether, and the sequencing, p-locks, control-all, probability and chance are still part of what makes those amazing machines. Actually, I could hook them up together and make an album called “No Song Mode”, and people will be baffled how it was that I ever made music without a song mode. I’ll see you at the Grammys.
With 16GB internal memory it will make a great stereo sampling/recorder scratch pad, or to finish whole tracks on. And the new app makes it easy to offload ideas and finish them elsewhere if you’d like. Although, when using the unit standalone, I’m not sure how fun the forever-scroll will be when browsing gigs of samples.
I see that they will be adding FX in the future. That is great. On the older models, they never updated the FX, because you would have to have a mouse come and paint the name of the new effect on panel with a tiny toothbrush. They could never get enough cheese in line to pay the mice, so it all fell through.
I think that a lot of whether or not I am going to gel with it is going to be how all these new features are worked out in the UI and on the screen. Some of Rolands newer gear is just not that intuitive.
It seems like Roland sent one to every YouTuber that has ever even looked at a 404, which is cool because we will have plenty of videos to watch until they are actually available. I hope they gave one to Waffles the Cat and Doug the Pug, those guys are animals when it comes to things.
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I suppose the real answer is to make an internal rechargeable battery easy to replace… I mean I am actually all for using rechargable AAs as long as the battery life is decent on the device. 6x rechagable AAs for two and a Half hours is really boarder line, it is still nice that the option is there not sure if I would really use it much though. Either way MK2 is gonna make a ton of people happy, I feel at this point between M8 and DT I am pretty well covered for my needs… still wanna play with one of these though.
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Sorry, that device seems to be quite good but my fingers are not tiny enaugh to control it.
It’s the same challenge as with the Digitakt / Digitone for me.
So I’m afraid I have to prefer the layout of A4M2/ARM2 and OT… or MASCHINE. 
You can always not look at the display and just twiddle instead. It was the right call.
My boy Blezz Bats didn’t?.
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I agree, an easily replaceable internal battery would be great. Make it a cartridge that pops out like and SD card.
And the MKII looks like it will do 2.5 hours with alkaline, and 3.5 with Ni-MH rechargeable batteries.
Is it just me or does this seem like a great value? SX was $499 until the A dropped.
Really trying not to pre order but I’m not sure how long I can hold out. I’m really happy with my current setup. Well, I was. This looks like a few beers in purchase tonight.
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I don’t know who that is, but maybe they didn’t get one because they are are a Bat. Could be why Waffles the Cat hasn’t posted a video yet. Roland just doesn’t seem to like animals.
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I’m tempted to preorder from Thomann. Does anyone know whether goods from thomann are liable for import costs in the Uk?
Why don’t you do Guitar Guitar in the UK? You can pay a £50.00 deposit.
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Yeah the 3.5 hours charge seems pretty small to me especially since it requires 6 battery packs. But the ability to power it with a battery pack and USB C is a huge plus. That’s probably the route to take if it’s going with you on a plane.
But I’m gonna need more chargers to get 6 batteries to charge… Wish it used different kinds of batteries… Maybe an 18650. Deluge gets 6 hours on one of those.
Gotta say, I’m pretty disappointed that they opted for AA batteries. 2.5h on 6 AAs is brutal, if not downright irresponsible from a climate perspective 
I know they probably intend for people to use rechargeable AAs, but not having charging circuitry built in with a USB-C port on the device is kinda ridiculous.
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Yeah, I just use regular eneloops, and I have a couple of chargers. I basically always have a stash of around 18-24 batteries charged and ready to go. I have seen high-capacity rechargeables, and I wonder how well those would work, and how much extra time it would allow? If you could get an extra hour out of them, that would be nice. I believe the SX/A got around 4 hour - alakline & 5 hour - rechargeable battery time, and and extra hour would get you in the range for the MkII. For instance, the standard eneloops I use are 2000mAh, but looking on amazon I see there are some high-capacity batteries from another brand that is 2800mAh.
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Yeah, honestly the Deluge approach of putting a 18650 in under the hood and building some charging circuitry is great. My biggest complain about Deluge is that the charging is really slow. But with a chasis the size that they have there isn’t so many space constraints that they can’t include a lipo battery or something more off the shell like an 18650.
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Yeah charging is very slow on the Deluge. Ive got other complaints with it though… I might actually sell mine once I get the SP-404 MK2. I know they are somewhat different devices but I really just wanted a standalone sampler. Plus I got an M8 here soon so Deluge being a portable work station is losing it’s charm for me but we’ll see. I think it’s wisest to hold out for the next firmware update.
But for a good year or two there Deluge held a strong position for best portable groove box but the competition is closing in. It still has probably the best arranger (though I don’t count the Akai Force cuz that’s like competing against Ableton imo).
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I’m pretty sure this will be a must-have piece of studio equipment. I don’t need one tomorrow, but it would be good to have a more meat and potatoes sampler alongside the OT.
With respect to batteries, I’m on team USB power brick. AAs are an acceptable compromise because Eneloops are easy to work with and emergency disposable batteries might be the difference between playing a gig and never being allowed back at the cafe again.
18650s sound cool, but I can buy AAs in any convenience store from Malé to Mobile. Non-removable batteries are unacceptable. Most of my studio gear is > 5 years old, and none of my batteries are.
Edit: I love my Elektrons and other boutique gear, but this thing will set the world on fire when kids stack sales and local retailer coupons and end up getting them half off.
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Thanks, I didn’t realise that they were doing preorders. I’ll check it out!
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