I’m not sure I understand. Does your loop have its bpm set accurately? If so, you should just need to hit the BPM SYNC button to have it automatically time stretch to match the BPM of the bank.
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Thanks, will try it - haven’t got my head around BPM sync yet so hopefully it will do the trick.
Ah, okay. Yeah it’s a property of a pad that you can turn on and off — just like LOOP or GATE or REVERSE. When it is on (that is, when the BPM SYNC button is lit for the selected pad) the 404 looks at the BPM of the bank, then at the BPM set on the sample, and time-stretches the sample until the two match.
See “Playing Back a Sample to the Tempo of a Song” in the manual for some setting and options around this.
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PSA to all those who don’t know this already, or probably learned it and then later forgot like me:
If you use End Snap to capture a “perfect loop” when resampling from the pattern sequencer, there will be a bit of silence at the beginning and a bit of extra audio at the end of the sample, but you might not notice it immediately while working within the SP404 because the start and end points of the sample will have been set automatically to accommodate for it. If you export this sample to your DAW, the timing will be off and the sample length will be wrong in relation to the BPM for your loop or phrase. If your End Snap timing was quick, it might be hard to hear this extra audio when listening back to the the looping sample in isolation, but it is there, and it can cause all kinds of trouble within an Ableton session for example.
I’ve found it’s best practice to immediately Truncate a sample recorded this way, as this will give you the correct sample accurate length. The extra audio at the end makes a certain kind of sense, in case you need to make some fine adjustments for whatever reason, but the insidious part is the inexplicable silence at the beginning which is sometimes hard to notice on the main Start/End edit screen.
For example, I just used End Snap to record a sample of 4 beats at 80BPM (at the SP404’s native 48kHz). Before truncating, the sample length was 156096. After truncating, it was 14400 samples, perfect for that BPM and number of beats, which means the sample is now usable outside of the SP404 without further editing.
Again, this is probably common knowledge for a lot of people, but I’ve found it much quicker to deal with it on the SP404 before exporting than trying to clean it up later in a DAW, and it caused a bit of grief until I figured it out.
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Thanks, learned a bunch about BPM Sync, so I’ve got a lot more options now, and even though it doesn’t directly solve the issue I was trying to address, it has given me enough info to figure out a workaround.
Aside from that, I still think there should be a way to manually timestretch a sample (as a non real-time process) to a specified length, either a specific number of samples, or calculated by entering a specific number of beats at a chosen BPM.
BPM sync is great, but it doesn’t work for samples that are the correct BPM but slightly the wrong length - loops that are supposedly the same BPM still drift out of sync (when the samples are set to loop, not taking about using the Pattern Sequencer). A feature like this would be super useful for utility reasons in creating mathematically perfect loops with imperfect source samples, and would also have loads of creative uses too, e.g. in the wonderful world of polyrhythms.
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Big shoutout to @NearTao - slowly working through your videos and finding them very useful
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This is a follow up in case anyone is on the same path.
For patterns, copy, crop and duplicate are your friends.
You can actually get a lot of control by cropping a longer pattern you copied to another pad, making a variation, duplicating it, and repeating the process.
You can build 32to 64 bar patterns this way really quick and move on to the next pattern.
When you’re done, just link all the patterns together.
I usually resample the whole pattern chain to a pad, then export the sample and project to the sd card. Then archive the project, and open the sample in Logic for final master.
Then I clear the card and start over.
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Hmm. I don’t think there’s a way to stretch a loop to a specific number of samples, but you can set the start/end points to specific numbers of samples.
In the START/END screen hold SHIFT+press the value button. Turn the knob to select the point you’re interested in setting, then punch in the number of samples numerically using the 1–10 pads.
So maybe timestretch something to be audibly perfect, then use the above to truncate it to the exact number of samples such that it’s mathematically perfect, too?
Still, the only ”clock” on the 404 is the sequencer, so the only way to make sure things don’t go out of sync is to have them triggered by the sequencer. So the easier way to go about this is probably not to have a sample with the exact length to loop perfectly, but rather take a sample that’s a little too long and perfectly trigger it repeatedly in a loop with the sequencer.
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Awesome, glad they are helpful!
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Hoping for a little advice from those with experience of the SP404 mk 2. I was looking for a portable device that I can use on holidays/in hotel rooms etc when I am away from home/studio. This looked like it ticked a lot of boxes.
I started to wonder whether it could be even more for me though and become a main part of my studio.
I make music for fun and like to throw things together from scratch, really quickly just building loops and then using effects to mix them up. My current set up is a Akai force as the brain with a TR8S and microfreak. I don’t save anything, never finish anything, and just build a new loop each time I fancy messing with the gear.
The attached clip is an example of the workflow I am talking about (not the best example but you get the point) my question is could the 404 replace the Force for this kind of thing. I’m conscious I don’t use 99% of the Forces features (I don’t use multiple rows of clips, don’t really even launch/stop clips, don’t use the arranger or sub mixes etc etc)
I just build ‘loops’ on top of one another and then use FX to provide variety . Just wondering whether them SP404 could work really well with this approach or am I missing something?
Example clip: https://youtube.com/shorts/Pnu15YzHxbk?feature=share
I wouldn’t say ‘loops’ but between the pattern sequencer and resampling it should get you in the neighborhood.
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I’d recommend it for loop based music for sure. I really like to make loooong loops (since you basically have unlimited sample time) with a lot of variation and layer them. Sp404 is very intuitive compared to say an octatrack or something. I love it as an overall production tool. Sometimes I use it like a multi track recorder too.
It has a reputation as a boom bap machine but it can do way more than that, especially if you are doing something more experimental
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I think at the current state of the device, you’d probably struggle to loop stuff perfectly on the fly with the SP404mk2. There’s no setting (yet) to eg record for 2 bars exactly and then loop it back on the sampling side (you CAN do this in the pattern sequencer, using sounds that are already on pads of your SP404mk2). You have to use the “End Snap” function and for that you have to get the BPM right and set it ahead of recording your sample. Midi control capabilities of the SP404mk2 are quite rudimentary, ie you won’t have great fun controlling external gear with the pattern sequencer (not even sure if it is possible at all - haven’t tried it myself).
Don’t get me wrong, I love my SP404mk2, but from what I could see in your video, I don’t think it would easily replace the functionality you’re getting from your Force now.
Why do you want to replace the Force, anything it doesn’t do that you would like it to do?
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Perfect looping is indeed a challenge at this moment with the SP-404 MKII. I really hope that Roland can improve it with firmware updates.
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I’ve made plenty of videos on making perfect loops, it requires a bit of a specific process and some discipline, but it is totally doable.
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I feel like they could easily implement a kind of grid guide that overlays on top of a sample’s waveform to make it more intuitive to create a perfect loop
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Definitely possible, just not as immediate and fluid as the Force for the use case the fellow elektronaut seems to be eying the device for.
It would be great to have a “sample for 1/2/3/4 bars” function as well as a “playback/loop after recording” (effectively turning it into a monster audio looper :)), similar to the pattern sequencer, I think the device would really benefit from this.
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This is the one thing that’s making me consider selling mine. I got so used to my Blackbox’s perfect looping that the 404 has stopped me trying to record perfect loops. As said it can be done but it could be so much easier.
Grabbing audio on it is a breeze other than this, for me at least.
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That’s the thing, though. I don’t see anything in the OP’s vid that requires “perfect loops”. All of that, as you point out, is dead-easy to do in the sequencer. Why not just do it there?
Why all the kerfuffle about “perfect loops” all the time? What would you do with them if you had them? What is “imperfect looping” stopping you from doing?
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I was really struggling with loops too, but then I started to use the pattern sequencer for that purpose, and it works really well. Especially since the new firmware added the step sequencer, I just put my sample on the first step and it loops perfectly.
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