Amen.
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You know whatās funnyā¦ the SP groups I follow on FB are arguing about how this new SP gives too many options and will ruin the creative limitations of the old 404SX.
Proving once againā¦ you cannot please everyoneā¦
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Iām hoping the Mk2 will work well as an all-purpose guitar noodling box. A very portable recorder with amp sims and the ability to play in simple bass and percussion backing tracks sounds great.
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Ridiculous!
It wonāt if they donāt buy it. But they will.
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Love that Lee Perry (RIP) quote: "It was only four tracks on the machine, but I was picking up 20 from the extra terrestrial squad.ā
He was the king of that workflow.
People back then also werenāt slaves to a grid. The looseness of Bonhamās drums, being a classic example.
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I believe Donuts is one of the greatest albums of all time, in any genre. I absolutely love the story behind the album aswell.
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Ok. Got things sorted.
Back on the PreOrder waitlist 
That didnāt take long. 
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The question is academic. There are literally hundreds of thousands of tracks available for listening that were made on an SP model, or an OP-1, where effects and levels are baked into the tracks, which are positively slamming. If it doesnāt align with your workflow, thatās one thing. If you think people canāt deliver incredible work w/ the SP workflow, Iād recommend further listening.
This is fun:
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Thats not really the way. If you have an MPC you can use the 404 to process a sample and then pull it into the MPC for sequencing. The 404 has imo, far better effects if you like to really mangle up your sound.
I care a lot about mixing personally. Itās a big deal and I bring my audio stems into the DAW and mix there. I can still do that with a 404/MPC combo. The 404 can dirty up and compress my drum hits, it can sample from my records and turn those sound into something crazy, it can do things to acapellas that the MPC canātā¦
Easy use case - sample a melody from vinyl into the 404 (synced to the MPC). filter out the frequencies you donāt want and then apply some effects, go wild, chop and resequence. Top it off with the tape effect and see how it sounds. then bring that into the MPC and chop more or just trigger the sequence you made. Either way you now have 8 more slots of effects to add to the sound you just made if you want.
Basically instead of thinking about recording everything into the MPC and working with all audio there, you now have a new flavor to add to the pallet. If you donāt need that, thats fine, I personally do.
If it helps you can substitute the 404 for the Octatrack. Same concept. I personally love using more than 1 sampler.
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Yeah I did the same workflow as you with my 4000. I did not have a mixer at the time so I sent all the outs into 10 inputs.
The mixer idea is very appealing, even with a modern MPC (I use the One now). I currently use an old mixer to feed my MPC all my hardware and turntable.
Iām not suggesting that at all. Just like there are photographers that can take stunning photos without any post-processing, there are musicians that can write masterpieces without any āformalā mixing process. What Iām asking is whether the 404 folks are actively making the choice to care a little less about mixing in favor of a more fun/immersive/immediate/whatever creative experience. Just like there are photographers who actively choose to work with film because of preferences in workflow, expressive taste, etc, there will be musicians that make similar tradeoffs. My point is maybe that thereās always a tradeoff.
To me the Digitakt is more a āprogrammableā instrument where the MPC is a āplayableā instrument, if this make sense.
The pads on the MPC was made to emulate real drums (and keys/strings) where pressure/velocity and aftertouch are used to impress variations and emotions.
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Couldnāt agree more about this!
Donāt get me wrong though, I have a programmer background and quite enjoyed the step sequencer on the Digitakt, but for me, the part that makes the Digitakt feel a bit like an āinstrumentā has more to do with how it can transform sounds through its amazing knobs, filters, bit crusher etc. The step sequencer part feels likeā¦ programming.
Whereas the MPC pads are a big part of what makes it feel like an instrument. The menu diving is the more programmatic part of it.
So, both are āinstrumentsā and very playable in my opinion, just in very different ways.
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Sure. Thereās Chuck Close, and thereās Jackson Pollock.
This is where I imagine that the SP-404 will shine. By combining it with a live instrument, you get endless sampling/recording sources. If I were a guitarist, Iād be pretty tempted to buy an SP.
SP-404 mk2 is not competition for the Digitakt, it is a complimenting device.
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I definitely agree there. I love the
Live, but I also see how the immediacy of resampling (not to mention skipback, which blows my mind) allows for a rapid succession of pattern variations that replicate the urgency of live arrangement, in terms of effects and layering. In the Live, duplicating sequences is fast, but adding effects, and writing automation is more laborious, and after a while, you have to backtrack to recall where your effects are assigned. Letās say you detect a humā¦ gotta go through track by track or even pad by pad to weed out the source. Thatās enough to kill the vibe, for me.
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This thing is so freaking light ! Love it already
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I agree. Hereās a video that kind of illustrates this: My Dawless Setup For 2019 - Elektron Digitakt - Roland SP404A - datastrainmusic - YouTube
Itās a little dated, as his gripes about MIDI track probability have since been addressed in a Digitakt update, but it illustrates how the 404 can be controlled by the Digitakt and also process the Digitaktās outgoing audio at the same time. I got an Octatrack to fill that role, but Iāll be definitely paying attention to this mk2 model to see if it may be a better fit.