It’s pretty simple I think. Sea shipping is totally screwed, especially to North America. Roland said they air shipped some initial shipments to have a bit of stock available, but as you pointed out, it’s not economically viable to do that. So basically until the sea shipments start arriving, there will be minimal stock.
You can see what this has done to the cost of sea shipping in 2021 here:
I was just told today at guitar center that only 3 are coming to guitar center so far, all three are slated for a guitar center in San Diego California… and they don’t know when
online guitar center told me that my order should arrive by December 13th
I think it worth remembering that many people buy gear and don’t dive into YouTube to record an unboxing video or just on a forum to show their new box.
I know it sounds weird but outside of gear forums there are normal people.
I haven’t ordered one and won’t be. Probably.
A few thoughts after playing with it for a little bit, if anyone cares. Probably contains a lot of stuff people already know:
You’ll need a firmware update out of the box to get all the features (e.g. no skipback on the factory version, so make sure you have an SD card lying around, and a way to get the firmware onto it).
Connecting to a PC via USB-C is as easy as plugging and playing. Just takes a moment for your PC to recognise the device the first time.
Envelopes are a gamechanger for removing clicks/pops. No more trial and error fumbling around for the zero crossing using the start/end button (even if I did enjoy the ritual of doing that to trim a sample).
It’s overwhelming to use for the first time - things are very different. That said, Roland have left in some classic workflow controls (e.g., you scroll through MFX using the push/enter encoder, but you can also use the 3rd encoder like on the old 404s). Overall, it feels like (is) a completely different machine, just with features in the same places to honour the old workflow.
Gripes (might be useful to some as they’re probably too boring for YouTubers to talk about):
IDK why we didn’t just lose the battery compartment and agree that those who want to take it on the road use a USB-C power bank. This thing didn’t need to follow the SP tradition of being this chunky.
MFX harder to locate without the written list on the unit. Will probably get easier as I find out where my favourite ones are.
The thing goes into screensaver mode after a minute and you have to wake it back up by hitting a pad before doing anything. If there’s no real benefit to using the screensaver, I’ll probably end up turning it off altogether. I liked compulsively triggering samples for no reason while sitting at my desk, and it feels jarring to have to wake it up to do that.
Doesn’t feel as snappy as the other 404s. There’s obviously a lot more going on in the background, so there’s a little input lag e.g. when switching to and from the pattern sequencer and when turning encoders. This is minor and won’t be noticed by everyone, but is noticeable for me after coming from the 404SX which felt like working with a calculator. So far it seems like a worthy sacrifice for the extra functionality, and samples trigger instantly obviously.
After controlling one of the effects and waiting a few seconds, the display goes back to the big 3-digit BPM screen, which feels totally pointless. I constantly find myself having to turn the encoders to see the effects screen again. I hope I can change this somehow, or that it’s otherwise patched out. I’ve no idea who Roland thought needs to see that big fat BPM figure so urgently while using the effects.
While a sample is playing with loop turned off, if you want to toggle ‘loop’ to on, the button lights up, but the sample comes to an end and the looping only starts when you trigger the sample again. This disrupts the flow if you find something cool and want to begin looping it ‘on the fly’. This is something I used to do loads with the SX, so I hope it gets fixed.
Roll feature feels unintuitive. The roll speed can’t be changed while the sample is playing (you can adjust the speed, but it only changes once you retrigger the sample - similar gripe to previous loop issue… but maybe people will just use the DJFX looper for this kind of thing). Also, If the sample is currently being rolled, there’s a feature that lets you hit roll + turn the push enter encoder to speed the rolling up or slow it down temporarily… but once you let go of ‘roll’, it toggles rolling to off. So if you’re going to use that speeding up/slowing down feature, you’re committing yourself to toggling roll to off. IDK why it doesn’t just register you holding the roll button rather than tapping it like you would to turn roll off. Hope this makes sense.
Good luck with that. In the video @Buska posted, it seems the screensaver cannot be turned off, only delayed in terms of how long it takes to activate. Otherwise, thanks for the breakdown!
On the 404s there was an option to put a limiter on everything to prevent any clipping from the effects. I’m curious if anything like that exists on the mk2.
Me too! I hit up guitar center a few days ago, they said mine would be shipped on November 19. I ordered at 12:15 am right when it came out. Not getting my hopes up tho
Aah you’re right, 10 minutes is the maximum. All they need to do is keep the pads ‘live’ when the screensaver is on, so hopefully it’s an easy fix. If it’s going into some king of low power mode when it does this, then I can accept it.
