I’ll have to look in to that!
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Pretty new to the 404 but running it just with Reason, with the 404 as the audio interface, is huge amounts of fun. Reason, with all its players, sound sources and fx is a seemingly infinite source of stuff to sample, mangle, process and build tracks up with on the 404.
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@Benway
It’s not the hardware, I’m pretty sure about that, because it happens on all three knobs, and I only noticed it after the update.
Haven’t gotten around to downgrading it back to 4.07 yet, but I have the firmware donwloaded and will do the downgrade once I’ve had a chance to try a friend’s unit and compare. Either way, that new startup screen has to go, so no matter what way I look at it, it’s going back to 4.07.
I just need to compare it to another unit first, just in case.
Yeah, hopefully it works out - like I say, I haven’t noticed any difference on that with the update. Grabbing samples in Serato Studio easily outweighs the Melodics logo for me … which is saying a lot tbh.
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The 404 works great as an interface. It serves that purpose on well over 90% of the audio I create.
What I like about it is that it is not at all fussy about whatever you want to plug into it. No knob twiddling, no deep dives into menus. Just plug and play. I’ve run various Elektron devices, guitars, a laptop, and a mic through it and the sound quality coming out is always solid.
And it handles sending audio out through outboard pedals just as well. What I like about that is that I don’t have to constantly dissassemble and reassemble the pedal board between drums, synths and guitars which saves me a bunch of time. (I run the pedals back into the DAW using a UA Volt interface).
Then you add in that I can sample and then infinitely resample everything going into it. You can keep entertained for days on just a few initial samples.
For sure II think its no fuss flexibility is why it’s become a bit of a center piece in my set up.
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I feel the same way. I was a bit disappointed when I first got it due to the lacking-sequencer and finding out I’m not really a finger drummer.
But as it’s stayed around, it has found a way to useful in so many different situations. It’s like the OP-1 in that way- it may not be used how I intended, but I am super-glad that I hung onto it.
For the price that used ones go for, it really is a bargain given the changing landscape of prices.
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I’ve some news on the knob mapping and then some!
I can confirm it’s not a fault since I tried a mate’s and it’s exactly the same on his MKII. Nevertheless, I came away with a brand new SP-404A that he’d purchased as a backup. I swapped it for my MKII.
I’m sure I’ll miss aspects of the MKII, but using the A is exactly the same as the SX I had back in the day, and I’m much happier using it!
He also has a top condition SP-202 with 4MB card. He wants £350 for it though, which is fine I suppose considering the condition, that it has the 4MB card and is boxed. £350 though.
The 404A doesn’t have the same type of pitching as the 202, so it would be perfect paired-up to the 404A and would give me some crunchy sample rates to play with as well. But I already paid £400 for the MKII that I just swapped for the 404A, so another £350 on top of that would push my SP investment to £750, which is a bit ridiculous.
Anyway, the 404A gains a new feature when linked up to the MicroFreak. Since the MicroFreak has a four-voice poly sequencer, I’m able to resample sequenced patterns on the 404A, which being an SX is not normally possible.
Is there an official thread on here for the 404/SX/A?
Can’t find a traditional 404 thread on here, but I joined SP-FORUMS about a month back and got an email about it, but my account didn’t get activated.
Sent an email to the address provided, but no luck. It makes makes me wonder if it’s running on auto-pilot or something.
Are there any other SP centric forums out there (for old school SP machines)?
If you’re on Reddit there’s an SP404 community there. As you’d expect there’s lots of mk2 talk but I see the older units pop up quite often with lots of knowledgeable people.
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I have gotten the impression that all the SP talk kinda happens in this thread.
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Yeah, it is real tough to get an account over there. Owners aak. Big reason why it is a ghost ship these days. I am super active in the battle arena over there, but had to remember my old password to get access.
Ive been using Sps since 2009, if you ever have any questions!
I currently have the mkii, 404og, 303, and 202! I posted a bunch of my battle beats higher up in the thread, and agree with @BlankFlag this is where most the talk is on this forum!
Also i feel you with the MKII but now i just pair it a last gen sp for the best of both worlds! Honestly kinda love the workflow now on the mkii, but hate the sound haha.
In case you wanna hear about some work flow talk, i posted my convoluted ways of using my voltron sp gang in a tldr post in this thread!
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Yeah, been waiting over a year for an account activation… 
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@OverneathTheSkybridge
My browser’s privacy protection goes into absolute meltdown if I try to access Reddit or Dicord or any of those types of places.
@BlankFlag
I’ve not read much on here to be honest, but cheers, it’s good to know.
@Sleepynumb
Yeah I’ve been watching, and you’ve had quite a few wins in the battles, haha!
But there was a post on there, someone suggested the MKII was cheating. And while I don’t personally see it as cheating in and of itself (since the MKII has its own legitimate spec), I do understand where he/she is coming from compared to those competing in a battle using traditional SP gear Vs the MKII. The MKII is really a DAW, whereas the traditional SP gear calls for a much higher level of “Ninja” than using the MKII does.
I’m with you on the sound. I can tell you that when I swapped it for the 404A, I got quite a lecture about it. He got a bit ranty about the MKII because he uses it as an effect box on the send of his desk (and intends to do the same on the other send with the MKII he just got from our swap). But he said he only uses it like that because the “cruddy” sound isn’t such a problem when you can fix it through the desk.
I asked him what he meant by “cruddy”, and he said that a lot of modern gear runs at 48kHz, and that often the only reason for it is the off the shelf spec of the processor they use. He said it’s a problem because when they originally decided upon the sampling rate of CD, the 44.1kHz we’ve all come to know and love was arrived at and decided upon for scientific and technical reasons, and is the correct one. He said the 48kHz spec of modern gear has nothing at all to do with audio quality, and described the MKII and all other 48kHz gear as sounding “cruddy”. He sees it as an inescapable side-effect of the sample rate.
I was tempted to break the seal on the 404A right there, just for fun to compare them, but decided not to in case he changed his mind, haha. But I think that if he hadn’t wanted another multi-fx box for the other send, he would never have done the swap.
In fact, the way he was talking I’m damn sure of it!
@pseen
Well you’ve got some patience, but at least it’s not my aftershave then 