Whether obvious or not (I only got the device a few days ago, and nothing is obvious at the minute) it makes sense to me and will be helpful when I get hold of the mic I’m planning on getting to do some instrument recording.
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I saw a bunch of complaints about the menus combos of this device. After a few days of learning some of the ins and outs, I don’t see the combos as a problem, but I do find it exasperating how none of the buttons tell you with any level of accuracy what they actually do.
Why the hell is the button label to set the project BPM accessed through a function called tap tempo? Why not label it BPM on the device and expect that people will find the tap tempo option inside it? This same thing happens everywhere.
It’ll be fine once I learn it, but the UI designer could barely have been less helpful.
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Yeah, the UI can be a bit opaque at times. I certainly feel like when an interface tells you, Don’t do this like that, a more elegant solution has been overlooked.
It’s hard to argue with the degree of flexibility you get for the money, though. It’s starting to click enough for me that I’m finding myself grabbing ideas in the moment that otherwise would have been put in the ‘I’ll get back to that one later’ pile.
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Oh for sure, I’ve been exploring it’s possibilities from afar for a good six months or so before buying, I know in abstract what it can do. And I know full well when I am comfortable with it, it will be an asset.
It’s just a little frustrating to try and learn something when basic functions are so obfuscated at every level. Some screens give an indication of what buttons will do, some give you nothing at all. So many buttons and menu functions may as well be named ‘banana’ for how accurately they indicate the actual functioning.
I wonder how much is poor translation work, and how much incompetence.
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Definitely doesn’t look like bad translation for this kind of choice. I’ve been a professional translator in Japan for more than two decades and can usually spot bad translation. There were also US people on the design team for the mkii, so they would have had input. I don’t know enough about the old SPs. Perhaps rooted in legacy? That seems to be behind a lot of SP quirks, but somebody else would have to weigh in on that.
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Is there someone selling an overlay with updated button labels for version 4+ ?
Someone on Etsy is selling a digital file with colour coded dots to indicate button combos, but you would then have to take it and get it printed somewhere.
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A quick question, if I enable the one shot playback mode thing on a long sample on a pad by pressing [push enter] + [Gate], can I then send midi to the 404 from a sequence on the Digitakt, for example, with a trig on the first beat of every bar, and it will retrigger that pad in time whenever the sample naturally ends without retrigging otherwise?
Basically, when receiving midi note data, does the 404 respect the settings of the pad over the incoming note data?
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I’ve got one with cf-card reader. An updated V2 would be awesome! With 16-track-recorder!
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I’m pretty sure midi data triggers the 404 pad settings. One shot, gate, whatever it’s set at.
It’s been a long time since I’ve sequenced the 404 though so I could be very wrong!
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I’ve not tried this with one-shot playback, but I’ve sequenced samples with gate on and off, and the pad settings were observed.
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Thx for the tip.
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This sampler is going to be a real treat for me. Done a bit of work with it today, just learning a few things, and I’ve already started to turn a few short samples of noise into the long form textures I’ve been hoping to make with it.
I do intend to use it as a standalone music making device as well, but first and foremost it’s supposed to be a processing tool, and with some subtle use and a lot of resampling you can get really lovely stuff.
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I was sampling into my SP last night from my MC-101 for the first time. I ran into strange volume issues. Wondering if anyone might know why. Volume on the 101 was set to max.
The audio coming out of the 101 sounded loud enough when I was listening to it with the External Input enabled. When I had a pattern playing though on my SP and then tried to play the 101 to hear how things would sound, I could barely hear the 101 sounds. If I stop the pattern on the SP, suddenly the volume of the 101 shoots up. Any idea why?
The other strange issue was that the 101 incoming audio did not seem loud enough to trigger the threshold sampling even though it seemingly was loud enough when listening to it. Any clues on what could cause that?
Not sure, but did you try adjusting the level at the upper right when recording (now set at 95)? I have had an external source seem low and needed to adjust that. It’s really nice that you can set the number of measures there as well.
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Mk 3 cause they put out the E-Mix studio… cool thing was that you could install the E mix studio firmware on the OG sp-808…
waaaaait a minute completely forgot I had an Roland Edirol A6 too… so technically it would be an SP808 mk4 that we need 
and you could also install the A6 Firmware on either the sp-808 or the E-mix studio, they were all interchangeable
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So dope! If these had sd cards and 1/4 inch jacks I’d be sold.
check the first clip, you can put an sd in them…
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I was thinking about this post today. I spent a few hours making a beat in the DAW today for the first time in a long time.
At the end of it, I was like what am I doing. That was the least fun I’ve had making music in forever. I didn’t even feel proud of the track at the end. I’d much rather just use the SP or P6 or whatever for the creative side of things, and save the DAW for the utilitarian stuff.
The experience was so bad I even started thinking maybe I should just buy a multitrack for recording. Not sure I’ll go that far, yet. 
That Rick Rubin book is proving to be a good read for thinking about the creative process.
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Nothing wrong with using a DAW like a multitrack recorder and for a bit of polishing, and it will outdo any hardware solution with ease, while taking up less of your time if you’re disciplined with it. For me personally, the only reason I would do any recording back and forth nowadays is for processing purposes.
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