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Roland SP-404
 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-11 16:32 [#01798509]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



illmuzik's review
pic

anyone here have any experience w/ one of these? im quite
interested. with 1gb memory it'd serve as a perfect portable
beat machine..

it's basically - SP-303 Dr. Sample with optional battery
power, ~5 new effects including one that adds a low sine to
everything, tape echo effect, radio tuning, chromatic ps (i
have no clue what that is), bpm looper, and more. built-in
mic for super on-the-fly recording. more pads, extra banks.
basically a flexed out Dr.Sample.

not much information about it online so i was seeing if
anyone here has got anything to say about it! seems like the
biggest downer is its got no midi-out


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-11 21:17 [#01798593]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker



Well, I have no experience on it, but its MSRP is under $500
and its portable. Even if it doesn't have midi out, you can
use it as a slave sampler. As well, you can do 12 bit with
it (if I remember correctly). If I didn't have 3 or 4 other
things I really want (1-Nord modular g2;2-Elektron Machine
drum;3-Frostwave resonator;4-Roland Juno 106) then I would
probly think about getting it. For under 500 dollars, you
really can't go wrong with that ammount of portability.

It got a 4.07/5 at harmony central (148 users rated it).
Nothing about it in sonic state :/


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-11 21:31 [#01798596]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker



Harmony central 1

Harmony central 2

Music Thing

Roland site

One bad point that I can see, is even tho you can save up to
1 gig of samples on the flash card, the machine will only
read 96 of them. So unless your samples are all going to be
10 minutes long, then the full gigabyte card would be a
waste. Another drawback would be the I/O is all rca, so you
can definately see this as being aimed towards the
consumer/dj market. As well, I can't seem to find any
details on the built in mic, but for under $500, I couldn't
see roland installing anything but the barest of essentials
in there, so it would probly be a very noisy microphone.



 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-11 22:01 [#01798601]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



why isnt it 120 sounds instead of 96 if youve got 10
banks... 12 sonud per?

when you record striaght from RCA the machine saves them at
very high quality, so i think if one was only using that to
sample theyd stand a chance at filling up 1gb. maybe?

i wouldnt touch the built-in mic :/


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-11 22:17 [#01798605]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker



Well, if you are using it to multitrack, then that might
work for you, but the specs are the machine can hold 24
samples into its ram, and you can save up to 96 samples on
CF card. I wouldn't get that to do multitracking. More of a
simple sampler to use when you are camping/traveling or a
backup at a live gig in case your main sampler decides to
break down on you.

As far as what I have read, you can save up to 300 minutes
worth of audio on a 1 gig card (altho if you want my advice,
'high quality' samplers are a dime a dozen, its getting
harder and harder to find new samplers that offer an
authentic 'lo-fi' sound, so if it actually gives you a good
12 or 8 bit sample sound, then stick with that).

Altho if you are looking for a sampler to use in a studio,
get a used akia s3000, one of the korg electribe samplers or
a yamaha a4000 or a yamaha su200 or something, and spend the
extra money on effects.


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-11 22:24 [#01798609]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker



Other roland alternatives for samplers would be the sp808.
You can get one for about 300 dollars used, and its a full
featured workstation (albeit I use the term 'full'
liberally) .


 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-11 23:21 [#01798621]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



oh definitely not for multitracking absolutely not. just to,
like, i dunno just jam really...

ive looked at the electribe samplers that korg has out. i
lean to the ES-1 MKII. you know which one that is?
http://www.musiciansfriend.com/srs7/g=home/search/detail/... was looking at that one too



 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-11 23:23 [#01798622]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



and im not exactly big spendin here. all those big music
workstations, like i dont really think i need one of those.
just lookin 2 make beats


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-11 23:49 [#01798625]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker | Followup to cygnus: #01798622



Yeah, I hear that. All those things I linked to could be
gotten for less than a new sp404. The yamaha su200's are
pretty cheap.

Now are you looking for a sampler? Or something to sequence
sounds that you have sampled? Honestly, I use an mpc1000 and
I swear by it. It sounds really robust, and its midi
implementation is exactly what I need. Plus editing and
sampling is a snap (as well as giving you the ability to
record audio while playing your sequences (no ability to
edit that audio tho)). They just dropped the price too.
Altho new ones still go for about $700 to $1000, you can
probly swing a used one for $400 - $600.

But like I said, you can get an sp808 for under 300, and
that has a full sequencer, sampler, synthesizer, effects,
midi out and such. Aparently its brilliant for live music.


 

offline futureimage from buy FIR from Juno (United Kingdom) on 2005-12-12 00:13 [#01798626]
Points: 6427 Status: Lurker



I tried one of these out and it was a bit awkward compared
to say, the Korg ES-1 or even the SP-303.
I'd rather get a second hand SP-303 or ES-1. The ES-1 has
some killer FX too.


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-12 00:21 [#01798631]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker | Followup to futureimage: #01798626



Which was awkward, the 404?


 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-12 00:53 [#01798633]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular | Followup to futureimage: #01798626



the 404 or the 808?


 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-12 00:54 [#01798635]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



sp-404 has loads more effects than the ES1-MKII, thats
really all thats leaning me into it than for an ES1-MKII


 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-12 00:58 [#01798636]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



Yamaha Su200 looks awesome w/ that sample scratcher!


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-12 01:09 [#01798640]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker | Followup to cygnus: #01798636



Yeah. I don't know how high they rate on the awesomeness
scale, but you can get them cheap.

(ps: you shouldn't worry about built in effects. Generally,
the effects that come built into gear sound like crap. Get
yourself some of those new behringer pedals... they only
cost $30 each and they actually sound pretty good, better
than the effects that you can get in most gear)


 

offline KADO from The Belafonte (United Kingdom) on 2005-12-12 02:25 [#01798645]
Points: 1484 Status: Regular



I've got an SP-808 and an Electribe ES1.

The SP-808* is completely useless for composing with, the
sequencer is not capable of making drum patterns and it is
only 4 nte polyphonic, so you can forget doing anything
complicated with it. However it does have a good set of fx
and the multitrack is ok to get a sketch down when using
other instruments.

The ES-1 is much better in my opinion. It has "TR" style
sequencing, is 7 note polyphonic and records automation on
most controls (Delay, pan, volume, pitch and 1 global
effect) so you can make pretty complex dynamic patterns with
it.

The ES1 uses a smart media card to store samples and has 4mb
internal memory...about 1:30 of mono sampling, which i've
never used completely....the smart card works much like the
way you described the 404...it can only load 99 samples at
once in 4mb chunks.

Editing is fairly straight forward and the overall sound is
slightly lo-fi, similar to the crunch of an mpc 60.

The downside is the step sequencer used to construct
complete tracks, this is done by stringing 1-4bar patterns
together, but it is difficult to make changes without losing
all your work...I have never managed a complete track with
it.

*I have been comparing to the 808 which is now quite an old
model, the 404 may have improved a lot of it's features in
the 10 year difference between their release.

Alternatively just go and buy Ableton 5....it can do so so
much more than these machines....it won't let you down,
Happy shopping!


 

offline KADO from The Belafonte (United Kingdom) on 2005-12-12 02:28 [#01798646]
Points: 1484 Status: Regular | Followup to cygnus: #01798636



Oh and never buy one a yamaha SU unit (except the
su10)....they are extremely time consuming to program and
the scratch ribbon is shite


 

offline cygnus from nowhere and everyplace on 2005-12-12 02:42 [#01798648]
Points: 11920 Status: Regular



good posts. sucks to hear about that yamaha scratch thing.
that'd have been a real treat for its days

i use ableton right now for making tracks but i hate being
tied to the computer screen. looking forsomething to make
beat-brux and bunctions out of away from the PC


 

offline isnieZot from pooptown (Belgium) on 2005-12-12 04:05 [#01798664]
Points: 4949 Status: Lurker



get an MPC FO SHO!


 

offline j4ck from United Kingdom on 2005-12-12 04:24 [#01798669]
Points: 1102 Status: Regular



I have a sp808 and not a lot else for music, and I have
found it good


 

offline futureimage from buy FIR from Juno (United Kingdom) on 2005-12-12 10:28 [#01798866]
Points: 6427 Status: Lurker | Followup to cygnus: #01798633



The 404. The ES-1's effects are better aswell. You can get
killer bass with the delay time on minimum and depth on max.


 

offline Taxidermist from Black Grass on 2005-12-13 00:21 [#01799496]
Points: 9958 Status: Lurker



Once again, I am going to plug the MPC 1000. Nothing is so
perfect, so intuitive, and gives you so many options. It
doesn't have a built in synthesizer, but you can sample a
noise or instrument, and make it a tone using the jessiahs
glitch technique, and there you go, instant synth. Every
midi cc can be recorded too for your external synthesizers,
and it has a few decent effects.


 

offline dave_g from United Kingdom on 2005-12-13 15:40 [#01799932]
Points: 3372 Status: Lurker



just get the sp303. ive got one and i still use the thing
despite having an akai s5000.
the 303 effects are good. best thing is you can stop the LFO
for the phaser and flanger and adjust the depth manuall with
a knob :D

I've got 808 sounds on banks A and B, with C and D on a
smartmedia card for longer samples. Its a good little box.

Chromatic PS is a pitch shifter which lets you adjust the
pitch by upto 2 octaves I think. unlike the pitch effect,
chromatic lets youdo it in steps of 1 note, I.E.
chromatically. wheras the pitch effect just does it by the
amount of twist you give the knob, i.e. not quatised to
notes.

my advice is get the sp303, display and controls aren't as
cryptic as they firstseem for 90% of operations. you will
only have to look up formatting cards etc, stuff u only do
once or twice.

sounds compression is very good, best quality is so very
good, technically not CD quality, but i doubt ppl could tell
this unless they were listeing out for it.
microprocessor can be a bit slow for some onboard memory
manipulation but get a smartmedia card so u can access banks
C and D,the media card also has MUCh faster memory
addressing etc.

apart from my evolver, the sp303 is the best value for money
bit of kit I have. do it! get one.



 

offline hanal from k_maty only (United Kingdom) on 2009-10-21 08:54 [#02338072]
Points: 13379 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



1x ROLAND SP 404 SX in the post
should be here tomorrow


 

offline Guybrush from the white room on 2009-11-13 10:33 [#02343908]
Points: 2556 Status: Lurker | Show recordbag



̠


 


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