Where can I get one of these fool checks? Sounds like a fair deal.

For the sake of this thread; ship this thing!!

Anyone who doesn’t agree with him is an idiot, you must be new to this thread.

found these that he did, really rocking it here and showing its strengths:





shit... i need to forget everything else i've got going on and sit down with this thing.


...but yeah, the 101 can do all that and more.

EDIT: one of the biggest strengths of the 404 is the gate/loop function, which is really useful. for the most part though, it's irrelevant.

Alright ya animals... here's the latest update to 0.15 at https://neartao.wordpress.com/2022/0...2-guide-v0-15/

This update focus on the Sample Mode section, and I dumped in some of the related topics like Chromatic, Cue, and other things that can help determine how a pad may play.

Further, I spent probably way too much time to figure out how End Mark works, but I figured it out and documented it. This helped land a few updates into the Sample Edit section to also add information about copy/delete for a sample. I kind of think I already typed this up in data management, but whatever... if I duplicated information, well I can get around to fixing it when I get to a place where I am ready to start reviewing the document. For now, I'm just trying to get it as complete as I can.

Also, just a thought. I did try recording a few videos and workflows using the mk2, and was also using the mk2 as an audio source... and it started off great, but I ended up hitting some issues with EXT SOURCE turning off after showing how to record and... whoops... the videos didn't quite go as I wanted. I do have a Zoom H6, and I may need to roll that into the process in order to capture the audio from the mk2, and from a microphone, along with the video.

Or you know... pick up a proper recording setup some day. But for now, it's just been my phone and whatever I can cobble together.

something i noticed about the MIC/GUITAR input, testing a bit with guitar. (i think you had mentioned noticing no difference between the two? not sure if you tried it with a guitar, i'll read it again.)

this thing exhibits something that i've noticed with pretty much every Boss/Roland product. they must have some sort of compressor/limiter on the input when it's switched to 'guitar'. i play really lightly sometimes and you never really get that "dynamic detail". for some reason this effects the way i fret notes and my hand ends up hurting after a short while. i ended up selling both the GT-1000 and Katana amp because of this, no easy way around it with those.

switching it to 'mic' doesn't hit the input quite as hard (a good thing mostly), but i notice i can "feel" and hear more detail in what i'm playing. it ends up being a more thrashy/raw sound at higher gain, but i think the trade-off is worthwhile.

i found the same thing on the MC-707, you get a much more natural response from the guitar with it switched to 'mic'. ... not sure if this is something that you'd like to test out or mention.

I hope to see this dude in the next S.T.A.L.K.E.R game sitting around the campfire making beats, he'd fit right in

So the test I ran for the MIC/GUITAR input was just to try and see if I could figure out what kind of distortion you'd get from over driving the signal. Both digital distort once you pass the 0db threshold, which isn't a surprise.

I didn't test going the other direction to try quiet audio and see if it has a compressor or other effect on the dynamic quality of the audio, which, is an interesting thing to test for. I'll drop it into the doc as a note to look into in the future for sure. I'll be honest though, I'm not a guitarist in any way, so while I can probably get a reasonable test in place, I probably won't notice a difference between the two for playing. That said, there is a difference in the amplification between MIC/GUITAR, so I'm not surprised that you notice a difference.

Only question I have for you, is you're certain you don't have any master FX running that might be adding compression? In my mind it would be really crazy for Roland to put any kind of compression on the signal coming in regardless if it is a microphone or guitar. But what do I know :D

I know I'm not usually doing these things back to back for days... but I added a pretty huge update for 0.16 today. I took my birthday off from work, and decided to do this. What the heck is wrong with me? Hit up the blog post or the usual place https://neartao.wordpress.com/2022/0...2-guide-v0-16/

Alright, an absolutely epic update today. This one broke my brain working on it for about five hours straight.

I spent a fair amount of time just getting the handful of pages written up about Skip Back. I had to chase down a few things that I thought I knew how they worked, but I wanted to make sure I captured it properly.

The real work though, was filling out the previously titled Mixer section, and now renamed to Audio Signal Flow section. Just drawing the diagram was a lot of work, and then peeling apart each layer was an important onion to break down, but holy smokes. I kind of just gave up at the Limiter and Clipper section because I don't see *anything* that remotely explains how they work for the mk2 or why they are there. I've seen some people mentioning the mk2 coloring their sound, and I wonder if there is something going on here... which will require some experiments, but I am D O N E for the day. Maybe I'll get more time on the book tomorrow.

Hopefully a lot of good information there... and I have to admit, I thought it was going to be a lot simpler to document than it was. For how "simple" the mk2 is, the Audio Signal Flow might be the most complex and most important thing for SP heads out there to understand.

Now I'm off to pick the kid up from school, I guess get a loaf of bread, and hopefully see my parents for dinner tonight. I think my dad has a crate of cassette tapes. Looking forward to it :D

My guess is that there is compression on the way in, more than likely why people have always liked the sound of the instrument. Things going in and coming out seem to sound better through the box. I’ve got the OG silver box and would record a completed song into it just to impart “that sound”, whatever it might be, onto the track. Maybe the converters?

Maybe, the manual shows a diagram in the appendix that I tried to break down. Most of it is super easy to understand, but the Limiter and Clipper have as far as I can tell, effectively no documentation. So I can guess at what they are doing... but there's nothing that explains what they might be set to or anything.

Kind of a bummer, but I guess another thing to roll sleeves up at some point and try and figure it out to see if they are coloring the sound in some way.

Is there a Remote Control releasing any time soon?

Okay, got this thing up and running. Just over a week, about ten beats deep in this thing. It's time to give my first insights.

First, I will tell you guys my ways to make beats. I use the SP to sample everything. Then I record it to my computer with the FX from the SP. Then I take it to my Maschine to sequence and arrange the beats. My knowledge about this new beast is very low right now and I have not had time to explore most of it's features. I have used all of my time just sampling and vibing. I like to make alternative/lofi hiphop with long ass samples and just vibe and rap over them. And for that this is a perfect companion. I certainly want to learn this thing inside out since I know it has so many features that are going to compliment my beats and workflow!

I used to use my OG 404 to do this work. Now when this duty is made by the MK 2, just WHOA! It's crazy nice, makes me work through sampling and creating the sound twice as fast as with the OG. And I think it sounds better than the OG. I think there's something to do with the real ass I/O's instead of RCA's from the OG. I like to sample everything in and out through the inputs to get all the signal noise and everything else in there.

There's still a lot of new things to learn, but here are some of the things I love about this thing.

2 bus FX. This is so nice and saves a ton of time. With the OG i needed to apply FX then resample and apply again. If I wanted to edit something from the first FX, I had to start all over again. Now I just hit the bus fx button and edit to liking and hear the results immediately.

Timestretch/pitch. The thing I missed in my OG the most. This thing has a lovely vinyl speed stretch and that makes me a happy boy.

Sample cutting and the screen. Imprecise samples from sampling with ear and the whole painful sample editing made the OG fun and all, but made sequencing with maschine a bit harder. So I do love this feature update!

I know that I will love chopping samples to pads, skip back sampling and hundred other new features of it when I get time to dig in, but even with this little I know now, for me, it's easily worth the money. Sold a bunch of stuff for this and got a good price, so I'm happy!

Great, thanks for the feedback !
Like you I have a silver OG. In good working shape.
Now that you have the Mk2, are you going to keep the OG ? Did you consider using both OG and Mk2 hooked up together ?

Considering getting a Mk2 myself, but I'd really like if somehow I could keep using my OG.

Man, I swore I wouldn't but I don't know. If the mk 2 is really all that, I might have to sell the OG. Especially if the listing price is not dropping drastically.

I can't help thinking right now that I will not need the OG in the future. One thing that I like about the OG and don't know how to replicate on the mk 2 fully is the Lo-Fi FX. They are completelt different. I love the settings and many options on the mk 2 and the sound is insane, but I also liked the old way, turning knob to determine bitrate, sample rate and the filters. Maybe that can show some use.

Definitely not selling right now, but probably will sell later.

Hi

Does anyone know if its possible to use the metonome synced with the tracks in DJ mode? I do a lot of gigs with a drummer and it would be super handy.
If not can you send a midi out clock with the DJ mode?

I had look in the manual and its not clear if its doable.

cheers

Phil

for me, mk2 is even replacing my maschine mk3 duty.

Can I burn a cd with the cd-rw?

Late late hot cold take PSA: the magma case does NOT fit the mk2

If you’re still looking for a 404 case, I highly suggest getting one these while still available. Dirt cheap at $15 and fits the 404A and MK2 perfectly. This photo is with power adapter and cables underneath. I also added the top foam myself. The only downside… At coffeeshops women occasionally would ask me if it was a makeup case. I had to ‘sicker bomb’ and ‘bro up’ the case for that to stop. lol.

https://www.harborfreight.com/11-12-...ase-69316.html

https://freeimage.host/i/08Ru3l

That Harbor Freight link gives an error.

Those cases were on clearance, so they must have sold out quick as I was just on the site yesterday. I should have bought an extra for myself right then. Sorry for tease.

The item name is 'VOYAGER 11-1/2 x 7-1/2 x 4-1/2 Aluminum Case', so perhaps you can check the link in the future or search for another case with the same dimensions. It's a very generic cheap case, so I'm sure there are equivalents somewhere.

I can't stand Rick's videos... So stupid honestly... Marlow though is dope. I feel like Marlow puts out more music than Rick. I'm not into house so. Alot of "Youtube-producers" who dont produce.... well... anything. I like Marlow because hes also busy and humble.

I dont really want to watch Rick's vids about how he uses the X but I have one and use it like an old mpc most of the time, but dabble into jungle and dnb. Change the PPQ's to match an old mpc, go from there.

From what i’ve read, that site is most likely a fake scam. I wouldn’t risk it.

ypu
re replying to your own questions...

I've only had one for about a week yet, but I've been testing it like a madman.

You can hear the metronome in the headphones while using DJ mode, but there isn't a way currently to get it to follow the deck tempo (far as I can tell), probably because the metronome is mainly a function of the sequencer or sampling. Unfortunately you can't use the sequencer or record audio while in DJ mode. Hopefully sequencer functions will be added to DJ mode for more "live remixing" possibilities. They just recently add a pad mode where you can trigger any of the sample banks independently of the decks. Although they're not receiving tempo info from the decks, it allows you to drop samples over the 2-deck mix for transitions, finger drumming, etc.

MIDI clock can be sent out in DJ mode, but it seems the clock tempo is determined when you load a track to a deck, not when you play it. That's an issue as it makes midi clock kinda unstable in DJ mode currently. You could have everything in sync with the external device and soon as you load a new sample on the other deck, the midi clock jumps to the default tempo of the new track even though it's volume is turned down and it's not playing yet.

I'm currently making of long list of quirks, possible bugs, and feature suggestions for my Roland folks.

You can get some pretty nice old school Akai style time stretch if you turn off Vinyl pitch mode. Also, some cool real-time “granular” action editing the sample start point zoomed in with it playing back.

Forgive me for my ignorance, but do I understand it correctly that this thing cannot record pad events with pitch changes?

Like all MPCs can do since the MPC60 and the SP-12 before that?

I hope I’m just missing something, but the fact I cannot enter chromatic mode when recording a pattern is just worrisome. What is chromatic mode for then if I cannot record what I do there?

? Sequencer is not the only way to record.

just play it and resample or skip-back, then trigger it as a sample/loop?