Roland SP-404A

Being new to the sampling world I was a little dubious about purchasing the SP404A, being a musician who is use to playing physical instruments to perform material, the thought of switching to pads to do the same felt rather alien to me. Not wanting to use a computer for live performance and with my tracks heading down a more electronic route, the SP seemed like the best option, so I took the plunge and ordered through Thomann. The ordering process was swift and easy and the item arrived well packaged and protected within the designated time frame initially given. The sampler comes with a manual to help learn the basic functions (definitely read this first) but for more in depth understanding, YouTube is the place to go - it has some fantastic tutorials and people who can help you master this little beast! You can use the onboard microphone to record sounds or connect your phone / vinyl player / external audio devices to record sounds and samples and use the range of onboard effects to turn your sample into something entirely different. You will need to buy your own RCA cable connectors for whatever device you want to hook up though - it comes with a power adapter only. It can hold up to 32GB of samples - this is the max SD card size it supports according to Roland. I bought a SanDisc ultra 32GB and it works well with the SP. You will also need to purchase an SD card reader for your computer if your machine doesn't already have one - to allow you to copy / back up and transfer your samples to the cards. You get an 8GB card with free samples but this will be locked / protected when you first turn on the sampler. Options to disable this are in the manual. If you want to use your own SD card you will also need to format the card within the SP before you add your samples from your computer - again the info on how to do this is in the manual, definitely check it out. I did have issues with getting samples i'd created in Logic (and then bounced to .wav) to be read by the SP without using Roland's 'wave converter' software so definitely download that before you start to move your own samples over - this can be downloaded direct from the Roland website FOC. My favourite thing about this little sampler is the fact you are not limited by sample size / length. You could effectively save an entire backing track to just one pad and play along to it or you could just chop sections of your songs onto different pads. The only thing to be aware of, is the fact that you need to press the pads at precisely the right point - there is no way of pre-setting up pads to automatically activate when you require them to, so if you are playing an instrument throughout you will need to think about how you approach this as you'll need a hand free! As for negative points - the only one for me was getting the end of a sample chopped up in the SP to loop correctly. It is a bit of a faff to get it right as you have to resort to resampling and using the 'Mark' and start / end buttons sometimes multiple times to adjust a sample to get it to flow, but in time i'm hopeful with practice i'll get better. It's a great, iconic, powerful piece of kit and not just for the lofi scene! Also, really digging the new paint job Roland! Happy customer here - thanks Thomann :D