Suvarna Garge (Editor)

Roland SP 404

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Classification
  
Electronic sampler

Developed
  
Roland 2005

Roland SP-404

The Roland SP-404 is a discontinued sampling workstation made by Roland Corporation. Part of the SP family and picking up where Roland’s popular SP-303 sampler left off. With the ability to record audio directly via line/mic, or import/export industry-standard WAV and AIF files via CompactFlash card. An onboard pattern sequencer allows up to 8,000 notes to be recorded in real time. Pattern data can be quantized and up to 24 patterns, each 1–99 measures long, can be stored in the internal memory. Using a 1GB CompactFlash card, sampling times can be as long as approximately 772 minutes in Lo-Fi mode, or up to 386 minutes long in Standard mode.

Contents

Features

The SP-404 features:

  • 12 large pads, three control knobs, a display, similar operation as the Roland SP-303
  • 29 effects, including Subsonic, BPM Looper, among others
  • Built-in microphone for sampling
  • CD-quality sound
  • Expanded sampling time
  • 12-voice polyphony (resample polyphony: 4 mono voices OR 1 stereo voice and 2 mono voices OR 2 stereo voices)
  • Realtime loop recording
  • Sample-editing tools
  • Import/export WAV/AIF via CF card slot
  • Runs on battery or AC power
  • Musicians

    A number of musicians have used either the SP-303 or the SP-404 as part of their production and performance.

    These include Jel, Odd Nosdam, Alias, J Dilla, Madlib, MF Doom, Jneiro Jarel, Milo, Flying Lotus, James Blake, Samiyam, Ras G, Teebs, Grimes, Pictureplane, Four Tet, Beck Hansen, Bradford Cox of Deerhunter and Atlas Sound, Radiohead, Animal Collective, Spindrift, Toro y Moi, Broadcast, John Maus, Ellie Goulding, El Guincho, Illmind, Dibia$e, Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Oneohtrix Point Never (Daniel Lopatin), Matt Mondanile of Ducktails, Devo, and many others.

    Jan Linton was hired by Roland in 2005 to produce a promotional European sound card for the SP404.

    References

    Roland SP-404 Wikipedia