Hi!
What’s the best method for playing chromatic lines using internal samples? I guess resampling would have to be it, but can’t I have the pattern playing while I’m resampling my melody line? Thanks!
would be interesting to hear which edit knob mode you use: catch up / direct … ?
Another thing which kind of depends on the edit knob mode: is there a way to select an effect without activating it?
I’m not on the most recent firmware but I’ve never seen that. Are you using the factory project or a new one? Also this may be a silly question but does every pad have a pattern already recorded when this happens? Lastly, maybe just stop playback before hitting record to avoid this bug until it gets squashed 
Yeah, as of right now you have to resample all the chromatic notes you want to use onto their own pad, then you can use the pattern sequencer. I’ve found skipback to be helpful for this. Just play each note you want, for whatever length you want it, hit skipback and they should all be there for you to chop up onto their own pads. Hope that helps!
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I use the catch up mode. It suits my playstyle best I think but honestly I’m not entirely enthusiastic about either mode. They each have their own pros and cons.
Not sure on selecting an effect without it sounding. I think there is but I can’t remember. There is the effects grab you can do by holding down the value knob and pressing the effect. I don’t think that’s exactly what you’re after though.
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Thanks, it does! 
Thanks for responding. New project. Yes, when this happens, there is already a pattern on the pad. I’m just sort of iteratively adding to it. So I’ll play the pad, click record, the pop up says “WAIT FOR REC” and when the pattern loops around I can start recording.
So far, I’ve been doing what you’re suggesting, and if I want to record to an existing pattern, I stop playback, hit record and go from there. Seems OK so far. I’m also a little paranoid about making backups of pads that are not easy to reproduce in case it happens again.
Yes, the same for me. I used the catch up mode now switched to direct because turning left and right is annoying. On the otherhand catch up is annoying because it may produce these harsh value jumps.
I found that one can select an effect without activating it by pressing REMAIN and the corresponding effect.
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Hello,
Hopefully someone can help with this one. Is it possible to set a count in when you are resampling/recording onto a separate pad while playing the beat back on the SP404mk2? I am looking to play congas/other percussion over beats and record direct into the SP whilst playing back the beat for reference. At the moment, i can only figure out how to do this by pressing a pad to trigger the start of resampling. This isnt ideal as i cant start playing congas and hit resample at the same time. The work around is to let a bar a cycle of the beat go and then start playing, however it is hard to change the start point and then sink up timing.
Thank you for any help!
To be honest, I don’t think this is the machine’s strong point. I am also keen on incorporating live instruments (percussion, guitar, bass, keys, etc) into my music and opted to add a dedicated looper (Boss RC600) into my setup, as these days I find myself playing guitar or other instruments more than traditional beatmaking, and a looper is fantastic practice tool as well as recording device.
It’s definitely possible to sample live instruments with the workflow you described, but loopers are optimized for this. I’m having a blast with the RC600 and it’s 32bit sound quality is a massive step up from the loopers I’ve used in the past —fantastic headroom and crystal clear audio. For now, I’m just composing and building up various parts on the RC600, and then I’ll sample those into the SP later and build up tracks in the SP. I haven’t midi’ed it up to the SP yet, but I’ll give that a go soon to experiment with that workflow.
Some people here love LoopyPro on iOS, which is a much cheaper option, but I like dedicated hardware with a foot switch, and instrument/mic inputs.
Definitely not the answer you want to hear I’m sure, but just my 2cents. I’ve worked with a lot of samplers over the years and nothing has ever felt right for live instruments. To me, loopers are the perfect bridge between live instruments and samplers.
Thanks for your help, I suspected this might be the case! I do think that all I need is a simple count in though. I am liking the sound of the congas recorded direct in and I’m happy to work with the limitations but I just need to be able to play direct with the track for microtiming purposes.
I don’t really get the point of including the feature to record onto a different pad while the beat is playing if you can’t set a count in.
If anyone know how to set a count in on this scenario please let me know! I already know how to set a count in for basic recording
Thanks!
I don’t think it’s possible, I complained about this back in January.
Damn, thanks for your help, I guess I’ll keep doing this in ableton. Hopefully they add this feature one day
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Not sure if this is helpful or not, but have a look at this post and the longish post directly above it.
Basically, there is a way to record while having the bar counter visible (I haven’t done this in a while, so you’ll have to experiment). It still requires trimming, but because you can visually see where you are in the bars, it makes it easier to record and trim a sequence of an exact length.
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Kind of a pain but you could just create your own count in track And resample that with the track you want to play along with. Not ideal obviously but it’ll do the trick.
I think this has been brought up elsewhere but anyone else get an annoying volume drop anytime they have to resample? track volumes are up, bank volume is up.
couldn’t find a solution online
I don’t have a count-in solution for you. But with specific regard to this:
What I do is I record the new thing isolated from the backing track. So just do a normal record to a pad, for example, let the backing track loop before you start playing, then record a your take (or, if you’re like me, a whole bunch of takes).
Now you have an isolated recording with a lot of silent preroll. With START/END I move the start near the beginning of the beat. Doesn’t have to be exact. Then I jump to the sequencer and make a sequence that only triggers the pad of the backing track and the pad I just recorded. Both 100% quantized, both on beat one.
Now when I play back the sequence and I hear the backing track plus my new recording starting either early or late. Keeping the sequence playing on a loop, I go to the newly recorded pad and make small changes via the START/END screen again. Each time the sequence loops, it will play from my new start position. This lets me quickly iterate and find a good point where everything feels in sync.
Once the two pads are in sync, I can either resample them down to a single pad or pad-link them to make sure they always start at the same time and in sync.
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I’m not in front of mine but could you arm a pad and set count-in to Wait, play the backing pad and jump in when ready?
I don’t think so? The problem is whatever’s playing gets killed when you go into REC, and once in REC, all the pads are disabled (except for selecting a pad to record to).
Resample doesn’t kill the playing track when entering it, obviously. So what you could do is set up pad mutes to output only to phones, “mute” the backing track, resample, select your pad, then hit the backing track to start it playing. You’ll only hear it over your phones, and what you play will be recorded to pads, but the recording will start when the backing track starts. So if it takes a bit to get to your instrument and get ready, you’ll have a long blank preroll.
I’m an idiot! You don’t need to hit the backing track pad. You can hit any pad to start resample recording. So you could just tap an unassigned one to start recording when you’re ready.
But the problem remains that recording will start immediately when any pad is hit. There’s no way to make this give you a count-in or delay when resampling that I can figure out. So again, if it takes a sec to get to your instrument and get ready, you’re going to have some blank preroll on the front.
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I must have recorded to metronome only when multitracking-ish. I like your suggestion above with the loop and pattern to sync. 404 is great, but you need to be creative to get things done.