I Finally Bought the SP-404mkII For One Reason // But It has Latency..

Head to www.squarespac... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using promo code: RICKYTINEZ // The SP-404MKii finally allows us to have more than 1 effect at a time. This is perfect to use in a live set. While i was hoping to use a few specific effects i found out some have latency that make is unusable for my purpose of playing some sounds through it. Will I take it live? Maybe not.
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00:~00 Why I bought the sp-404mk2
00:40 How to Setup Bus 3 and 4 on the SP404mkii
01:32 Building FX within Bus 3
05:19 Why this is so important to me
06:50 Squarespace Sponsor
08:36 SP-404mkii Latency Issues
11:40 Some final thoughts
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#sp404mk2 #sp404 #dawless

[@LiamKillen]

One of us! One of us!

[@Fluxwithit]

A cassette effect is essentially similar to a delay, that’s how you get pitch warping … it stands to reason chaining these effects would cause latency. Not unexpected at all imho.

[@inthefade]

True. Pitch effects have to have latency. After all, you can't pitch UP a sound that hasn't even played yet.

[@theohilton1276]

Buffer size latency

[@nicocroissant4988]

for sure you need a buffer, like for a reverse effect, the audio needs to be recorded before being affected. So for this kind of effect in "real time" needs to be applied on really short part of audio to give the impression of realtime effect.

[@zbsfm]

yes, he says so in the video

[@JonManness]

I'm also using the SP404mkii as a Master FX processor at the end of my chain (Ableton Live>UA Apollo Console>SP-404) and have made the latency a non-issue with a couple settings. 1. Set your computer's sample rate to 96kHz (48kHz had a noticeable enough latency when playing live instruments into my Apollo and monitoring through the SP404). 2. Turn on SP-404's "latency fix" by pressing the push knob + sub pad. With these two settings, I'm having no issues performing live and everything syncs great over midi.

[@teckno_senpai]

if anyone is looking to make SP404 MKII their mastering bus or part of the signal flow chain in any sort of way, and you want to make your beat sound thumpy and glued together without losing the original character of the sound, try this.... BUS 3 = crusher with very low numbers and "99-1" blend for a very subtle glue BUS 4 = EQ with +2 low, -1 mid, +2 high it's niiiiiiiiice

[@happyjessus]

will defenitely try this but I am just wondering if the 99-1 makes an actually audible difference

[@teckno_senpai]

@@happyjessus i think it does.. subtle but definitely brings some juice. again, this is intended to "glue" things while keeping the original sound. but i just moved to the Octatrack world so i cant confirm at the moment anymore lol. my SP got benched for time being :(

[@happyjessus]

@@teckno_senpai samplers are addictive!

[@sailortomb9307]

Very cool, will try this. Thanks for the tip!

[@baltimega]

Two days ago I just figured out that you can actually have 5 layered effects if you use the input effects as well. The vocoder is crazy, I can just make synths with my voice lol

[@NaviRetlav]

The best feature of this device is the ability to run very long samples. This is basically the best drone/ambient sampler on the market.

[@Screenshot1015]

Agree 100%. There’s a reason all the power electronics/death industrial/dark ambient people have one or sometimes two of these.

[@sebb1846]

1010 blackbox! As long as the effects aren’t important to you …

[@genericuser7319]

Until the Sonicware SmplTrek drops next month… sample length will be 180 MINUTES in stereo. 🤯

[@marvomd]

How long? Can i put entire tracks of 5-6 minutes in the same project for example? (I'm searching an alternative to Ableton Live 😁)

[@genericuser7319]

@@marvomd It's not out yet but as far as I can tell, yes it should be able to meet your needs. Based off of the information Sonicware released so far, it appears you could split your tracks into their various parts- both by instrument and song section- and then do a live jam by triggering scenes (similar to Ableton Live). You get 16 scenes per song and 13 tracks (10 linked to scenes and 3 global).

[@nufe]

I love my 404. Most of the stuff I've been making is having a jam un-quantized then using the skip back to chop out the best loop.

[@ILLUDIUM_Q_36]

To turn Bus 3&4 off, push and hold the selector encoder down and the push the Bus fx button.

[@Kuronoichig01]

Can we just start a thread of helpful shortcuts like this? ;)

[@daneguitarist1]

I LOOOOOOOOVE my sp404mk2 it is such a blast to play music and just to have fun, as well as opening up a weird part of music that my studio could maybe have done but not as easy as the sp allows like... chopping on a daw isnt fun, chopping on the sp rules

[@christianvictor827]

Cassette effect emulates tempo variation so naturally it needs to buffer a lot since it can't go back in time to play the sound that should have been there a few hundredths of s second earlier. 😉

[@BIGUMAMI]

Dude incredible video as usual... I think Roland's engineers kinda didn't care about latency as they probably didn't think people would use the 404 as an aux. It makes sense that after the round trip you'd get some latency especially on cassette which is a pretty "labour intensive" effect. Tbh they probably thought most people would use it on the master channel where you would never notice the latency unless you're a freaking robot. What do you think?

[@inthefade]

Effects latency is bad at any amount. It causes phasing and resonances and/ or frequencies to get band passed. Some of the Akai compressors have problems with this on the new MPCs and Force, and that's insane because they even included wet/dry knobs on those compressors.

[@GizzyDillespee]

I think some of the Roland Aira Boutiques have "extra" latency too. I think maybe it's not a priority for Roland? That being said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE comb filtering. For some things, I even overdo it on purpose. Why not?

[@Drrolfski]

That's an awesome funky house track you're working on. Will it ever see a release? Would love to play it in my sets.

[@ILLUDIUM_Q_36]

Concerning the latency, are you running Bus 1&2 parallel or 1 into 2? Try switching how you run it to see if that doesn't clear it up.

[@Ant3739]

At about 2:50 you say when switching to the SP-404mkII that you "don't mind losing the kick". I think it sounded much richer before going through R oland's compressor, which sucked the life out of the track.

[@chrisb3389]

Totally agree with this. I have a Roland MC707 and recently started applying the multi-band master compressor to most of my tracks. However, I definitely had to learn the sweet spot on some of the low frequencies between the right threshold and getting the attack slow enough to let the boom of the kick in. Also on that box, the drum plus comp tracks let me tweak the kick compression settings alone, which can give even more control. It's so easy to over-compress things, but getting it just right is huge.

[@jkirchheimer]

Give us a compact creation please. just to see something different than HipHop on it!

[@christianvictor827]

Maybe I got something wrong but do you use the SP as an FX unit only?

[@Hhyperspace]

Roland should make a DJ FXs unit like Pioneer did. I find that most people just use the FXs on the 404 and dont really make beat sequences with it. They drop their already made beat from whatever on a pad and just play it and mess around with the FXs. Thats really all i see.

[@NikoNoxious]

that was super common with the OG and SX but the Mk2 I've been also seen and done more loop based and TR based jams with the effects. I think the FX Bus structure allows you to do real time finger drumming and beat making with more cool fx groups too

[@Kablehead]

Be careful with that sp compression! I ruined a couple of good songs with it. Back then it sounded good to me and overcompressed beats were the new standard in the beat scene. But years later i realised i overdid it and my tracks lost all the punch. Same goes for the beat repeat effect. It sounds cool but very easy to overdo it because it's so much fun to play around with it. Can ruin a nice groovy beat though. Especially when people are dancing. Just my 2 cents.

[@neiel1]

I wish Roland made a box with just the effects section of the 404 mk2, for the very reasons you are using it.

[@velanche]

Yesterday was the first time I really got to mess with the effects, and they sound fantastic, sometimes wonderfully weird! The effects were washed over an old-school sample that I recorded on the SP and, wow, it’s really impressive. I haven’T used it for very long to be honest, so I’m just getting down learning how to sample and to chop them up. Got a long ways to go, even using the BUS FX, but gonna be fun using it in a variety of situations. Thanks for demoing it a bit and sharing some knowledge from your use. Peace.

[@GuitarsAndSynths]

it is fun to mangle loops live with the fx on the SP 404 MK2 soo good!

[@TeftyMeems]

Awesome vid Ricky! Been thinking about scooping a SP404mk2 recently.

[@simonyricools]

It sounded much better without the compression, imo :)

[@mickeydonalds2106]

I recently discovered that you can also bypass BUS3 or BUS4, individually, by scrolling to the bus you wish and press the MFX button.

[@dracul74]

Love mine. The 404mk2 is really fun and easy to use whether for sampling or as an effects box. Still own my Mpc, but not getting used as much.

[@pedrogomis]

you can use both

[@dracul74]

@@pedrogomis sure could… for a few years I kept everything hooked together to do stuff like this… but in the end I found I’m more creative when I just pull out a few things for a jam. Prob different for everyone.

[@noname-ng6sj]

@@pedrogomis I have both and I'm the same way. The thing is that the MPC Live 2 is like a modern daw, it's fucking amazing. The MK2 feels like a closed ecosystem of the stuff you need. More options with the MPC; but the 404 needs no setup and is a nice break from macro production. Using one and then the other isn't bad. You bought another thing afterall.

[@deanivan3951]

Bro since I got mine last December I haven't used my MPC3000 or any other sampler, this thing is dope!

[@schmapps1]

Well shit. Could you not just run everything through the SP as the master instead of using it as a send effect? What do you see as the downsides of not being able to run it as a send?

[@deanivan3951]

Yes you can and many do!

[@tommyk88888]

You should try the Roland Verselab MV-1. It has the phonograph effect which has wow & flutter and vinyl distortion plus it has a whole mastering suite onboard which sounds pretty good. I dont experience any latency with it. That machine is so underrated because of the marketing… look into it

[@zapmando]

I just ordered and mk2 to pair with my verselab, for sampling, resampling and effects before loading into the verselab for songcrafting.

[@gregorybissell4255]

About bypassing bus 3&4 you have to push the select dial in before you hit the sub pad. It won't work if you do it in the opposite order which is super confusing

[@romainlhenaff3653]

Have you tried to sync it with a Novation Circuit to sequence it as you did with the previous version ?

[@BDKabrini]

When I finally understood the Busses routes n Fxs. I explained it to my wife (she don't care but ijs) I told her. You have one destination but you can take a few bus routes to get there... 1 bus is slow but the scenery is nice Another bus is quick but runs into traffic a few miles from ya destination etc etc She understood but Faked like she was excited to please me. 🥺 I was excited 🥺

[@michaelbruns610]

That track you are working on... Damn homie. Share the knowledge and this track!!!

[@mechasartre3694]

Daaaaamn. I almost purchased one, I would have been gutted. thanks yooooooo.

[@TubbZilla]

You might already know this... but you can actually have 5 effects... Shift + EXT Audio. Anything coming in to the system can have its own effect by clicking on the dial knob..knobs... so all internal heading audio has 5 effects. Internal sounds have 4 effects max

[@mattcero1]

Dude! Most intros I can do without but your quick and classic vintage coffee style B roll is spot on perfect. I think every make and model of music making devices need to have at least one XLR combo port for mic/instrument as well as the ability to be a PC audio interface. If you could also use these things for Zoom and Teams type calls they'd sell so many more units. What say you?

[@zerotolerance5019]

I bought my sp404sx used... the original sd card wasn't included... I've tried many times to download the wave converter to a new card after formatting... I'm using windows 11 and it won't open converter... is there any alternatives

[@viktorfrih3843]

I have a problem when trying to sync the midi clock signal coming from my boss loop station to my roland sp 404 mk2 when using an external usb midi host. It works fine without it but I want to use it to be able to control my effects using an external midi controller (novation launch control xl). I can control the effects now but the midi clock signal is no longer coming through the usb midi host, is there a setting or something that needs to be changed?I saw there is a setting called midi through, usb through or something? Has there something to do with that? Would appreciate for your help!

[@painj4000]

I love what this machine seems to be able to do, I just can get my head around why Roland made it so very ugly.

[@PiotrstrashcanŚmietnikPiotra]

I am not too sure I understand what the bus is? Could anyone explain?

[@DesertNinjaX]

I love and want a 404, but don't exactly need it right now. The effects to external audio is honestly more appealing than the unit itself, for me. That being said, what are some other pieces that you would suggest, for effects? There are some absolutely sick pedals or desktop effects out there, almost all are $500+, and that's a bitter pill to swallow for one "pedal". Help us po artists out Ricky! What's the cheapest, craziest kit you know of? (Looking for lofi, glitch, stutter, granular, bitcrushing... not necessarily "common" things like reverb, distortion, chorus...)

[@happyjessus]

this is the thing.. there are crazy ass effect pedals out there but most of them cost more money than the SP which gives you 32fxs plus a ton of other functions.

[@UKULELERIGA]

Check out the Zoom MS-70cdr I hacked mine and added all kinds of effects to it. Including bit crushing. The available effects list is huge.

[@edjefferson9175]

An actual 3 head cassette deck would have much more latency.

[@adriaduch5094]

I needed this one. Got the SP for the fx basically. Thanks Ricky!

[@maarzt]

what does bus mean?

[@ekketomozin2810]

A place in the signal path where an effect goes. The term is often used in relation to mixers or multi effect units

[@maarzt]

@@ekketomozin2810 thank you!

[@CharlesUibel]

What is that other keyboard looking thing?

[@jacklinks7554]

Synth demos with better lighting there will not be

[@jaimerodriguez1550]

I hope to see many more of your videos with this device.

[@smaudd7873]

I was waiting for this video since it's release. Loving your vibes Ricky. Keep it going

[@patricemartin5652]

That 1rst track is reaaaaalllly promising!

[@spookypen]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who locked onto the effects section in this thing. Been running it as a effects post-process more than as a sampler. Only feature I wish it had was to separate it into two separate mono effects buses with the L+R inputs and outputs. That way I could run two separate fx into my mixer aux channels 1 and 2.

[@els1f]

Barry White? 🙌

[@MikeGomeztheDMG]

This is great. I’ve been wanting a mk-II for a while and now I’ve got a clearer vision of how it might fit my workflow 🙌

[@happyjessus]

Feel free to share your best master chain recipes on the SP by replying to this comment! Would be nice to compare different approaches!

[@yzimsx]

Do you have a contact with Roland? They could mitigate the latency problem by at least making it constant, say, 150 ms, adding dummy delay in the masters to always keep it at the set constant time. Then you could add a corresponding delay in all other channels bypassing the Roland, and everything would be in phase with the SP-404mkII, regardless of what you have in the 404's buses. DAWs have had this for a long time in their signal chains, it's called "latency compensation" or "plugin delay compensation".

[@chriswareham]

Always surprises me how big the SP-404 actually is - it looks really small in pictures where there's not anything to relate it to. I suspect I'd really like it, but the luddite in me hates the learning curve compared to the sequencer in my trusty old Roland W-30.

[@sinewaymusic]

Iove that you compare against a super programmatic sequencer from the late 80s and worry that this one is going to be harder to learn. I remember the W-30 vividly, but the sequencer programming was truly awful, like editing a prohibitly long spreadsheet. 😂

[@chriswareham]

@@sinewaymusic I started out with the extremely cryptic sequencer in the Roland MC-202, so I guess I have got used to the event list style of editing on the MC series and W-30. I get a bit overwhelmed by the extraordinary flexibility of a lot of modern gear - I just don't know where to start with it, and end up going back to the simple (albeit somewhat limiting) functionality of things like the W-30 and MC-50.

[@sinewaymusic]

@@chriswareham Fair enough. But id say that any modern sequencer is going to be faster to learn and use than any of those devices. Depends on what you need to do with them or course. I arranged full songs on the W-30 and I am about 10X faster on something like the MPC One. All this said, there are plenty of tutorials on the SP-404 MKII sequencer so I'm sure you can watch a couple and device of its simple enough to be joyful for you to use.

[@djplastix]

What a groovy tune! I would spin this somewhere in cocktail hours :)

[@fwsuperhero1]

i am using rc-505mk2 for the same purpose. I think it is more powerful than sp-404mkII for that but it has got latency too :/

[@1973asdf]

why should i use the rc instead of the 404? does it have effects?

[@fwsuperhero1]

@@1973asdf It does many effects (more than 30), they quality is not very good though. But the same can be said about sp-404mkII. RC has more audio inputs.

[@fwsuperhero1]

It has 4 effects on input + 4 effects on output.. So my current workflow is like this - create some sound on synth, tweak effects on rc-505mk2, record a loop.. then i record the output from rc-505mk2 back to my sampler (polyend tracker).

[@1973asdf]

@@fwsuperhero1 i def like the effects of the 404. tbh this machine is one update away from being an perfect all in one machine. im thinking of using it for live performance with my dx7 connected to it. the reverb and chorus are amazing. i experience latency only on USB c audio to PC.

[@VJFranzK]

Interesting. I guess they are assuming it will be used at the end of a production chain, or solo, rather than in parallel

[@endermusica]

Non related question to the SP404, but I was watching the video and, you actually own 3 cameras to do the multicam setup?

[@Smokeslikelightningband]

Hi Ricky, would you suggest something like this for a multitimbral workstation like a yamaha motif es6 or is an MPC the more common pairing for a reason

[@shadiradio]

I've been sequencing my SP from my Digitakt and for the past couple of days have been trying to figure out why the MIDI input is lagging. I tried everything, thinking it was just a hardware limitation of the SP. Eventually a search brought me here, and you made me realize I accidentally had the cassette effect on bus 3 this entire time. :|

[@IsshmanGarcia]

@Ricky Tinez Shortcut to turn Bus 3 & 4 on/off is to HOLD down Value Knob and toggle BUS FX button. You're welcome.

[@358life6]

One question, everytime I see someone using a device that is meant to be stand alone they have something else attached to it. Is this one able to make good house music straight out of the box without any other kit?

[@358life6]

I dont want to subscribe to anything, I'm trying to get away from my phone and the last thing I use it for is music, so the idea of getting a PC isn't a thing

[@JRyanKern]

I have had a rough time getting my sp404 mkii to sync with Ableton. Whether connecting via midi or usb-c, it needs around -80ms of midi clock sync delay to get it in time with the ableton session, but even then it is not consistent. I even bought an ER-M Multiclock to fix the issue, but then I had an issue where I could get most sequences in sync with the daw, but the first hit was always early. It would hit in time when the sequence repeated, but the first hit was always early even with a bar of preroll. I wanted to export stems from my track on the sp404 to have more control over mix in ableton, so I would solo each bank of sounds and record them in turn from the same sequence. I found that they still required nudging or track delay in ableton to get them in sync with one another. One lesson learned is that with only two audio outs and unreliable sync, trying to export stems from this sampler is more work than it’s worth. This is similar to sync issues I’ve had with the TR-8s, so maybe Roland sync issues in general? Should I just expect that, in a production context (not live), I will always have to nudge audio recorded in from external sequencers to get it in time with the DAW/grid?

[@iancain6647]

Bro. I'm here. I love being here too. Haven't missed a Saturday in quite a while. Thanks for providing this for me.

[@GuitarsAndSynths]

The Roland app makes life way easier to load and manage samples for the SP 404 MK2. It is a fun jam box to play loops and samples and mangle with the effects. Creating sequences and patterns is tricky however.

[@РэйЧехов]

Sampler in 2022 without touchscreen? Akai still wins

[@JonValtandtheEvilRobots]

Lol this is what would would happen if you fed it through a real tape machine, or it’d be even worse!

[@julienvignes]

push enter plus buton plus the buton ( mute fx) it disable fx 3,4 quick 😎

[@blkrbbt]

I wonder if there is some economy to the programming... like the skip back, the tape SIM, and the stopper all sharing the same buffer... the reason I ponder, is that it has to "charge", or load up it's memory for the effect, and then apply it from the buffer... it would account for the latency... even if the effect isn't being used, it still bounces to the buffer before being routed to the ext outs... all speculation.

[@nzagipedro]

Im a MPC head but as a guy who listened to your "like this before" track, i just had to watch this one ;)

[@juliomontes5525]

Watched until that first “Oh J*sus”…lol thing is hot-garb will always be

[@metokyo4960]

For all those watchmakers with aspiration - knowledge is power 💪🤑

[@FreestyleMovement]

In your comment about the compressor, it makes me wonder is there a way to send the kicks out of a separate stereo channel or buss than the compressor? Or mult it?

[@sonicthreat1308]

When you turn off the SP the sound has much more spatial information. When you turn the SP on the track loses its spatial width. Almost feels like it goes mono. I'd listen to this video on headphones.

[@KIEFLIF]

Can you explore the SP404 MK2 and let us know your thoughts?

[@orchidsvoid]

I'm not a sampler guy personally but 404mk2 is catching me...

[@rovenordiales]

Is your headphones wireless? What's that?! :)

[@OFFMike]

Great video, what about the modbap per4mer instead, no latency, delay reverb glitch effects/ color and compressor at the same time. I replace my sp404 Sx by it in my setup with deluge or Digitakt and it sounds great. I taught about the mk2long time but it’s sold out in France. Thanks for sharing tho’ peace

[@grandiose_3392]

Always enjoy chilling and watching you jam around man, ☮️ from Seattle

[@PorchBass]

I am reminded of the videos from a while back when the new MPCs came out and it was impossible to get an X to sync with a Live. Realtime seems to get lost in DAW culture.

[@tamilyvideos]

Would you say this is easy to learn with no musical background?

[@legitimatefrenzy]

I think the issue is it's manipulating harmonics too much, it's definitely a bummer for drums I'd bet it's just because of audio in instead of processing a sample.

[@illmoot]

WHO ELSE'S MIND HAS BEEN FRAZZLED BY THE MK2!!!? HAHA

[@AlexIsASeraphim]

I'd like one of these Ricky. Looking forward to a video of you using the mk ii in your live rig. Cheers from down under, B.

[@oscarjmg]

Ricky what about a setup between the 404 and the poly play?

[@williamwallace6508]

so the 404 is better than any of the elektron gear for sampling?

[@spliffsoldier]

You can technically have 5 effects . Check out the input efx ricky

[@joshua5887]

Do you ever film your live performances? And if so, where can we watch them?

[@Stitchgamer863]

Whats the device you were using next to the mk2?

[@vicemayorskeletonmeat]

think of it as the distance between your play and rec head. you cannot emulate a real-time cassette sound w/o that

[@MrMarcLaflamme]

Didn't you sell your DT a while back?

[@MrDaigoRiki]

Yeah one reason for making money on KZbin I know.

[@thelibrarian3734]

How about just recording to cassette 🤔

[@mrleblank855]

You don’t know how long I have been waiting for you to put a video on this out lmao

[@djgreenhornet2892]

That beat is funky! 💃🏾🕺🏾

[@ticketstomars]

Does it sound as Lo-Fi as original or sx ?

[@ybab-j]

thank you for sharing this and sharing why ❤️

[@julienvignes]

cassette mus be in 3,or 4 to minimise latency

[@555atU]

Nice track! One of your betters.

[@w-h-y-]

I have not noticed latency on mine at all

[@whateverthehorror]

Got this a few months ago and I was bummed by the cassette effect too... I wanted to run my guitar through it live