MusicRadar

The new SP-404's case is grey rather than silver.

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• Review

The SP-404 was launched in 2005 and quickly gained fans for its no-nonsense, portable approach to sampling. However, there were also many users and potential buyers that found the SP-404 frustrating to use for a wide range of different reasons.

There was much for such users to grumble about: patterns couldn't be copied easily without a computer and card reader; only one effect could be used at a time; the display was small and cryptic; editing samples was hit-and-miss; and phono jacks were used instead of jacks. And there were a couple of fundamental sticking points, too - the pads weren't velocity-sensitive, nor could samples be mapped easily across an entire octave (as on an MPC).

With all this in mind, people are hoping for something much improved with a new 404. So does the SX impress and do what's hoped of it?

Overview

Sampling is pretty straightforward on the 404SX. Plug in your source (mic, line or the internal mic) hit Rec, select the pad you want to sample onto, hit Rec again and sample away. Then hit Rec to stop.

The sample can be marked and truncated (this is still a bit hit-and-miss without a waveform display), and sampling can be done in mono, stereo or the lo-fi mode. Resampling with FX is possible, too.

Sequencing patterns is relatively simple. Hit the Pattern Select button, then record, select the bank you wish to record to and press the pad you want the pattern assigned to, press the Length button and use controller dial 3 to select the number of measures from 1 to 99. You can also quantise and there's a new swing function, too.

Pattern building involves layering single or multiple samples to form a beat. Patterns can be triggered from one pad, enabling songs to be put together by triggering patterns in sequence from their respective pads and the next pattern can be cued while the current one plays. However, there's no dedicated song mode for chaining patterns.

What's new?

Apart from the obvious aesthetic change from a silver to a grey case, and a new colour-changing display (this glows various colours to represent your input level), you'd be hard pushed to find too many other noticeable alterations.

One immediate downside to the new colour is that it makes it difficult in low light to read the labelling of the sockets on the front of the 404SX (the headphone, mic level and mic-in jacks) and also a few of the other function labels, too.

"It appears that the sampling/sound quality has been improved."

New features include a Function button for accessing utility functions via the pads – press and hold the Function button and hit the pad to adjust in and out gain, save and load, select MIDI channels, copy and exchange sounds/patterns, import WAVs and AIFFs, auto-trigger sampling and more.

Other changes include the Pitch button, which was next to the display on the old 404, but has been replaced by a formant-shaping Voice Transform function for warping voices and other material on the 404SX. Additionally, the Vinyl Sim button of the old 404 has now been replaced by a DJFX looper that enables DJ-style pitching, looping and stuttering to simulate vinyl or CD deck functionality (this works great and is a lot of fun).