The SP-404 is new from Roland - a little sampler with built in effects and sequencer, a bit like a tiny Akai MPC. It replaces the well-recieved SP-303 (here is a nice shot of Saul Williams' DJ playing live with just a SP-303 and a CD walkman), and revives a couple of features that were on the original SP-202 - battery power and a built in microphone for lo-fi on-the-go sampling. No price yet, but should be around £300. (via GearJunkies) UPDATE: My geek powers failed me, and I missed the most crucial part of the story. Over to Drew: "Holy crap, Roland finally made a 404! For those that don't know: Roland made the famous x0x machines in the 80's - there's a 101, a 202, 303, 505, 606, 707, 808, 909... but no 404! The reason was that the Japanese word for 'four' and their word for 'death' are very similar - four is considered an unlucky number, like 13 in western society..."
Posted by Tom Whitwell.
Comments:
Holy crap, Roland finally made a 404!
(for those that don't know: Roland made the famous x0x machines in the 80's - there's a 101, a 202, 303, 505, 606, 707, 808, 909... but no 404! The reason was that the Japanese word for 'four' and their word for 'death' are very similar - four is considered an unlucky number, like 13 in western society...)
That looks pretty neat. I've got an SP-202 that I picked up in Japan in 1998. I used it on a wild tour of Poland in 1999, improvising alongside a Polish jazz/rock band - even using the mic to sample them on the fly as we played. Lots of fun.
Hey David Battino - I'd love a heads up on where to get a cheap Madplayer. I listen to a daily podcast, The Overnightscape, and the guy who does it uses a Madplayer to generate the background music on the fly.
since every linkback seems to want to hold any information captive, here's a link to the roland page for anybody who wants to see the announcement for real:
Also, regarding the Madplayer, which place was it purchased from? Some of those places have pretty shitty reseller ratings, so I'd like to know what actually shipped the product :)
Actually according to several sources, Roland was at least prototyping a TR-404 of all things possible back in the day.
The same sources informed that some pre-production models are floating around... at least one, if not two sample cd makers have even included samples from such a thing in their collections. Whether these have any basis on reality is another thing...
The SP-404 is new from Roland - a little sampler with built in effects and sequencer, a bit like a tiny Akai MPC. It replaces the well-recieved SP-303 (here is a nice shot of Saul Williams' DJ playing live with just a SP-303 and a CD walkman), and revives a couple of features that were on the original SP-202 - battery power and a built in microphone for lo-fi on-the-go sampling. No price yet, but should be around £300. (via GearJunkies) 
: 12:17 am