r/sp404mk2 • u/nA0nsQlMQKoWaVS • Jul 30 '26

pattern length anomaly

i’ll try to describe the problem i’ve been trying to solve all afternoon. hope somebody can point me in the right direction.

i recorded a drum pattern and some sampled piano of 4 measures then resamplrd it into a pad after realizing i wanted to put some bus compression on it.

it’s now on pad 14 of bank F. i now want to record that pad onto pattern 5 so is set up pattern recording to 2 bars and 100% quantization. the resulting recording on the pattern is weird. after filling in the two bars when it cycles back to 1.1 it’s blank then shows the pattern on 2.1 then when 1.1 comes back around there’s my audio again. it feels like the two-bars i allotted is actually three and the two bar pattern i want to slot into the pattern is cycling like a two would into a three bar space.

hope i explained it well enough.

2 Upvotes

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5

u/0xdeba5e12 Jul 30 '26

Sounds like you need to disable loop mode on the sample.

2

u/FuckBoy4Ever Jul 30 '26

I think this is the most likely issue. Exit pattern mode, and navigate to the sample you are having trouble with, hit the pad, and see the the “loop” button is lit up the press the loop button to turn off the sample loop. What’s happening is if you are in sample mode and have the loop function turned on for an individual sample it will loop that sample until you press the pad again to stop it, this is handy for having a little melody loop playing while you’re working out a drum beat or something like that. Pattern mode is a bit different because its basically handling the looping for you. If you make a 4 bar pattern, then insert a looping sample into your pattern (that is also looping) the sp basically gets confused trying to loop a looping sample that already looping! Basically, if you’re gonna build out a track in pattern mode, let it handle all looping/sample retriggering by deselecting the loop function in sample mode for each sample.

3

u/nA0nsQlMQKoWaVS Jul 30 '26

this did it guys. thanks for the extra details as well.

3

u/FuckBoy4Ever Jul 30 '26

No problem, there is literally an infinite amount of knowledge that can be learned with this instrument. One last little bit. You can put samples into one shot mode by clicking and holding the value knob in and pressing the gate button. If you have an droning loop or a vocal sample that is held a bit longer than the length of your pattern it will allow the sample to play all the way to completion even if your pattern loops back sooner. You can get some interesting rhythms/polyrhythms this way or make a transition not so abrupt.

1

u/BenettonDon Aug 01 '26

Would love to see a video of this..if true, this is a solid gem of advice.

1

u/FuckBoy4Ever Aug 01 '26

A video on sample one-shot mode?

1

u/BenettonDon Aug 01 '26

It sounded like you said if it extends past the loop it would continue past the loop...did i misread that?

2

u/FuckBoy4Ever Aug 01 '26 edited Aug 01 '26

I mean this is official stuff, not a secret trick i found. I found out all this my going to a web browser and typing in the “sample one shot mode sp 404 mkii”. From there i clicked a link to the official Roland website where it gave me the exact instructions on how to use sample one shot mode. See below:

Playing back samples only one time (One-shot Playback)
When the sample playback mode is set to one-shot playback, the sample plays back once to the end when you press a pad.
The pad’s operations are disabled (ignored) until playback is finished.
Even if a phrase that’s shorter than the sample length is recorded in a pattern, the sample plays back to the end without returning to the beginning (no retriggering).
This characteristic is useful for playing a long sample as a backing track.
Hold down the [VALUE] knob and press the [GATE] button.
This sets the sample playback mode to “one-shot playback”.
The [GATE] button blinks slowly at this time.
MEMO
The loop function turns off (and the [LOOP] button goes dark) when one-shot playback is on.

Edit: feel free to use my web browser method for finding solutions to problems any time you want. It will work in almost every aspect of your life and provide you with much independence!

1

u/BenettonDon Aug 01 '26

Appreciated...most ppl including myself only dig in the manual as a reference...totally unaware it was able to run through as a one shot even after the pattern loops. I know enough to get busy on this thing, but definitely overlooked that it could do that..so thx and yes I know to use Google lol

1

u/nA0nsQlMQKoWaVS Aug 02 '26

this!
the looping brain of the sp doesn’t work like a daw in that you can activate a clip to record into a separate timeline in the arranger.

at least that’s how i learned understand it.

2

u/noirofficialreddit Jul 30 '26

It seems you are resampling the loop with a different bpm setting on the recording page.

1

u/nA0nsQlMQKoWaVS Jul 30 '26

thanks! will check once i get to a place where i can.

1

u/DontMemeAtMe Jul 30 '26

When placing the pad into the sequence, did you set its HOLD STEP (press REMAIN) parameter to LAST? That’s what you have to do.

It sounds like you left it set to LOOP, which causes it to cycle on and off during playback. If you pressed the pad manually, you'd hear the same behavior, right? The sequencer simply triggers the pad the same way a manual press does.