The announcement confirms rumours and brings a tonne of new features.

The hardware legend that is Roland has officially announced the debut of the SP-404 Mk II sampling workstation, which has confirmed a leaked listing of the models’ new features that appeared online and got fans gossiping this month.

Threads on both the Elektronauts forum and Reddit discussed rumours of the sampler and shared a product description that was shared and later taken down by retailer Sam Ash.

Based on appearances, the new model looks very akin to the SP-404 A.

A feature that has fans hyped for the P-404 Mk II sampler is, in particular, an expanded effects section that includes the cassette simulator effect which is great for the Lo-Fi producers among us!

With that said, the MK1 has been a staple sampler and effector for vintage and modern hip-hop producers, and the revamped model looks to be the same.

Not only this, but an auto-pitch function, a customizable OLED screen for waveform editing and navigating through the modes, as well as an electric guitar cab simulator are all roof-raising features of the new MkII sampler, as well as hardware upgrades that improve not only the units start up time, but the project loading times too! All before the 16 velocity-sensitive RGB pads. With the SP-404 Mk II’s new DJ mode, you have the ability to blend between two separate beats while simultaneously applying effects!

To really stack the pads on top of one another, there are 32 voices of polyphony that have no risk of cutting samples in and out when different pads are pressed.

And if your heart desires a vocoder feature, as we’re sure it does, the new feature rollout includes one of those too! For the vocoder, you can connect your MIDI keyboard via the 18″ inch MIDI in and output to lay down some melodies.

Speaking of connectivity, a USB C port will come in handy for external power (but it can run on battery power alone) and also streaming audio from mobile devices, as well as reconnecting to the SP404 app! Packing 1/4″ and 1/8″ inch headphone jacks for dual connection, a 1/4″ input for a microphone or guitar which feeds into the dedicated FX such as guitar amp and vocal effects!

You don’t need to worry about saving the data for your long studio sessions either. The MkII packs nine banks of pre-loaded samples that should get you off to a good start. But the fun doesn’t stop there…


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