SP-404A bank layout design, pad conventions, and preset system. Use when the user asks to "design a bank", "create a preset", "lay out pads", "what goes where on the sampler", "Tiger Dust Block Party", or needs guidance on bank architecture, genre presets, energy arcs, or pad assignment conventions.
{BANK_LETTER}0000{PAD_NUMBER}.WAV in ROLAND/SP-404SX/SMPL/| Pads | Role | Examples |
|---|---|---|
| 1-4 | Drum one-shots | Kick, snare, hat, perc |
| 5-8 | Loops & breaks |
| Choppable rhythm, melodic loops |
| 9-10 | Melodic content | Bass, chords, leads |
| 11-12 | Texture/FX | Risers, transitions, ambient, vocal chops |
| Bank | Name | BPM | Key | Energy | Purpose |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A | Soul Kitchen | 98 | G | Low | Golden hour opener. Dusty soul grooves. |
| B | Funk Muscle | 112 | Em | High | James Brown tight, Parliament nasty. |
| C | Disco Inferno | 118 | Am | High | Four-on-the-floor, lush strings. |
| D | Boom Bap Cipher | 90 | Dm | Mid | Golden age hip-hop, vinyl crackle. |
| E | Caribbean Heat | 108 | Cm | High | Dancehall riddims, soca drums. |
| F | Electro Sweat | 120 | Dm | High | Dance-punk, dirty synths, LCD energy. |
| G | Neon Rave | 128 | F | High | Blog-house filters, rave stabs. |
| H | Peak Hour | 125 | Gm | High | THE MOMENT. Maximum intensity. The drop. |
| I | Dub Cooldown | 100 | Am | Low | Echo chamber bass, melodica, reverb. |
| J | Weapons Cache | 120 | XX | Mid | Air horns, sirens, scratches, impacts. |
Energy arc: warm up → groove → full dance floor → change pace → summer → get weird → build → PEAK → breathe → weapons anytime
Default set keys (Am, Dm, Em, F, G) are diatonic to C major — everything harmonizes across banks.
112/120/128/130 BPM cluster — all mix cleanly. Outliers (90, 98, 100, 108) provide deliberate gear changes.
Banks A-B survive SD card swaps. Use for:
Banks C-J change with the card — use for genre-specific or session-specific content.
Bank configurations are standalone YAML files in presets/, organized by category:
genre/ — genre-specific banksutility/ — drum kits, transitions, SFXsong-kits/ — banks built around specific trackspalette/ — mood/texture bankscommunity/ — shared presetsauto/ — daily auto-generated presetsSets group 10 presets into complete configurations for different session types.
Each pad in bank_config.yaml uses: TYPE_CODE keyword keyword playability
Examples:
BAS funk warm loop — finds a warm funk bass loopKIK hard aggressive one-shot — finds a hard aggressive kickPAD dreamy ethereal layer — finds a dreamy pad for layeringSee references/genre-presets.md for the full list of available genre presets with BPM, key, and vibe descriptions.