near-tao

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The Uncarved Block #001

For anybody looking to remix some music and/or art, I’m setting up The Uncarved Block as a forum on my Discord server. The goal is to provide a place for people to take a track or idea, and remix it into something new, and get some feedback from the community on what worked well, options for other ideas, and suggestions for what to do next. This will come together as a Soundcloud playlist to put…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.36

Most importantly (for me at least) is I’m still kicking! For those who have been paying attention, I’ve been slowly branching out into other instruments on my YouTube channel, and starting to look into things like the Dirtywave M8, Roland P-6, and Ableton Move. There’s plenty of cool gear out there, and certainly not enough free time to cover it all. That said, I do try and keep the Guide going…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.33

Hey everybody, it’s been a long time coming to get the guide updated for firmware 4.04, but it is finally here! What’s happened in between? Well I dropped the Quick Reference for the SP404 mk2, which was a lot of fun to make, but super time consuming. Plus within just a few days of releasing it, Roland dropped the 4.04 firmware update. I decided to invest the effort into updating the Quick…

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In the top 2%?!

This is a weird one for me for sure. I got an email that congratulated me for being in the top 2% of earners for buymeacoffee.com. Before you all start celebrating me and my “wild success”, I’m going to drop some details, some thoughts, and probably a few opinions. Let’s start with where I am today. My online digital “footprint” is kind of a mess, where I have accounts for all kinds of services,…

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NearTao's Acid Drop Sample and Patch Pack Available Now

First up, about half of the samples are available for free at , and an SP404 mk2 ready project is available with included patterns at .  Check out the content ahead of time to see if any of it interests you before you pick up this pack. The Free Samples file is just samples, and the Sp404 mk2 Project is for the SP404 mk2 only. NearTaos Acid Drop Free…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.29

Here’s an updated version of the guide. At this point, it is mostly changes coming in from people asking questions on my YouTube videos, and my curiosity to dig in and see if I can find suitable answers, solutions, or in some cases workflows. So the update is again an accumulation of a lot of minor tweaks and things I have learned about the SP404 mk2 from people asking questions that I didn’t…

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Personal Project Management

Hey everybody! I’ve been working through deciding what project management software to setup for myself personally, and I’ve been looking through several options. There’s a lot of interesting paid software, open source software, and a lot of opinions of what is best to use, how they integrate together. It’s a lot to dig through, but understanding others’ experience with a tool is certainly…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.28

Just a few simple tweaks for today based on some information I learned while running a few experiments (and answering questions) on my live stream at https://youtube.com/live/LT8YEWt7zuY?feature=share The plan was to figure out a few volume maximums/limits, especially for recording. I decided to use the USB-C audio interface connection from the SP404 mk2 to my computer since it is a digital…

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[Sample Pack] SP404 mk2 Session 54

session-54.5-by-sa-samplepackDownload These samples were recorded as part of my In Five series for the SP404 mk2 Session 54.  I used a Teenage Engineering OP-1 and a Chase Bliss Audio Mood to do a bit of sound design/exploration and to have some fun.  Nothing fancy here, but since Spicy Boi asked over in the YouTube comments for the samples, I’m providing them for anybody to grab. ‘Session…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.27

This is a first pass to try and incorporate all of the changes that came in for Firmware 3.0. I am quite certain I’ve got to go back and rewrite sections, organize some data differently, and overall rethink how this guide is put together. That said, I did spend a lot of time trying to get everything together. neartaos-sp-404-mk2-guide-0.27Download

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In Five Overview

kf6gpe over on my discord server asked about my process, and while I am more than happy to have a discussion about it, I figured it might be worth writing down in a blog to capture for others in the future as a distinct artifact. Before I get too deep into this, I wanted to let you, the reader know, that I’ll be intermingling thoughts of what I do with why I do it. This post will probably…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.26

Now I’m behind on getting updates to 3.0. This still covers firmware 2.01, but I’ll be pivoting to 3.0 soon, I promise. neartaos-sp-404-mk2-guide-0.26Download I’m just excited to see 3.0 drop, and this update was really just to get me back in the habit of writing updates, in prep for whenever something big happened. Last week I tried doing some live streams to chat with folks while also working…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.25

Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.25

So… a lot has happened over the last four(?!) months, for me personally… not so much the mk2 guide. neartaos-sp-404-mk2-guide-0.25Download Let’s see, where to start? I got my first donation of $5 over at buymeacoffee.com, super cool, and big thanks. I know I keep telling you all it’s not necessary (it isn’t), and I keep doing all of this work for free, but I also want to say it is greatly…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.24

Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.24

Hey folks, guess it’s been nearly three months since I last updated the guide. Yikes! NearTao’s SP-404 mk2 Guide 0.24Download This is my first pass at trying to get the firmware 2.0 changes wrapped around my head. I know I missed a few section updates, mostly in the settings area, and I am sure there are some shortcuts I need to wrap around to getting added into the guide, but by and large I do…

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303 Vinyl Sim Noise

303 Vinyl Sim Noise

A request over on Reddit came in for some Vinyl Sim Noise recorded off of a 303. Why? I don’t know… but maybe the user will provide some details. To record this, I just hooked the 303 up to the 404 mk2, turned on the Vinyl Sim on the 303, turned off Compression and Wow, and did a few passes at Volume and Noise levels. After that, did the old record, and then exported to SD. Nothing fancy here……

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.23

Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.23

A request came in to add a shortcut section, so I added an Appendix G and tried to organize it in a way that made more sense to me than what information is in the official manual. NearTao’s SP-404 mk2 Guide 0.23Download If anybody has been wondering where the updates have been for the guide, well I’ve partly been lazy, I have been trying to figure out how to improve the YouTube videos for the…

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Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.22

Roland SP-404 mk2 Guide v0.22

The update is mostly focussed on the Midi and Companion App chapters NearTao’s SP-404 mk2 Guide 0.22Download I suppose the “big news” is that firmware version 1.15 dropped. It fixes a couple of bugs, I don’t think I ever hit them. Given this rather weak update for the mk2, my suspicion is that we’re not likely to see anything terribly interesting for firmware updates until the supply chain…