Using SP404SX with Renoise

I brought my SP404sx to a friend’s house and he plugged it into his focusrite scarlett amp (same one as mine) and hooked up a guitar cable to the sampler (that’s just what I call the cable, can’t remember the exact name) and was able to play notes in Logic without any extra setup. I picked up a guitar cable today and routed it to the the guitar port with the cable and plugged it into the phones jack on the SP404sx hoping that it’d work seamlessly with renoise, but it doesn’t detect it on the program.

I have the settings correctly in renoise to pick up and record sounds into renoise from the sampler. When I play notes from the sampler the light on the the guitar knob on my amp turns flashes from green to red continuously and while the sound works perfectly with headphones/cable plugged in, I can’t get the samples to record directly into the program. I’m still sort of a noob to using hardware with software, so any help would be highly appreciated, thanks. The picture attached shows my current setup.

sp404problems

Without overcomplicating things, have you pressed ctrl + alt + R → then selected input source (and input monitoring if you’re not using input monitoring on the Scarlet interface) → and then checked to see if the audio input is visible and audible?

Also just as an aside,you may find using the ASIO drivers for the Scarlet interface preferable to Direct Sound drivers when recording / sampling.

Extra side note, are you able to test recording some audio with the exact same config in another DAW?

When I pressed ctrl + alt R a window popped up, but the 404 didn’t appear on the selected input source. it said None without an option to add anything so I can’t check to see if the audio input is visible and audible. I downloaded ASIO drivers for the Scarlet interface and now in the audio section of renoise preferences I set my device type to Focusrite USB ASIO. It still doesn’t seem to pick up the samples I’ve loaded onto the 404 when I hit record.
This is what I have set up on Renoise.
sp404problems

I downloaded FL20 and set the audio to Focusrite Audio 2.0 and it runs flawlessly in that setting in FL. I can’t check whether my 404 will record into FL since I’m only using the trial version and I’d have to pay cash otherwise. I would’ve used Cubase but Steinberg’s website won’t load for me.

I’m not sure how to proceed from here.

No worries, you could try recording in Reaper and Cakewalk - both are fully functional, even in demo mode.

In Renoise, after doing ctrl + alt + R, when you click on ‘none’ do you have options to select input source? I think you may need to select something like ‘left’ or ‘stereo’ or something, then enable input monitoring and then that should be it.

I’m not able to get to my machine to be more specific I’m afraid so my instructions may not be 100% on point.

Also I forgot to mention this morning - your input source won’t be SP404 but rather the interface, so something like Focusrite USB 2.0 (left, right or stereo assuming it’s a 2I2O model).

Unfortunately when I click “None” I have no options to select input source. I haven’t seen an option for input monitoring, could you please elaborate a bit more on how to find “left” or “stereo”? and what you mean by interface?.

I’ve been trying to find a way to record using Reaper and Cakewalk for the past 2 hours to no avail. I think all the help pages for both Reaper and Cakewalk are dated because when I follow their manuals it doesn’t seem to translate to over to using what I’m seeing/doing in the those DAWs. However, I can play into Audacity without issues or setup. Here’s what I have in Audacity straight from booting it up. I’m using the 1st Gen of Focusrite btw. I hope that clears things up a bit in terms of my problem.
audacityexample

It sounds like a basic configuration and setup issue as opposed to anything else.

Have a look at this and see if it helps, particularly under “Recording New Samples.”

Make sure your USB interface (the Focusrite soundcard, i.e. the red metal box with input and output interconnectivity eg. Headphone out etc) is selected as the audio device in all relevant options and make sure you’re using the ASIO drivers as opposed to Direct Sound etc.

The Renoise user manual in general is a really good resource I think. There are also lots of sound engineering mags and YouTube channels that are good for learning about audio recording and suchlike.

So I was able to find out how to record with the 404 using “Record New Sample” function. Once I’m finished playing a sample it saves it as an untitled sample. Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

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