u/axadrn

Hey everyone,

I did a small test today with my MPC1000 and SP-404MK2. I took the same drum loop and ran it through the SP-404MK2 with the same effects/settings in two ways:

1. Drum loop through the SP-404MK2, directly recorded into the MPC1000
2. Drum loop recorded/resampled on the SP-404MK2 first, then recorded into the MPC1000

Same loop, same effects, same gain staging as close as possible. Real talk: I honestly can’t hear a difference.

Should I? Or are my ears just trash? I always thought that recording/resampling into the SP-404MK2 itself would maybe add some extra character from the converters or internal recording stage, compared to only using it as an FX box and recording straight into the MPC.

Is the “SP sound” mostly just the effects, compression, resampling workflow, gain staging, and maybe the lo-fi modes, rather than the normal recording converters adding obvious color?

Curious what others think, especially people who use the SP-404MK2 with an MPC or other hardware samplers.

Hey everyone,

I did a small test today with my MPC1000 and SP-404MK2. I took the same drum loop and ran it through the SP-404MK2 with the same effects/settings in two ways:

1. Drum loop through the SP-404MK2, directly recorded into the MPC1000
2. Drum loop recorded/resampled on the SP-404MK2 first, then recorded into the MPC1000

Same loop, same effects, same gain staging as close as possible. Real talk: I honestly can’t hear a difference.

Should I? Or are my ears just trash? I always thought that recording/resampling into the SP-404MK2 itself would maybe add some extra character from the converters or internal recording stage, compared to only using it as an FX box and recording straight into the MPC.

Is the “SP sound” mostly just the effects, compression, resampling workflow, gain staging, and maybe the lo-fi modes, rather than the normal recording converters adding obvious color?

Curious what others think, especially people who use the SP-404MK2 with an MPC or other hardware samplers.

I have the MPC1000 and the SP404 and I’m f****** love it. I make HipHop and RnB styled beats.

I’m afraid I have to admit that I’ve bitten off more than I can chew here in terms of size and weight.

As a perpetual traveler, it’s simply too difficult to manage all this gear, including the MicroFreak, iLoud Micro, DT770 Pro headphones, and MacBook, while on the road.

That’s why I’m now looking in the direction of the Octatrack, to see if it might serve as an alternative to the MPC and SP-404.

Which do you prefer, and why?

I’m looking into upgrading my MPC1000 display and I’m confused.

There’s:

• black background / white text
• white background / black text

But JJOS can invert the colors anyway, äso why do both versions even exist?

Is there actually a difference in:

• readability?
• viewing angles?
• brightness?
• eye strain?
• overall quality?

Or is the black one basically just for aesthetics?

Curious what most MPC1000 owners prefer long term.

Two months ago I posted v1.8.0 here. We're now at v1.11.0, so a quick round-up of what landed since.

templUI is a UI component library for Go apps using templ and Tailwind CSS. Works with plain Go, HTMX, and DataStar.

Big stuff since v1.8.0:

• Range selection in Calendar + Datepicker (v1.11.0). New SelectionMode (single/range), plus EndValue and EndName props. Datepicker renders the selected value as start – end in range mode. Thanks @anaelorlinski.
• Slider rebuilt from scratch + new Range component (v1.10.0). Dropped the native <input type="range"> for a custom implementation, two-handle range selection now works properly. Breaking for existing slider usages.
• Dialog + Sheet rewritten on the native <dialog> element (v1.9.3). Trigger targeting, click-away, ESC handling, and sheet positioning are simpler and less buggy. Removed the old duplicated overlay-layer approach.
• Optional modal mode for Dialog (v1.10.0). DisableModal bool on dialog.Content lets you disable the native backdrop for dialogs that contain nested overlays. Thanks @BillBuilt.

Stability and swap behavior:

• Popover clickaway switched to pointerdown, so re-rendering popover content during a click no longer triggers a false outside-click close
• Popover hover triggers are ignored on touch devices, no more phantom tooltips on mobile
• Dialog content resolution is now scoped to the dialog's own root, fixes sheet/dialog triggers opening the wrong nested content
• Checkbox reactive binding only applies to child checkboxes, not the parent (fixes checkbox groups)
• Datepicker now owns its hidden input updates, no more duplicate calendar bindings
• Calendar startOfWeek=0 (Sunday) is preserved properly
• New helper: window.tui.popover.closeNearest(element) for closing the nearest popover from outside the trigger

DX and smaller things:

• utils.UseUnminifiedScripts = true to load .js instead of .min.js for debugging
• TEMPLUI_REPO env var so the CLI can pull from forks
• Configurable calendar cell size via --cell-size CSS variable
• Chart RawConfig already shipped in v1.8.0 (escape hatch for native Chart.js config)
• Restored generic If / IfElse helpers after a regression in v1.9.3
• Fixed embedded component script routes on Windows

Breaking changes worth flagging if you upgrade:

• Slider API changed (v1.10.0)
• Dialog/Sheet Content no longer takes ID / Open directly (v1.9.3)
• Calendar event renamed from calendar-date-selected to calendar-selected with unified payload (v1.11.0)

If you're still on v1.8.x, v1.11.0 is the one to jump to. Feedback and issues welcome.

Release: https://github.com/templui/templui/releases/tag/v1.11.0

Repo: https://github.com/templui/templui

I think it’s cool overall, but somehow a lot of sounds end up feeling kinda similar after a while.

My main issue though: chords often sound weird to me. Metallic, slightly off, kinda dissonant or “wrong”. Hard to get warm/full chords out of it.

Is that just because it’s paraphonic instead of polyphonic? (Btw I still don’t fully understand the difference lol)

Curious if others had the same experience or if I just suck at programming this thing.

TL;DR: I'm building an open-source hardware sampler. Pre-alpha, no hardware exists, may never ship. The community votes on every spec. Pad layout, encoder count, even the CAD of the case. Roast me.

I'm a software engineer who's been making beats on an MPC 1000/JJOS and an SP-404 for years. Love the Octatrack from a distance. None of these boxes is what I want to play in 2026.

Akai, Roland, Elektron: slow, opaque, increasingly indifferent. Feature requests rot in forums for years. JJOS exists because the community had to fix the MPC themselves. That should be the rule, not the exception.

So I started building one.

The working idea (all subject to community argument):

• MPC 1000/JJOS workflow and sequencing
• SP-404 MK2 hands-on resampling. "Play the FX" mindset.
• Octatrack-grade trigging. Scenes, parts, conditional trigs.
• Standalone hardware. Instant boot. No menu-diving for things you reach for every bar.
• Open firmware forever. Open hardware. Repairable. Framework-grade.
• Community votes on every spec. Pad count. Encoder count. The case.

Status: thinking, sketching, writing manifesto. No firmware. No PCB. No 3D model. Honest about all of it. The .dev domain is the working title because the real name gets picked once there is a community to pick it.

There's a public feedback board live where you can post ideas, upvote, comment. Sign-in is a magic link, no account spam.

opensampler.dev

What I'd love from you: pad layout opinions. Encoder vs. button purists. Anyone with serious Octatrack scenes time. Anything I'm missing or getting wrong. Tell me which existing box I should be ripping more ideas from.

Pre-alpha. May never ship. That's not the bug, it's the point.

Last year, things with templUI Pro and goilerplate were honestly going really well.

I was consistently getting around 1–3 sales a day for months and made a genuinely good living as a solo developer. Not “VC startup rich”, but enough that I felt like I finally escaped the constant freelance/job grind.

At the beginning of this year things slowed down a bit, but were still okay.

Now over the last 1–2 months, sales have almost completely died.

Some days literally 0.

And I’m genuinely starting to worry.

I honestly can’t fully tell what changed:

• Did AI massively reduce the need for UI kits/boilerplates faster than I expected?
• Did I lose momentum because I became way less active on Reddit/Twitter recently?
• Is the developer tooling market just oversaturated right now?
• Is it pricing/positioning?
• Or is this simply a normal cycle for indie products?

The weird thing is: I still get stars on GitHub (templUI). People still seem interested. The products themselves are not abandoned. But conversion suddenly feels dramatically worse.

I’m posting this because I’d really appreciate honest advice from other founders/indie hackers/devtool builders that maybe went through something similar.

What would you do in my situation?

• Double down on content/community?
• Push harder into AI tooling?
• Lower pricing?
• Run more ads?
• Build more free OSS?
• Focus less on X/Twitter and more on SEO?
• Or completely pivot?

I’m not looking for motivational quotes here. I’d genuinely appreciate real opinions, even harsh ones.

Because right now I honestly feel a bit lost trying to understand whether this is:

• a temporary visibility/distribution problem
• or a fundamental market shift happening in real time.

Last year, things with templUI Pro and goilerplate were honestly going really well.

I was consistently getting around 1–3 sales a day for months and made a genuinely good living as a solo developer. Not “VC startup rich”, but enough that I felt like I finally escaped the constant freelance/job grind.

At the beginning of this year things slowed down a bit, but were still okay.

Now over the last 1–2 months, sales have almost completely died.

Some days literally 0.

And I’m genuinely starting to worry.

I honestly can’t fully tell what changed:

• Did AI massively reduce the need for UI kits/boilerplates faster than I expected?
• Did I lose momentum because I became way less active on Reddit/Twitter recently?
• Is the developer tooling market just oversaturated right now?
• Is it pricing/positioning?
• Or is this simply a normal cycle for indie products?

The weird thing is: I still get stars on GitHub (templUI). People still seem interested. The products themselves are not abandoned. But conversion suddenly feels dramatically worse.

I’m posting this because I’d really appreciate honest advice from other founders/indie hackers/devtool builders that maybe went through something similar.

What would you do in my situation?

• Double down on content/community?
• Push harder into AI tooling?
• Lower pricing?
• Run more ads?
• Build more free OSS?
• Focus less on X/Twitter and more on SEO?
• Or completely pivot?

I’m not looking for motivational quotes here. I’d genuinely appreciate real opinions, even harsh ones.

Because right now I honestly feel a bit lost trying to understand whether this is:

• a temporary visibility/distribution problem
• or a fundamental market shift happening in real time.

Last year, things with templUI Pro and goilerplate were honestly going really well.

I was consistently getting around 1–3 sales a day for months and made a genuinely good living as a solo developer. Not “VC startup rich”, but enough that I felt like I finally escaped the constant freelance/job grind.

At the beginning of this year things slowed down a bit, but were still okay.

Now over the last 1–2 months, sales have almost completely died.

Some days literally 0.

And I’m genuinely starting to worry.

I honestly can’t fully tell what changed:

• Did AI massively reduce the need for UI kits/boilerplates faster than I expected?
• Did I lose momentum because I became way less active on Reddit/Twitter recently?
• Is the developer tooling market just oversaturated right now?
• Is it pricing/positioning?
• Or is this simply a normal cycle for indie products?

The weird thing is: I still get stars on GitHub (templUI). People still seem interested. The products themselves are not abandoned. But conversion suddenly feels dramatically worse.

I’m posting this because I’d really appreciate honest advice from other founders/indie hackers/devtool builders that maybe went through something similar.

What would you do in my situation?

• Double down on content/community?
• Push harder into AI tooling?
• Lower pricing?
• Run more ads?
• Build more free OSS?
• Focus less on X/Twitter and more on SEO?
• Or completely pivot?

I’m not looking for motivational quotes here. I’d genuinely appreciate real opinions, even harsh ones.

Because right now I honestly feel a bit lost trying to understand whether this is:

• a temporary visibility/distribution problem
• or a fundamental market shift happening in real time.