This Week in Music Gear: SP404 MK2 Hacking, a New Polyend Looper Pedal & More

4 hours ago

4 min read

This was a surprisingly busy week for hardware music making. The SP404MKII community has started digging into the sampler’s firmware, Polyend introduced a completely new looper and drum machine, Native Instruments gave Maschine some long-requested sequencing tools, and even the decades-old MPC2000 and MPC2000XL are getting new features.

Here are four things that caught my attention this week.

SP404 MK2 Custom Firmware Might Actually Be Really Close

The SP404MKII has received plenty of official updates from Roland over the years, but now members of the community are starting to explore what might be possible outside of Roland’s firmware.

On September 22, a Reddit user posted that they had successfully injected and executed native code on the SP404 MK2. That doesn’t mean downloadable custom firmware exists yet, but it’s an important start. Their eventual goal is to create custom firmware while also providing tools that would allow other developers to build their own modifications.

Some of the possibilities they’ve discussed include additional effects, changes to the interface, faster chopping workflows and more DAW-like functionality. A separate reverse-engineering project also appeared a few days later, with another user reporting progress mapping the SP404 MK2’s hardware, operating system, memory layout and portions of its sequencer while examining firmware version 5.52.

For now, this is very much an experimental project rather than something to install on your SP. Still, with custom firmware development also taking off around older MPC and Elektron hardware, it’ll be interesting to see how far the SP404 community can take this.

Additional research: SP404MKII custom firmware reverse-engineering post

Polyend Introduces Loop

Polyend announced a brand-new piece of hardware this week called Loop, and unlike the Tracker and Play, this one is built primarily around live audio looping. Loop combines four independent mono or stereo audio loop tracks with four sample-based drum tracks. You can record instruments, line-level sources or a dynamic microphone directly into it, then run loops forward, backward or in ping-pong mode and process each loop using one of more than 100 built-in effects.

The drum side includes a dedicated sequencer with 16 patterns per project, while complete projects can essentially function as song sections. You can queue another project and have the entire setup change at the end of the current bar, which could make Loop particularly interesting as a live-performance device. Individual loop tracks are also stored as WAV files on the microSD card, so recordings can easily be moved into a DAW later.

Polyend is selling Loop for $599, with shipments expected to begin in mid-October.

This is probably the new piece of hardware from this week that I’m most curious to see in practice. A dedicated looper combined with a drum machine and arrangement system occupies a slightly different space from most of the samplers and grooveboxes currently on the market.

More info: Polyend Loop

Maschine 3.7 Adds Probability and Euclidean Sequencing

Native Instruments also gave Maschine a substantial sequencing update this week with the release of Maschine 3.7.

The biggest additions are per-note probability, a Euclidean sequencer and a random note generator. Probability lets individual notes trigger based on a defined chance each time a pattern loops, while the Euclidean sequencer generates rhythms using controls for the number of steps, fills and rotation. There’s also a Live mode that lets those Euclidean patterns change while the sequence is playing.

Importantly for Maschine users who prefer working from the controller rather than a mouse, Native Instruments says the new functions are accessible from compatible Maschine hardware including the MK3, Mikro MK3, Studio and Maschine+. The desktop update is available now, although NI cautions Maschine+ users about project compatibility while the corresponding Maschine+ update rolls out.

Probability and Euclidean sequencing have become increasingly common on hardware sequencers, so it’s nice to see Maschine expanding in that direction as well.

More info: Maschine 3.7 from Native Instruments

The MPC2000 and MPC2000XL Are Getting New Features in 2026

Finally, two samplers released more than two decades ago are somehow still getting new features.

Developer vubeatz has created unofficial firmware modifications for both the Akai MPC2000 and MPC2000XL, with version 1.7 released on September 24. Rather than distributing modified Akai firmware directly, the software takes an original MPC operating-system file and creates a newly patched version for the user.

The modifications add features including program transpose, multiple mute groups, an expanded tuning range and new parameter-copying options. Version 1.7 also introduces a Lazy Chop workflow that lets users create up to 16 sample regions during playback, along with expanded low-pass and high-pass filter controls. The original MPC2000 gets some additional improvements of its own, including folders and per-track program assignments.

There’s something pretty fascinating about seeing software development continue on hardware this old. Between these MPC modifications and the experiments happening with the SP404 MK2, Octatrack and other machines, community-developed firmware might be one of the more interesting trends happening in hardware music production right now. Edit: Another update was published September 28 adding even more features.

Project: MPC2000 and MPC2000XL mods by vubeatz

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