I’ve had a similar thought. Some kind of sp-555 style looper with a mic pre and d beam would be tight.
Plus the 555 has velocity sensitive pads and can resample while playing a pattern, no?
Two things that are big bummers on the 404 imho
Sandrine is an unsung hero in eurorack! All of her designs are unusual, clever and useful. I loved my RLL and sold it (with great sadness) only after acquiring the aforementioned Gotharman.
I’m quite certain RLL is by far the most fully featured and interesting stereo sampler module in its price range.
I only had one for a short while (covid forced sale) but I’m a bit surprised the Kilpatrick Phenol isn’t more of thing - a very satisfying modular experience for people who don’t want to get into Eurorack.
Built like a tank & comes with most of the extras (MIDI, output module, case, power) beginners might forget to budget for.
Sound is arguably a little ‘vanilla’ for more hardcore modular heads, but I found the passive banana mixing + built-in delay really helped.
I’ve been eyeballing the sunbox for some time. No clue how to build one. But it sounds oh so nice.
I’d include the Carbon in the conversation as well. It’s such a fun little sequencer, and you can find them for fairly cheap. I love mine.