Okay, here the real poop: It's a pretty decent sampler with a ton of capibilities, you just gotta be creative. Now this is the type of thing best used with other gear, definatly not on it's own. Now as far as the internal effects...they do leave a little bit to be desired. The time-stretch feature works well with vocals...but with beats, it tends to add to much noise and tremelo to the sound. The ring modulater is pretty generic. I rarely use this effect. As far as the filters..this is what I found: If you sample in lo-fi mode and run the sound through the filter, it gives it a real "warm/authentic" sort of sound. The hi-pass filter just sounds a bit too tweaky when you sample in normal mode. The delay effect is in my opinion is useless. It only repeats once and cuts out...I think Boss should have put a bit more effort into this area. The reverse feature is cool too, just too bad you can't apply any effects. Of course the pitch control is universal but deal with it....

Now if you think the effects are a real issue, I would simply suggest using an out-board effects processor (but I am sure y'all knew that anyway).

As far as the memory goes...it's not too terribly expensive (unless you work at McDonalds) but the only limitation is that if you allocate samples to the C/D banks, you cannot apply any sort of effects. The only major plus to the memory card is snatching long samples (great for sampling accapella tracks for remixes).

Here's another piece of advice...what I do is sample onto my SP202 and then sample back to my MS1 sampler and usually apply effects in between (like killing 2 birds with one fat crack rock). This feature comes in handy if you sample drum parts in lo-fi mode and send them to a seperate sampler and trigger the sounds from an external drum source. Viola...sorta old school 8-bit/SP1200 sound! Try it.

The built in mic is decent...useless in a real studio sorta enviroment except when it comes to sample burps and farts.

All and all, the Boss SP202 is a cool little piece of gear. Don't knock it just because you lack creativity and you're too lazy to experiment. With that in mind...I am off to jam.

also, on the timing factor, using the skills of counting from 1 to 4, i have managed to create numerous loops, all sampled at a perfect 140 bpm, all you have to do is count the beat. this thing is nuts!