The SP-808 Groove Sampler is the first product of its kind—a sampling and recording workstation which is one part professional-quality phrase sampler; one part hard disk audio recorder. Developed to meet the needs of a growing “remix” and sampling-based music market, the SP-808 provides everything DJs, sampling musicians and remix artists need to lay down fat grooves and create professional-quality remixes.
After a few years Roland released the SP-808EX with a 250MB Zipdrive instead of the 100MB of the first SP-808. New vocal and guitar multi-effects, 10-band vocoder, Voice Transformer and Mic Simulator, plus dozens of DJ-oriented groove effect were added too. Besides that a new Virtual Analog Mono Synth was addes too. Positive part was that you were able to start up without inserting a Zip Disk to have at least access to the new features although the samplepart, trackmixer and sequencer were not accessible
The firmware of the SP-808EX can be installed into the OG SP-808. To do that you will need the following file and check out the video below about how to do flash the firmware. It´s an easy job!
Enjoy!
SP-808EX File