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designbyt
New member
I am considering purchasing a Roland SPD-S sampler/sequencer percussion pad. They are relatively new on the market. Anyone tried them?
coloradojay
New member
That's funny! I just bought a used one last night for $300. No Manuals, card or disks. I've already figured most of it out between the Roland FAQs and being a proficient hacker, so I'll give you a quick review.
I've played (the white ones), which the pads feel identical to me, except that this one has the rimshots which are a cool space saver but don't respond quite like the pads. I've read that the samples aren't as rich as the spd-20, which I'd believe since they all appear to be samples. Most of the sounds it comes with are IMHO pretty usable, and if you don't like them you can overwrite them with your own.
My main gripe with it is that it's kind of a bitch to use. Like my VS-880 that I'm about to sell off, the controls are not very intuitive, and you spend a bit of time scrolling through menus when you are trying to configure or select anything. For example, to "unprotect" the full internal memory of samples that the Guido Center guys had recorded testing it out, for deletion, I had to know the secret TWO buttons to hold down while powering up the unit. You'd never figure it out without a manual or some docs, luckily it was one of the 8 or so questions answered in the Roland FAQs.
I've also read that the pads are prone to triggering each other. There is a separate sensitivity setting for the top 3 Rimshot pads, and the bottom 6 standard pads. I pretty much a touch player so I have it set pretty sensitive (7 on the rimshots, and 8 on the pads), and it isn't having that problem (yet), but I did try putting it to the most sensitive setting, and got the rimshot pad 1 to trigger pad 4. I also read one reviewer had to open the unit up and reattach a trigger to a pad during his review because it fell off. If you are a really hard hitter that breaks sticks often, this thing might be a little fragile for you.
The upside is that it not only holds samples, but allows you to create loops. There are some pretty decent patterns built in, that are fairly usable, and the built-in patches groups some together for Latin, Rock, Jungle, etc. As for creating your own loops, expect to spend some time on it (scrolling through menus on the tiny little display), but it's doable. I created a couple last night (I was up half the night playing with it), and it allows you to do things like speedup/slowdown the pitch/speed of the sample, reverse, set the start and end loop points. It seems fairly flexible.
The internal memory is pretty small, so I'd plan on picking up a flash card (not sure how big is adiquate yet). The 64 meg card I have for my camera, is not recognized by the unit (which sucks), and Roland only has a short list of cards that they've tested and actually support. Beware buying an offbrand card, because it might not work (another reason that I'm offing the 880 is that Roland always seems to have some funky storage limitations or proprietary deal like that). I've read that you can take wavs from your computer, stick them on the card, and plug it into the Roland, or conversely sample into it, and dump the wavs out via a card reader (could have some interesting uses). Because the stupid thing won't recognise my card, I haven't been able to try that yet.
The effects section is pretty cool, and the effects control knob seems to be built adiquately. There are reverbs, gates, and arpeggiator-ish effects that I've played with and they aren't bad for what they are.
All and all I think it's a pretty decent unit. Not really too sturdy, so you've got to be a little careful with it (I plan to use it at live gigs with my acoustic kit some starting tomorrow night). They can be had for $500 new, and ebay has been bringing about $400 for them (still pretty new, so demand exceeds supply for used ones). It might very well be worth the extra hundred bucks for one that's not already half-beaten to death, and a Roland warrantee on this thing. My unit seems to be in pretty good shape still. I surely won't regret my purchase at this price point, and I've been dieing to integrate some different sounds into my playing especially for Jungle/Drum&Bass type feels. It kicks the shit out of the little Yamaha unit I got for $40 at a pawn shop.
There are really infinite possibilities with what you can do with this thing, you can even set each pad to have 2 different samples/loops based on velocity. They've geared the demo samples toward techno, but I plan to set up more Latin/Jungle/Jazz/Downtempo samples and patches. It is also a great way to practice late at night, and I'm planning on picking up a kick pedal trigger for it very soon.
Enough babble about it, I wanna go home and play with it!!!
I've played (the white ones), which the pads feel identical to me, except that this one has the rimshots which are a cool space saver but don't respond quite like the pads. I've read that the samples aren't as rich as the spd-20, which I'd believe since they all appear to be samples. Most of the sounds it comes with are IMHO pretty usable, and if you don't like them you can overwrite them with your own.
My main gripe with it is that it's kind of a bitch to use. Like my VS-880 that I'm about to sell off, the controls are not very intuitive, and you spend a bit of time scrolling through menus when you are trying to configure or select anything. For example, to "unprotect" the full internal memory of samples that the Guido Center guys had recorded testing it out, for deletion, I had to know the secret TWO buttons to hold down while powering up the unit. You'd never figure it out without a manual or some docs, luckily it was one of the 8 or so questions answered in the Roland FAQs.
I've also read that the pads are prone to triggering each other. There is a separate sensitivity setting for the top 3 Rimshot pads, and the bottom 6 standard pads. I pretty much a touch player so I have it set pretty sensitive (7 on the rimshots, and 8 on the pads), and it isn't having that problem (yet), but I did try putting it to the most sensitive setting, and got the rimshot pad 1 to trigger pad 4. I also read one reviewer had to open the unit up and reattach a trigger to a pad during his review because it fell off. If you are a really hard hitter that breaks sticks often, this thing might be a little fragile for you.
The upside is that it not only holds samples, but allows you to create loops. There are some pretty decent patterns built in, that are fairly usable, and the built-in patches groups some together for Latin, Rock, Jungle, etc. As for creating your own loops, expect to spend some time on it (scrolling through menus on the tiny little display), but it's doable. I created a couple last night (I was up half the night playing with it), and it allows you to do things like speedup/slowdown the pitch/speed of the sample, reverse, set the start and end loop points. It seems fairly flexible.
The internal memory is pretty small, so I'd plan on picking up a flash card (not sure how big is adiquate yet). The 64 meg card I have for my camera, is not recognized by the unit (which sucks), and Roland only has a short list of cards that they've tested and actually support. Beware buying an offbrand card, because it might not work (another reason that I'm offing the 880 is that Roland always seems to have some funky storage limitations or proprietary deal like that). I've read that you can take wavs from your computer, stick them on the card, and plug it into the Roland, or conversely sample into it, and dump the wavs out via a card reader (could have some interesting uses). Because the stupid thing won't recognise my card, I haven't been able to try that yet.
The effects section is pretty cool, and the effects control knob seems to be built adiquately. There are reverbs, gates, and arpeggiator-ish effects that I've played with and they aren't bad for what they are.
All and all I think it's a pretty decent unit. Not really too sturdy, so you've got to be a little careful with it (I plan to use it at live gigs with my acoustic kit some starting tomorrow night). They can be had for $500 new, and ebay has been bringing about $400 for them (still pretty new, so demand exceeds supply for used ones). It might very well be worth the extra hundred bucks for one that's not already half-beaten to death, and a Roland warrantee on this thing. My unit seems to be in pretty good shape still. I surely won't regret my purchase at this price point, and I've been dieing to integrate some different sounds into my playing especially for Jungle/Drum&Bass type feels. It kicks the shit out of the little Yamaha unit I got for $40 at a pawn shop.
There are really infinite possibilities with what you can do with this thing, you can even set each pad to have 2 different samples/loops based on velocity. They've geared the demo samples toward techno, but I plan to set up more Latin/Jungle/Jazz/Downtempo samples and patches. It is also a great way to practice late at night, and I'm planning on picking up a kick pedal trigger for it very soon.
Enough babble about it, I wanna go home and play with it!!!