Roland SPD-S Sampling Pad Review

The Roland SPD-S is powerful enough and intuitive enough for just about anybody to enjoy.

Throughout my career as a keyboardist and occasional music director, I’ve always been the one in the band charged with responsibility to figure out how to recreate an artist’s recordings in a live situation. Once you get past the basics of your 5- or 6- or however many-piece band, there’s always another track from the recorded material that needs to be reproduced live. Enter the SAMPLER. If the parts are of a rhythmic nature or even a percussive sound effect, the natural tendency is to put it in the hands of a drummer/percussionist. In the past we would need a trigger pad, plus a rack or keyboard sampler, and make sure all our channel and note number assignments were tediously programmed. Now we have the Roland SPD-S to replace all that hardware. One device, powerful enough and intuitive enough for just about anybody to enjoy. Putting this in the hands of a drummer or percussionist, will give him complete control of sampled loops. By complete control, I mean start, stop, and to a small variance, tempo. This unit also comes stocked with 181 preset sounds. Programming is quick and easy, or you can create your loops in your studio, export a multi-effects built in. Not just the obligatory reverbs but also a filter that can have velocity control. Very cool.