Alesis Sample Pad 4 - Compact Percussion and Sample Triggering Instrument with 4 Velocity Sensitive Pads, 25 Drum Sounds and SD/SDHC Card Slot

Product Information

A percussion pad will not allow you to import samples, however it will be loaded with - as the name suggests - a multitude of drum and percussion sounds, along with tools to colour and manipulate them. If a sample pad is an electronic Swiss Army Knife, think of a percussion pad as a thousand drum kits in a box. In addition to the 10 preset drum kits on offer, which feature various combinations of the 25 on–board samples, you can also load in your own samples via an SD/SDHC card slot. The SamplePad 4 accommodates cards up to 32GB in size, though the maximum capacity of 89 user kits and 512 samples per card may mean you can get away with one much smaller. Connect the SamplePad 4 to a Mac or PC using the USB 2 port — which also functions as a USB MIDI output — and you can drag and drop samples onto the SD card from your desktop. Once loaded, samples can be retuned and treated with the built–in reverb effect. In Use There are also other options for recording the audio out of the device, so you can point him towards https://www.electronicdrumadvisor.com/record-electronic-drums/ for more information if he’s not sure. I’m sure he can look into that later himself!

Drums and Drummers come from a wide spectrum of people, but anyone who uses an electric kit has done so under a very simple premise- Mic-ing acoustic drums is not fun. But when it comes down to how you actually want to record your drums, a few options open up. This guide will help you navigate them. The Mute Groups feature is another useful addition, allowing a sample playing on one pad to be terminated when another pad in the same group is hit — particularly useful if you have, say, synth pad chords on the different pads. You could also set up a mute group for open and closed hi–hat sounds so the closed hat cuts off the open one. Sounds Having said that, I hooked it up to an iPad (using an Apple Camera Connection Kit) running the Akai iMPC app and it worked great. In this case, you would just use the iMPC for sounds as it is pretty much unlimited space wise, and it loads instantly, overcoming any short comings of the Samplepad 4 itself. While this may not be on the level of the Roland V-Drum module, having two velocity layers per pad allows you to play more dynamically with your sounds. If you’re confused by what this means, allow me to explain.Based on years of providing digital drummers with the sounds they demand, Alesis loaded up the SamplePad 4 with a set of 25 of the most commonly requested drum and percussion samples out there, ensuring that you're off to a good start from the moment you plug it in. These sounds even come arranged into 10 useful preset kits. What's more, it couldn't be easier to add your own samples to your SamplePad 4. Just connect it to your Mac or Windows PC via USB, insert an SD/SDHC card up to 32GB in capacity, and you're ready to load up to 512 samples in up to 89 user-defined drum kits. And thanks to its onboard processing, the SamplePad 4 will even let you tune and add reverb to your sounds. Alesis SamplePad 4 Electronic Percussion Instrument Features: Samples may be layered by assigning any two sounds to one of the four pads. The layers may have different trigger thresholds, for example there's potential for fat- sounding samples depending on velocity. Hands On

For customers in outlying areas of the country, the price of the Extended Warranty may be marginally higher, due to the potential for higher collection and redelivery transport costs. First and foremost, we are musicians, and we want other players to find the right product for them. So we take into careful consideration everything from budget to feature set, ease of use and durability to come up with a list of what we can safely say are the best electronic drum pads on the market right now. Regarding samples, try to keep the sample sizes relatively small if you’re planning on switching kits often between gigs. Big samples here can mean relatively long loading times between kit changes, but it’s fine if you can plan for it.

At A Glance:

Overall though, this is one of the best all-rounder pads out there, with impressive functionality and features. However, from using it, it feels like the firmware update just automatically reduced the sensitivity of the problematic pads. When I manually increased the sensitivity again, the cross-talk issues persisted for me.

Capture every subtle nuance of your performance with SamplePad 4’s four velocity sensitive pads - whether it’s drum sounds, loops or one-shot melodics, this performance pad guarantees maximum expressive capability! Superior Sound Content Any captured sample may be saved onto the SD card (via USB), without having to remove it. Facets of any user sample may be altered, copied and saved (without affecting the original), including tuning, pan and reverb. If the Pro model is a bit rich for your blood, there’s still plenty to love about the red ‘Special Edition’ of the original SPD-SX, which features a hefty 16GB of storage space and is currently a decent chunk cheaper than the new pro model. Loading Time: Switching between kits on the device can take some time (particularly for bigger external samples). For live performances, this can be a bit of a hindrance. However, with enough planning, you can get away with it. What is it like to play live? Collection and delivery costs are included for the first 2 years in the event of an item becoming faultySolution home Alesis Support Alesis | Getting Started Alesis Drums | Connecting your Kit to a Computer The Alesis SamplePad Pro is an instrument with big features at an extremely reasonable price. It can serve as a good entry into electronic drum pads, but with some issues. I recorded live hits from one of my acoustic drum sets and loaded samples of that onto this device. It worked fairly nicely, though I wasn’t amazed when using an external hi-hat controller. Its not often something turns up in the post that makes you go ”Awwww..!” in a new-baby/kitten-on-a-piano type way. Its even more strange when the said item is an electronic percussion instrument. However, this is exactly what happened when the Alesis Samplepad 4 turned up.

Is that an issue? If you’re using this for more basic playing and drum beats, you might be fine. If you’re expecting this to respond like a snare drum for very fast playing (or an electronic mesh pad) then you might be let down. Play around with sensitivity settings, and if you’re playing this live then do it with your live performance in mind. i.e. you might play pretty quietly when practicing and then smash the pad when playing live. This particular pad can lose a lot of dynamics if you set the sensitivity too high, so keep that in mind. Though it can be a trade-off between sensitivity and potential cross-talk (though this might only be the case in certain older models, I’m not sure about that), so test that a bit before performing!This sample pad contains many different in-built drum kits and sounds. These range from acoustic sounds, electronic hits, and world music to musical synth pads. Hi, yes, the SamplePad Pro is a decent option if he’s limited on space. However, if he wants to really learn drums then I’d recommend getting pedals as well, as otherwise he will only be able to play with his hands.