Alesis Intros Samplepad Pro

alesis-samplepad-pro

2014 NAMM Show: Alesis today introduced the Samplepad Pro – a percussion pad that lets you play onboard sounds or load your own samples.

Here are the details:

Features:

  • Percussion Pad With Onboard Sound Storage
  • Play onboard sounds or load your own via the SD card slot
  • 10 ready-to-play kits with over 200 drum and cymbal sounds
  • 8 two-shot, isolated rubber pads with active blue LED illumination
  • Two additional pad inputs, plus kick and hi-hat trigger/switch inputs
  • Save sounds on SD card (up to 20 Kits), accessible via USB
  • LCD display and software utility for complete control
  • 1/4″ stereo outputs (L, R); 1/4″ headphone output
  • 1/8″ stereo aux input with level control; MIDI In & Out

The SamplePad Pro has a street price of about US $300. See the Alesis site for d

17 thoughts on “Alesis Intros Samplepad Pro

    1. I didn’t see the word “innovative” in the original post, but this looks like it could be “useful” for people who make and/or perform “music”.

    2. Innovation is not necesarily disruptive, even a small improvement is technically innovation. And personally this seems freakin great. Specially if it comes out at a low price like the original vortex guitar. did.

  1. Loading sounds on SD, and a few trigger inputs. It might not seem ground-breaking, but this will be a versatile and handy device. Drummers can park one by their kit for special sounds, and other musicians can use it to trigger sounds.

  2. Yeah, if have and SPD-SX and its great, but been thinking about adding another. If this is $199.00 that would be great because it does it “needs” to for a hell of a lot less.

  3. So this thing has 8 pads on top, plus two pads via jacks on the back, plus a kick drum and hi hat pad input as well on the back. That’s pretty cool.

    And it has programmable pitch, panning and reverb send per pad. Cool.

    The SD card thing is the way to go. SD card forever. Down with all other formats. No doubt sony will introduce yet another new standard any moment now. Just say no to nonstandard and “new” proprietary formats! SD format forever!

    Not sure about multisampled pads or how velocity mapping happens, if there is say mapping to filters or modulation of start time. Let’s look at the manual…

    OK, we have 2 samples per pad as A/B layer, which are velocity range mappable.
    Samples can be mono or stereo.
    Kits can have up to 48MB of samples each.
    There’s a sensitivity setting which presumably maps velocity to the VCA, and a pad curve setting to change the curve.
    Each kit has a special mode of 5 hit hat samples whereby the hi hat pedal input, presumably a TRS jack and continuous pedal, selects which sample is used.
    Mute groups are supported.
    Has a metronome function and tap tempo.
    Footswitches can be routed to kit selection, tempo setting, metronome activation, and all-notes-off.

    Overall, I’d like to see a filter and start time modulation. However, at the stated price, and with the given features, and the big performance sized pads, this thing looks like a winner.

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