Roland SPD-S Sample Pad

May 1, 2007 – 8:23 am

The Roland SPD-S is a great sample pad, and allows for even the least tech-savvy of us to be able to run it efficiently with ease. It is a great way for a drummer to be able to start incorporating electronic sounds into his or her live setup as well. You can use this pad to do what you want in four easy steps.

1) Connect an external audio device via 1/4″ jacks.
2) Hit record, which is started by hitting one of the pads.
3) Play the sample from the external audio device.
4) Hit the pad again to stop the recording.

I have used this on plenty of gigs, and it is perfect for all styles of play. I found it extremely helpful on club dates and wedding band gigs, as well as super helpful in the studio. Also, the on-board sounds are of relatively good quality. You can find anything in there from regular drum kit sounds to African drums, and even to sounds like that of a cat’s meow.

  1. 5 Responses to “Roland SPD-S Sample Pad”

  2. Hello,

    I got the SPD-S a week ago. I already spent many hours learning and playing with it and I totally love it.

    As said in the article, the built-in samples are of good quality although for me about 90% of them are useless. On the other hand, it’s so easy to incorporate new sounds that it’s not a problem. On top of what the article already mentioned, there are two other ways of adding new samples:

    1) Perform all 4 steps already mentioned but replace step #1 with “Connect a microphone via 1/4″ jacks”.

    2) You can also create/copy/edit your wave samples on your computer and save them to a Compact Flash memory card and transfer them to the SPD-S.

    This brings me to the only but important downside of the SPD-S. The built memory capacity of the SPD-S is not really big. You can wipe out all existing sounds to free-up some memory but still only a few minutes of sampling time is available. By itself, it’s not a huge issue since the SPD-S allows adding external memory. Roland stopped their choice on using Compact Flash cards for that matter.

    Here’s a list of PRO and CONs that comes along with this choice and the way it was implemented.

    PRO:
    - Compared to most other technology, Compact Flash is among the fastest and most durable card type (which is why it is the adopted standard for Professional Digital Cameras).

    CONs:
    - Compact Flash is not as widely used as other types, therefore harder to find in stores.
    - The SPD-S does not accept Compact Flash II (newer technology).
    - The SPD-S is not compatible with all Compact Flash models, making them even harder to find in stores,
    - Only Compact Flash cards with 512 MB or less are compatible, making them almost impossible to find in stores.

    The last 2 points are really the problem of the SPD-S. I don’t understand how it’s even conceivable to restrict a wave device with only 512 MB of memory. Also, Roland is not quite consistent with its selection of memory card types. I have a Roland Fantom XR sound module that uses a PCMCIA card and the BOSS MicroBR that uses a SD memory card.

    Anyway, I was lucky to find 2 Compact Flash cards on the Internet although one of them might not even be compatible with the SPD-S (I’ll know for sure when I’ll receive it).

    If you want to purchase the SPD-S, make sure to buy a Compact Flash card as soon as possible because in less than 2 years, only used ones will be available.

    Still, nothing on the market compares to the SPD-S and if you are willing to spend a bit of time to find Compact Flash cards, this is a great buy.

    By François Tadros on May 15, 2008

  3. dude!i’ve got a huge problem!
    i’ve got the spds 20 but i cant find a card that is supported,please give me a website or something to buy one cause i’m going on tour next month and i need it!pleeeeaassee!
    send me an e-mail.
    thank u very much.

    By kamil on Jun 7, 2008

  4. You need a Compact Flash Type I Card, Smaller then 512MB. Roland has a Roland SPD-S Compact Flash Compatibility Chart that shows some cards that have been tested by Roland, but the list is not complete.

    By Steve Weiss Music on Jun 16, 2008

  5. Hi Kamil,

    I’ve been able to try the SPD-S with a lot of different Compact Flash cards. I now have 4 different CF cards and they all work fine although only one of them was listed on the Compatibility Chart.

    Therefore, I feel pretty confortable to say don’t worry about the brand name as long as it’s a CF Type I and 512MB or less.

    Here’s a site that sells SanDisk 512MB: http://www.memoryx.net/xcf5124.html

    By François Tadros on Jul 2, 2008

  6. i was wondering if anyone knows how to set the pads so when you have aloop playing, as soon as another pad is hit the previous pad stops? i cant find this anywhere in the manual. im triggering synth loops & want to trigger one pad at a time with my left hand (while still playing the kit with my right hand) and have this cancel out the previous one instead of having to hit 2 pads to start one and stop another…

    By oscar on Jul 10, 2008

Post a Comment

Steve Weiss Music Entries (RSS) and Comments (RSS). Valid XHTML