ROLAND SPD-SX-SE: POWERFUL SAMPLING PAD

ROLAND SPD-SX-SE: POWERFUL SAMPLING PAD

In 2003, Roland released the first-ever SPD-S sampling pad, providing tech-savvy percussionists a reliable way to trigger loops, samples, and full backing tracks alongside their main drum kit.

The SPD-S was met with high praise, and the SPD-SX was introduced eight years later, jampacked with new features. Fast-forward to the end of 2017, when Roland announced yet another SPD-S iteration: the SPD-SX Special Edition (aka SPD-SX-SE).

ROLAND SPD-SX-SE: POWERFUL SAMPLING PAD

Many musicians, DJs, and producers took notice along the SPD-S’s 12-year journey, realizing that it could add a unique element to their studio workflow or fill a gap in their live performances. My own entrance to the electronic-music industry was from the perspective of a percussionist, so when I heard that Roland was releasing an updated version of the SPD-SX, I was taken back to fond memories of marching band, jamming on the SPD-S pads to the killer factory preset loops and sub-bass drops.

This time around, my mind was filled with ideas for using the SPD-SX-SE in my home studio and using it as a supplemental instrument when DJing. Instead of just mixing back-and-forth between tracks, a percussion multi-pad provides the opportunity to interact with the music and supply a unique energy to a performance.

Aesthetics & Build Quality:

Roland is upfront about the fact that the SPD-SX is identical in functionality to the original SPD-SX, yet the new unit features much more internal storage—16 gigabytes (GB), to be exact—plus a shiny new coat of sparkling red-and-black paint. (And that’s always a good color scheme.)

Other visual features include a blue LCD screen with settings for backlight brightness and contrast. The blocky iconography and 128x64 dot display resolution are where the SPD-SX-SE begins to show its age, but hopefully, you won’t be staring at the screen as much as you will be hammering away at the nine pads.

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The SPD-SX-SE’s rubber buttons on the lower half of the unit have a nice matte-black finish that feels quite nice to the touch, but I wonder if hard plastic buttons would have been a better design choice, given that my review unit had two minor issues. The black, silkscreen finish for one of my review unit’s buttons was bubbling up slightly, and a different button wasn’t stamped cleanly during manufacturing, leaving a bit of extra rubber sticking up which I mistakenly scraped off at some point, thinking it was dirt. These are minor grievances, but my limited usage left me with concerns about how these buttons will fare under years of heavy usage.

Inputs & Outputs:

A standard USB-type A-to- B cable is required for connecting the SPD-SX-SE to your computer. This is only necessary if you plan to use it with the included copy of Ableton Live Lite or as a MIDI controller. A USB flash drive can also be connected to the SPD-SX-SE to load in samples, and there are dedicated MIDI inputs and outputs to sync up other gear.

The SPD-SX SE has two separate mono ¼-inch audio input jacks and two trigger input jacks, supporting up to two additional pads per jack, for a total of 13 pads. These trigger jacks allow you to connect a number of external electronic drum pads or electronic cymbals, a kick trigger pad, or even drum triggers mounted on acoustic drums.

If the pads are more than enough for your arms to handle, you can extend your limbs further with up to two footswitches supported through a single footswitch input. These footswitches can trigger their own sounds, or they can be set to execute a particular function of the SPD-SX-SE, such as cycling through your drum kits or effects.

For audio output, the unit offers ¼-inch master outputs, ¼-inch sub outputs, and a single ¼-inch stereo headphone jack.

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Effects:

The SPD-SX SE has dedicated “master effect” buttons to apply a filter, delay, or a short loop. There’s also a custom FX button that can be configured in settings. Options for this custom effect include a stereo delay, sync delay, tape echo, chorus, flanger, step flanger, phaser, step phaser, equalizer, compressor, customized filter, filter + drive, isolator, “touch wah,” distortion, ring modulator, pitch shifter, vibrato, reverb, and slicer.

Only one of these four “master effects” can be applied at a time, but with two control knobs, users can modulate two parameters of a chosen effect at once. For instance, if you select the master filter effect, you can simultaneously change the frequency and vary the depth of the effect.

Performance Pads:

Since its inception, the SPD-S has featured nine easy-to-play, velocity-sensitive rubber pads with LED illumination for dark stages. The pads are laid out in a 3x3 grid, with the lower six pads being of a square shape. The top-row pads are rectangular, very slim, and have a raised edge, making them easy to be played like the rim of an acoustic drum or a cymbal.

If you’re programming a particularly involved live set, you can creatively link two pads together, so that hitting either of the pads will play both sounds simultaneously. You can also set a default volume and tempo for each of your kits.

Supported time signatures include 1/4 through 16/4 and 1/8 through 16/8, with the number of beats per measure supported between one and a whopping 999. I’m honestly not sure what you

might use the latter setting for, but perhaps there are performers or producers of ambient music reading this that know just the right application of 999 beats per measure.

If you’re triggering or layering sounds one after another, “mute groups” allow you to silence a specific pad when you hit a new pad. Samples can be set to play at the same dynamic level—which I found preferable when performing on the SPD- SX-SE while DJing, to prevent volume spikes—or the pads can be sensitive to the force at which you strike them. I noticed that there’s support to pan sounds left or right, but many club systems are mono, so make sure your system supports stereo output before doing so.

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Built-In Sounds:

Out of the box, the SPD-SX SE comes with 16 factory-loaded, pre-programmed drum kits, with the ability to store 84 more kits — totaling 100. [From Roland: The 16 factory kits can be overwritten and the internal samples can be deleted. All factory samples and the 16 factory kits can be reloaded via USB flash drive. The file with the factory samples and kits is available as a free download on the Roland website.]

The first six of the preloaded kits aren’t traditional one-shot drum samples. They are practically songs themselves, as the pre-constructed loops can loop on forever, and they sound quite nice when you get several pads going together. While the absence of a massive pre-loaded sound library isn’t necessarily a bad thing, it will require extra work for entry-level users who don’t already have massive sample libraries built-up for music production or other uses.

Kits seven through 16 are one-shot drum loops intended for use across several genres. There are acoustic drum sounds, Latin and Indian percussion sounds, electronic drum sounds made for hip-hop, house and disco, plus harsher drum sounds intended for use in dubstep and drum-n-bass music. There are even a few kits with effects pre-applied, such as the “808 Reverb” and “909 Delay” kits.

Sampling:

The SPD-SX allows you to sample approximately 180 minutes of stereo sounds or approximately 360 minutes of mono sounds into its internal memory. This includes the samples that come preloaded on the device. WAV or AIF/AIFF files are supported, but they must be 16-bit audio with a sample rate of 44.1 kHz. You can adjust a sample’s pitch, normalize volume if it’s not loud enough, and even reverse the sample.

All things considered, the SPD-SX provides six different methods of sampling:

1. “Basic Sampling” to a single pad.

2. “Multi Pad” sampling successively to multiple pads.

3. The “Merge” method combines two samples into one.

4. “With FX” sampling applies an effect to a sample.

5. “Chop” sampling allows you to cut a sample into slices.

6. “Perform & Record” sampling records the audio of a performance.

“Multi Pad” sampling pad-to-pad offered a workflow that I found to be the quickest and easiest. In comparison to other pad-based instruments struck by a drumstick, the SPD-SX SE’s single most competitive feature is its sampling prowess.

Samples and settings can be loaded in easily via USB flash drive. Alternatively, the SPD-SX Wave Manager application can be installed on your computer,

allowing you to import audio files using a much more intuitive drag-and-drop interface that imports and assigns a sample in a single step.

A final option is connecting directly to the SPD- SX SE via two mono ¼-inch inputs. Roland missed an opportunity to add a built-in XLR input for sampling via microphone. A stereo ¼-inch input would have been another nice improvement.

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In The Studio:

The included Ableton Live Lite license gives you the power to produce your own original samples and even use the SPD-SX SE as a controller for Ableton. You can also stream audio directly from Ableton Live Lite through the SPD- SX-SE and tweak the sound with the on-board master effects.

But the unit isn’t limited to being used with Ableton Live. USB MIDI provides the option to trigger your production software in creative ways, such as using the SPD-SX to control your favorite software drum machine.

Producers, once you finish a track, I recommend muting your drum tracks and thinking about how you could perform the missing elements live. You don’t have to play out every part of a drum track live, but maybe you could fill in a breakdown, or trigger a rhythmic melody with the SPD-SX.

On Stage:

Complementing the SPD-SX-SE’s sparkling red paint are bright red lights that blink in time with the music, when a pad is struck, or when any of the unit’s buttons or knobs are pressed. These lights will come in handy on dark stages or in environments with poor monitoring, assuming your SPD-SX-SE’s internal clock is synced up to your DJ software or other electronics via MIDI.

At 5 pounds, 9 ounces (2.5 kg) and with a 14- 3/8- x 13-1/16-inch footprint, the SPD-SX SE is lightweight and easily transported while on tour. But before you get ready to step onstage, you’ll want to consider investing in Roland’s official

PDS-10 pad stand – otherwise, you’ll be at the mercy of whatever table the venue provides you. If there’s no room in the DJ booth or if the table is too high, then you may have a bad performance. Rather than go with the all-in-one stand, I chose to purchase Roland’s APC-33 mounting clamp and attached it to one of my heavier cymbal stands that I already owned for use with my acoustic drum kit.

There are myriad ways to use the SPD-SX SE in live situations. I chose to use it as a MIDI controller linked to Traktor Pro’s remix decks, and Serato users could do something similar.

Creating the Traktor controller mapping required many hours of work, and I am continuing to tweak this setup to get it right. Those of you that have made custom Traktor mappings will know how meticulous and frustrating this process can be. Once I had enough of the SPD-SX unit’s functions mapped to Traktor, I began cutting up loops and one-shot samples in Ableton Live. I then created my own Traktor remix decks with these samples to use while DJing.

I also experimented with running Traktor and Ableton Live at the same time by syncing up their MIDI clocks and using the SPD-SX to trigger samples in Ableton Live, but my paranoia about running the two CPU-intensive programs at the same time when DJing prevented me from pursuing this option much further.

Another cool feature is the SPD- SX-SE’s “MIDI Visual Control” function, which users control images alongside live performances. When a video device supporting MIDI Visual Control or V-LINK is connected, users can switch kits to switch videos or control images by turning one of the control knobs.

Final Thoughts:

While the SPD- SX-SE’s much-needed facelift and storage upgrade are appreciated, a few things are left to be desired with the new SPD-SX SE. It still lacks a dedicated stand that ships with the unit, the LCD screen could be a much higher resolution, and a built-in XLR input for sampling via microphone would be very useful.

With the SPD SX still retailing around $800, and the SPD-SX-SE retailing around $900, you’ll have to decide if the SPD-SX SE’s improved appearance and increased storage capacity are enough to make you pay the premium. Existing SPD-SX owners may not opt to upgrade – still, I would encourage SPD-S owners and newcomers to upgrade to the SPD-SX-SE.

By Chris Davis